In international relations there is sometimes a situation of political make-believe whereby states conduct themselves in a manner that actively and consciously ignores reality.
The Guardian newspaper retracted its claim that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel after a watchdog group filed a lawsuit against Britain\’s Press Complaints Commission.
A White House spokesman noted that Mitt Romney\’s calling Jerusalem the \”capital of Israel\” contradicts United States policy over several successive administrations.
A complaint leveled against the Guardian over Israel\’s capital city was decided in favor of the British newspaper.
Flag-waving Palestinians filled the squares of major West Bank cities on Wednesday to rally behind President Mahmoud Abbas\’s bid for statehood recognition at the United Nations despite U.S. and Israeli objections.\n
But there\’s also a less benign explanation for the media\’s negligence, and it\’s captured by something President Andrew Jackson said nearly two centuries ago: \”If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.\”
On Al-Jazeera TV, Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University asserts — in Arabic — that Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital for over 3000 years. Available here for the first time with English subtitles.
As the Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off on March 26, the spring weather descending on Washington, D.C., makes it great for walking among the cherry-inspired events throughout the nation\’s capital. And one neighborhood ripe for a stroll during a D.C. weekend getaway is prestigious Georgetown.
Once we declared here that we would visit Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, we expected people to say, \”How quaint! How interesting! What an unusual place to visit.\” Instead, we invariably heard, \”Why Bratislava?\” And in Prague, when we announced our next stop, the reaction was, \”Why do you want to go there?\” Amazingly, even in beautiful Bratislava itself, residents asked in wonder and bemusement, with no hint of being impolite: \”Why would you want to come here?\”
Folks in Bratislava are not used to tourists. It is not, as they say in the travel trade, a \”destination.\” No tourist buses crowd the streets like in Prague. No Israelis swarm here. And even if tourists come, we were told, they are ultra-Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Budapest who take a taxi to Bratislava for a quick visit to the tomb of the revered early 19th century sage Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chatam Sofer), and then scoot back to Budapest without so much as a backward glance.
Just last month, Walt Disney World appeared to be right in the path of a bona fide hurricane. Hurricane Floyd was headed for Florida\’s eastern coast, and Walt Disney World was forced to close its doors for the first time in its 28-year history. But Mickey\’s luck held out. Floyd veered north, and Walt Disney World was saved from potential devastation.
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