How can so many Israelis back the construction freeze?

To 30: false history. The location has been inhabitred for some 7,000 years well before the Jewish religion was developed. The first recorded name was Rusalimum,a Semetic name, a town later captured by Israelites in their expansion period. After the Romans came most of the inhabitants converted to Christainity, then later over three hunred years they converted to the Islamic faith. Most of the present Jews `living in 'Israel' have no genetric link to there but are descendents of Egyptians and other East Mediterranean people in the great conversion to the Jewish when in Roman times 70% of them had no direct connection with the lands now occupied by Israel. In fact the Jewish faith was only dominant for some 700 of 7000 years in 'Jerusalem' until the recent invasion of Palestine.destruction

And look how the usual dwarfs lined up to support you....Well we do have nice comedy times reading this, as always, WE ARE AMUSED!

I believe those in favour of the freeze forget that Abass wants East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital. Are those in favour of a freeze happy to see their capital divided again? Are they happy to see Jewish gravestones ripped up for use as pathways? Are they happy to see synagogues destroyed and Jews forbidden access to the Old City? Think hard before you vote.

how little you understand about the intricacies of the politics and the sorrounding circumstances you pretend to know so much about. All clear in black & white not a shade of grey anywhere in sight.

remember Yitzak Shamir murdered Count Bernadotte, the mediator of the UN General Assembly, who brokered a cease fire in the 1948 war, and who proposed a plan involving UN control of Jerusalem. Shamir's reward was to be elected PM of Israel. What on earth does the US think its doing being involved with such extremism, which goes back decades?

The photograph published showing the soles of the presidents shoes as he is talking to Netanyahu. It is considered an insult and well understood in the Arab world to show the soles of your feet to someone. All photos taken by the White house photographers are vetted so the message is clear "Some Israelis Irked by Obama Photo - The World Newser10 Jun 2009 ... The photo shows Obama on the phone with his feet up on his desk, ... which shows Obama talking on the phone with Netanyahu on Monday, ... is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, ... blogs.abcnews.com/.../06/some-israelis-irked-by-obama-photo.html - Cached" Not the side photographed and released when he is talking to Arabs.

vh: "JORDAN GAVE UP ANY CLAIM IN 1995 THAT IS THE END OF THE MATTER !" Jordan's "claim" to the West Bank was always without merit. Therefore Jordan's 1993 decision to drop that claim was purely declaratory i.e. it can in no way change the legality of any Israeli counter-claim. Put another way: the Israeli claim is (and always has been) as meritless as Jordan's, and nothing that Jordan says or does can "improve" the legal status of that Israeli claim. Look at it this way: Two thieves argue over ill-gotten gains, and then one thieve throws the stolen goods down and storms off the scene. Q: Does that change the last remaining thief from "a thief" into "the rightful owner" of those goods? A: Nope. He remains "a thief", and those goods remain "stolen goods".

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=171506 Pollster says paper used figures misleadingly to make Obama look good Haaretz misled readers to give the impression that an overwhelming majority of Israelis see US President Barack Obama as ?fair and friendly? toward the country, the newspaper?s pollster, Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs, said on Sunday. Both the English and Hebrew editions of Friday?s Haaretz led with the headline ?Poll: Most Israelis see Obama as fair, friendly toward Israel.? The English edition elaborated near a picture of Obama that ?69% say Obama is fair and friendly.? The story itself gives no numbers, but the lead says ?A sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair.? The English edition contains no graphic distributing the actual numbers, either online or in print.--The print and online versions of the newspaper?s Hebrew edition included a graphic indicating that just 18 percent of respondents considered Obama ?friendly? toward Israel, 3 percentage points fewer than the 21% who called the president ?hostile? to the Jewish state. Ten percent did not know, and 51% defined Obama?s approach to Israel using the Hebrew word ?inyani,? which can be translated as ?matter-of-fact? or ?businesslike,? but not as fair. Fuchs, who chairs Tel Aviv University?s statistics department, said he received many reactions from people around the world who were surprised by the poll?s headline. He distanced himself from the headline and criticized the way his poll was presented. ?What can I do? Only the editor writes the headlines,? Fuchs said. ?When they write the number 69 together, it is correct but misleading. They could just as easily have combined the hostile and inyani categories and gotten a different large number.? Fuchs was disturbed to hear that the English edition did not include the full distribution of the numbers. He also disagreed with the translation of the word ?inyani.? When told it had been translated as ?fair,? he responded: ?I definitely would not have translated it as fair. They must have a problem with English.? --"

