New Home Building Boom in Whose Neighborhood

Building Boom?  Great!

Not in your neighborhood.  Not so great.

In East Jerusalem?  How much is really, really not so great?

Isn't building in occupied territory illegal under international law?   Uh huh.  Almost as illegal as invading another country because you really dislike their dictator.  But some people do this kind of stuff anyway.

Israel has its reasons.  After toasting the Arabs in 1967, it annexed the newly conquered  East Jerusalem the way The Book's King David did a few thousand years ago.  Assuming he existed.  Not that the maybe-David's rule thereabouts lasted for very long.  The US and rest of the international community do not recognize Israel's post-conquest annexation of Jerusalem and occasionally denounce the gentrification of the town's eastern neighborhoods.  But every developer of note runs into such guff and you're not much of a developer if you quit at the first bit whining by locals, outside do-gooders or Europeans.

This new home building approval came just after American VP Joe Biden had finished talking, this time with Israel PM Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, not to be confused with Bebe Neuwirth from "Fraisier" who could dance circles around Bibi and Joe longer than Joe could talk and you know how long that is.  Anyway, in a joint news conference Joe and Bibi announced a start to indirect Proximity Talks with the Palestinians.  They are called "proximity" talks because the Israelis and Palestinians are almost resigned to living in close proximity to one another for the foreseeable future.

Unless, Ejad and his Iranian cohorts drive all the Israelis into the sea.  Not problem free, however:  "Hey, damn it!  I'm a Sunni Arab... glub glub."  Like Ejad cares.

It may appear natural that the Palestinians lay claim to Jerusalem.  It is in the middle of Palestine, after all, and isn't anyone who lives--or was at least born in--Palestine a bona fide Palestinian?  Not according to the Muslim variety of Palestinians; Jews don't get to be Palestinians.  Which the Jews probably don't mind.

Clouding it all, the very term Palestine is derived from the name Philistine, all of whom were very much not Jews.  So if the Palestinians are descended from the Gaza-based Philistines, how do they have a claim to any part of Jerusalem?  Well, most Palestinians didn't descend from the Philistines at all, but are Arabs who came from Arabia.  Arabia is the place where The God of Abraham--and of your Jews, Muslims and every single Christian (and the very same God most atheists don't believe in)--planted Ishmael after his step-mother banished him from the family tent.  Arabia has lots of room--and dry heat--and not all that many inhabitants, sort of like Nevada, but without the dice.

The Jews did rule a nice junk of Palestine a long time ago, especially Jerusalem.  The Philistines may have sacked it a few times.  But the Persians conquered and ruled the whole area, including Jerusalem, for a while until Alexander took it and Persia from them.  So did the Romans.  You don't hear them demanding it as a provincial capital, not even Persia, now spelled "Iran" on your map.  The Turks ruled Jerusalem, too, more recently than any Arab.  Even the British did, who took it from the Turks.  The Philistines?  Not really.

So...  What?

If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that..., well, it doesn't matter.  Nobody really has a claim on anything, since we all came later and from somewhere else.  Except, perhaps, Kenya, where The Big E (our Mitochondrial Eve) started the whole messed-up human race.

And, oh, yes, our American President, The Big O, is a direct descendant of The Big E.  His own father was Kenyan and much more recently than pretty much anybody in Palestine or in East Jerusalem.

Well.  Who has the best claim to Jerusalem, now?