The White House on Friday issued a correction that crossed out Israel as the location of Jerusalem, even though the city is the nation’s capital.
In an afternoon update to an email distributing President Obama’s remarks at former Israeli statesman Shimon Peres’ funeral, the White House Press Office wrote, “CORRECTED: Please see the remarks below with a corrected header.” The corrected header printed the location of the remarks as “Mount Herzl, Jerusalem,
” with the word “Israel” struck out. In the first version sent Friday morning, “Israel” was not struck out.
Jerusalem is the location of Israel’s government and Judaism’s holiest sites (which Jews were barred from visiting when the city was controlled by Arabs before Israel’s victory in the 1967 war). The final status of the city has been the thorniest issue in peace talks with Palestinians over the decades, because it also houses Muslim holy sites and a large Arab population in Eastern Jerusalem, which has been proposed as a capital of any future Palestinian state. The United States maintains an embassy in Tel Aviv, despite a 1995 act of Congress requiring its relocation to Jerusalem.
Mount Hertzl is the site of Israel’s military cemetery and where its leaders have been buried. It is also just next to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.
It is located in the western part of the city, which is not disputed to be Israeli.
After the correction was issued Friday, a White House official said that “the Administration’s policy towards Jerusalem follows that of previous U.S. Administrations — of both parties — since 1967. The status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama created a stir when he said in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided” and then walked back the statement.
