The refusal to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is usually associated with more moderate critics, for whom “the occupation” refers not to the entire state but to the land Israel took over in the Six Day War, including the eastern part of the city, which has been officially incorporated into Israel.  The continuing dispute over the status of East Jerusalem is the reason most countries (including the U.S.) still have their embassies in Tel Aviv. But for Nasrallah, who sees the entire state as illegitimate, what’s the point of pretending that Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, is the capital? ~Jacob Sullum, Hit and Run

Since most other nations don’t officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, because, well, half of the city is an occupied territory and the city itself is a highly charged symbol to all three major religions in the area, it is not surprising that the leader of Hizbullah does not consider Jerusalem the capital of Israel.  In this he is not “pretending” anymore than our State Department is.  If you put Secretary Rice  on the hot seat tomorrow, she would have to hedge on the question of what Israel’s capital was.  Besides, last I checked, Muslims considered Jerusalem a holy city and have the spurious tradition that Muhammad went there on his so-called Night Journey–what sort of a moronic Islamic guerrilla would threaten to shoot rockets at a city he is supposed to consider sacred?  Now, Israel can consider any city it likes to be its capital, and it will inevitably select Jerusalem as its “eternal” capital for obvious reasons, but if it claims a powerfully symbolic and disputed city no one should be surprised if the claim is not accepted or acknowledged.  If West Germany had claimed Berlin as its capital, that would have been all well and good, and would not have changed the divided status of the city one bit.