Netanyahu: Israel Must Keep Jerusalem

CBNNews.com

October 24, 2007

CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood on the Mount of Olives Tuesday and declared that he will fight to keep Jerusalem united under Israeli control.

Netanyahu, who is Likud Party Chairman and leader of the opposition to the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, was responding to suggestions made recently by Olmert and by his Vice Premier Haim Ramon that the city could be re-divided and certain Arab neighborhoods given to the Palestinian Authority.

Watch the CBN News report and Pat Robertson's comments concerning the proposed division of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu warned that dividing Jerusalem would be an open invitation to terrorists to attack Jewish residents of the city.

"We have seen what happens when we leave and create a vacuum-extremist Islamic groups take over," he said, referring to Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 and its pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Several Likud party members joined Netanyahu on a tour of Jerusalem to demonstrate their opposition to dividing the city. Human rights activist Natan Sharansky recalled his prayer as a Soviet dissident on trial and in prison in the 1970s that he would be "next year in Jerusalem."

Netanyahu and his Likud colleagues called for two parties in Olmert's coalition opposed to dividing Jerusalem-Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu-to leave the government immediately over the issue of Jerusalem.

One Likud Knesset member, Gilad Erdan, said, "As mayor of Jerusalem, Olmert did damage to Jerusalem. Now he is seeking to finish the job."

Today, as Israelis commemorate the twelfth anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu will speak about Rabin's final Knesset speech in which he promised to keep Jerusalem united forever.

Netanyahu consistently tops the polls as the choice of Israeli voters to be the next prime minister.

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