[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2730-S2731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REUNIFICATION OF JERUSALEM

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. I rise today to speak about the city of 
Jerusalem, a subject I have spoken about at some length and on numerous 
occasions during my tenure in the United States Senate. In the not too 
distant future, the people of Israel will celebrate the thirtieth 
anniversary of the reunification of their Capital. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that the United States Congress should mark this 
anniversary with an appropriate resolution.
  For 3,000 years Jerusalem has been the focal point of Jewish 
religious devotion. Although there had been a continuous Jewish 
presence in Jerusalem for three millennia--and a Jewish majority in the 
city since the 1840's--the once thriving Jewish population of the 
historic Old City of Jerusalem was driven out by force during the 1948 
Arab-Israeli War. From 1948 to 1967 Jerusalem was divided by concrete, 
barbed wire, and cinder block. Israelis of all faiths and Jews of all 
nationalities were denied access to holy sites in the area controlled 
by Jordan.
  Jerusalem was finally reunited by Israel in 1967 during the conflict 
known

[[Page S2731]]

as the Six Day War. Since then, Jerusalem has been a united city in 
which the rights of all faiths have been respected and protected, and 
persons of all religious faiths have been guaranteed full access to 
holy sites within the city.
  In 1990, I sponsored Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, which was 
overwhelmingly adopted by the United States Senate, while a similar 
resolution (H. Con. Res. 290) was adopted by the House of 
Representatives. These resolutions declared that Jerusalem, the capital 
of Israel, ``must remain an undivided city'' and called on the Israelis 
and the Palestinians to undertake negotiations to resolve their 
differences. The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin credited S. Con. 
Res. 106 with ``[helping] our neighbors reach the negotiating table'' 
to produce the historic Declaration of Principles signed in Washington 
on September 13, 1993.
  In the fall of 1995, I joined with Senator Dole to introduce ``The 
Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995'' (Public Law 104-45) which states as a 
matter of United States policy that Jerusalem should remain the 
undivided capital of Israel. I firmly believe that Jerusalem must 
remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and 
religious group are protected, as they have been by Israel during the 
past thirty years.
  I congratulate the people of Israel on the approaching thirtieth 
anniversary of the reunification of their historic capital. When the 
Senate reconvenes next month, I will introduce a resolution to 
commemorate this event, as I have done on previous 
anniversaries.

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