Jerusalem is a hebrew word. Jews lived there thousands of years before mohmadan conquerors and romans came. Arabs back to arab countries and jews to Israel.

"Jerusalem is not Barkat's personal property - it's the most precious possession of the entire Jewish people" No, it's the possession of its RESIDENTS, whomever they are.

What will you do if Hiszbullah starts bombing your cities with 'smarter' rockets? You will hit back and kill many civilians, which will increase the anger of Arabs and they will hit even harder. In a final analysis, Many Arabs will die, but most Israelis will run away or be killed. Israel will be wiped out as Mr Ahmadinajad predicts. The ONLY way out is to have peace now. I really see it as your last chance. You will not withstand damage. Any future conflict will mean heavy damage to you that you cannot withstand (and heavier damage to Arabs that they CAN withstand). I hope some will get it before it is too late.

Even the Palestinians Agree continuously that areas such as Ramat Shlomo will be inside Israels borders. Even Abbas agreed in talks with Olmert. These neighbourhoods are on the Jewish side of the main road coming from the old city to French Hill which is considered by many to be the border. Ramat Shlomo was no mans land,

Dear friend, I am Jerusalemite living and working in this city for many years. Most unfortunatelly almost nothing has been done to tear down the strongest of all walls which dwels in people souls. Have you ever had a look of Israelis from other parts of the country visiting Jerusalem, gathering together like afraid sheeps, like visiting a foreign country? So why are you so surprised of the recent poll? At least look at the full part of the glass...

Happily there are still Israelis intelligent enough not to buy the fantasies of extreme right-wingers and settlers. East Jerusalem is populated by Palestinians, so let it remain Paletinian, so that West Jerusalem can be the internationally recognize capital of Israel and there can be peace at last.

"How can so many Israelis back the construction freeze?" - Yehuda Ben Meir How about 'they would like to see a peace agreement with the Palestinians and know that as long as settlemnets continue to expand there will be no reason for Bibi to negotiate?

to any agreement ! JORDAN GAVE UP ANY CLAIM IN 1995 THAT IS THE END OF THE MATTER !

Beith Yonathan, Shikh Jaraz, Sylwan, all are wrongdoings of israel's government. Stupid settlements. It is not a matter of legality. It is a matter of stupidity of this government and other governments in the past. Israel public knows how to distinguish between Ramot, Gilo the Jewish quarter in the old city. All of that will remain under Israel sovereignty. Even the palestinians accept that. Beith Yonathan may be part of a palestinian state if there will be one.

Maybe some secular Jerusalemits oblect to builing for the 'Haridi public only' This is on posters for new buldings in Jerusaelm. Sounds racist to me. What would they the Haridim say if we wrote 'building for the secular pubilc only'

prior to then, it was a part of the non-state entity of Palestine. Israel didn't claim Sovereignty over it and the UN didn't institute corpus separatum. It's legal status hasn't actually changed. The 'facts on the ground' you so vehemently adhere to are ILLEGAL.

the fact is Jerusalem is one united city no matter who and how some want to split it into pieces .. reminds us of the story of king Solomon judging the two mothers who claimed the same infant...the lying mother who did not have the love for the infant wanted to split him in two and the real mother who really owned loved the baby wanted to keep the him alive in one piece .. and ironically all these happened in the same city, Jerusalem Zionism actual meaning comes from the word Zion, referring to Jerusalem Israel must built as many as buildings any where in Jerusalem and populates it till they see the result of why they went back to their real homeland.

