SWC Applauds President Biden for Traveling to Israel; “Jerusalem as a Shared Capital a Non-Negotiable”

September 21, 2022

The Simon Wiesenthal Center thanks President Biden for traveling to Israel, for his singular gesture with Holocaust Survivors at Yad Vashem, for debunking Israel's Big Lie’, and for his longtime support of Israel’s security.

“However, we must protest the suggestion that Jerusalem be a shared capital for the Palestinians and the people of Israel,” said Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbis Marvin Hier, Founder and CEO, and Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Global Social Action Director. “While President Biden’s allusion that the Irish people suffered under the British for 400 years, no one has made the suggestion that London should be a shared capital between the people of England and the people of Ireland,” they added.

“It’s a non-starter. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and has been for over 3,000 years. There is only one Jewish state and there are 22 Arab states with capitals of their own”, said Hier and Cooper.

“We believe in the potential of a two-state solution that can only be done if Palestinian leaders, UNWRA school books, and Palestinian civil society recognize the legitimacy of their Jewish neighbors which includes the continuous presence of the Jewish people in their homeland.  Jerusalem is non-negotiable.  Palestinians can have their own capital, in Ramallah, and must not feed the delusions that Israel will ever cede their sovereignty. No other country has to face such a demand and neither should Israel”, they added.

“We should all remember the lessons of the Abraham Accords: peace begets peace, a lesson on full display in Israel, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco,” Hier and Cooper concluded.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).