And yet, Katzav has been working hard lo these three weeks to return the lustre and glory to the title. Take yesterday for instance.
King Abdullah of Jordan paid a visit to the Holy Land for one day. He began the day hob-nobbing with Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, and then continued on to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Kol Yisrael had a field day with this one, repeating endlessly around the lunch hour how Abdullah was just finishing up with Arafat and would "soon be arriving in 'Aretz'," the colloquial term used to denote the Jewish Homeland.
Excuse me, but the Jewish Homeland that I know, and the one that Balfour declared 83 years ago, includes Ramallah and all of Judea and Samaria with it. Perhaps someone should give the editors at Kol Yisrael a lesson in geography, history, Judaism, linguistics, or all of the above.
The visit to Tel Aviv was to meet with, as I stated above, Defense Minister Ehud Barak. I don't use the more high-profile term 'Prime Minister' here because Barak met with Abdullah at the Defense Ministry, one of three ministry head offices to be located in Tel Aviv. Abdullah, it seems, refuses to set foot in Jerusalem since its status is still "under discussion". Forget about the fact that his late father had no qualms about visiting the city to meet Prime Minister Rabin or Prime Minister Netanyahu. Forget about the fact that every world leader who visits Israel comes to Jerusalem to meet our country's political leaders, and to visit Yad Vashem, which is de rigeur on the World Leaders Itinerary chart.
To Abdullah's credit, however, he also didn't visit Orient House to meet with Arafat there.
But Barak had no problems with avoiding Jerusalem. In his books, Israel's capital is as good as gone anyway if we are to believe what he offered at Camp David last month.
Enter Moshe Katzav. The President, whose position of honour is supposed to bestow honour as well as attract it, refused to interrupt his small vacation to meet Jordan's King. The media have talked about it all day today. His refusal was predicated on Abdullah's refusal to enter Jerusalem. Likud leader Ariel Sharon also snubbed Abdullah for the same reason, but his lustre is lost in the glow of Katzav's move.
Moshe Katzav is a politician, nay a LEADER, who understands what Jewish Pride is all about. He understands that there are just some things you don't excuse. He understands that Jerusalem is Israel's capital, not Tel Aviv, and that anyone who disagrees can spend all their time in Tel Aviv, drinking in the inordinately high level of spirituality that that city has to offer.
As for Barak, any prime minister who can't even find the capital of his own country probably deserves to be as far away from it as possible.
Copyright 2000. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