Most people who answered that poll are from the left or they wouldn't be reading this newspaper. Take the same poll in the Jerusalem Post and you will get a different answer.

Israel annexed Palestine, murdered many of those it couldn?t force to flee, and imprisoned the defiant remainder in the West Bank and Gaza. Time for the rest of the world to demand that Israel becomes a democratic state, one person, one vote with no exclusions. End of the ?Jewish State? nonsense, end of Israel? That is long over due.

Qualify your objections....

well done haaretz .... But soon the morons are going to label you guys anti semitic also

"The significance of these surprising numbers is that the Jewish consensus on united Jerusalem has been cracked, if not shattered." Why would you expect a Jewish consensus about anything?

Nir Barkat may be a new boy on the block but he is doing exactly what Teddy Kolleck did - build Jerusalem for both the Jews and Arabs. He has guts, determination and he loves Israel. Which is so lacking in your writing.

i disagree about the feeling of detachment.. i dont feel detached at all.. but i do feel like peace deserves a chance and believe that the extra few housing units that the government wants to build there are more inflammatory than anything else..

The correspondent may be a reporter, but he is a very poor analyst, driven by the Haaretz party line of tinkering with vague statistics to achieve its editorial goal. The 40 odd percent of Israelis who are indifferent about construction in East Jerusalem are likely indifferent about Jerusalem altogether. Sadly young Israelis are not educated Jewishly on any level, and most have never even visited their nation's capital. Ignorance and illiteracy lead to apathy, and it is apathy not hostility that is at play. If one wishes to assign blame for this illiteracy once need look no further than the left wing parties, especially Meretz, that Haaretz so lionizes. It was Shulamit Aloni who put the brakes on Jewish educational content and who is responsible for the downward spiral of Zionism, idealism, military service etc among the Jewishly illiterate secular youth.

The crisis with the US is far from over. You should not delude yourselves into thinking it is. Obama knows he holds all the cards. He's a political infighter from Chicago, and while he isn't going to say or do anything hostile, he is not going to give in on the point either because he's determined to see a peace accord. It's called "speaking softly, and carrying a big stick." While Netanyahu talks tough while being completely dependent upon the US. This is far from over, and the added recent insult to the UK demonstrates that it's only beginning.

people who like bibi cant stand him

Religious extremists like the author of this article are not reasonable.

who understand 'thy shall not steal'??? amazing...we will see if this persist or if the zionist rabbi and politicos fill them full of hate and arrogance again

Haaretz claims that most Israelis see Obama as "fair and friendly". Give me a break.

That is all I can tell. As of now, Israel can leave peacefully from entire West Bank, East Jerusalem or have a Bi-racial, Non-Jewish Israel. Choice is yours.

This demonstrates a significant proportion of Jews value the historic tennets of their faith. They support truth and justice in the negotiations for peace and the creation of a viable Palestine side by side with Israel. That 41% are the visionaries that have courage to establish an Israel that will achieve peace. The Netanyahu coalition of zealots will eventually destroy Israel. Self-interest and racism are the property of bankrupt regimes that have nothing more to offer their people. As their in-fighting intensifies, their capital diminishes. Hoepfully they will disintegrate before they destroy Israel.

"Two surveys published in recent days produced astonishing findings about the public's attitude on construction in Jerusalem, findings that should alarm every Jew." No, actually, because according to those polls there are 40% of Israeli Jews who are not the least bit "alarmed" about it. Indeed, they support a freeze because it makes perfect sense to them. And, speaking as a non-Jew, it makes perfect sense to me too. Indeed, the only people to can't make head nor tail of the concept appears to be.... well, let's look at it: 48% of 42% of all of the 13 million Jews in the world. Which, when you want to consider it that way, ain't many. Certainly not enough for this author to be claiming to speak for (or to) "every Jew".