In recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, President Donald Trump has not made any startling political move. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It’s where the seat of this sovereign nation is located, where government offices make their home. How could Israel’s closest ally not recognize this reality?
Indeed, our own Congress did so 22 years ago, when the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, passed the Senate and the House with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Every recent presidential candidate has voiced support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — during their campaigns, at least. That includes Barack Obama. And yet, once elected, every president has declined to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which was the reason for the Jerusalem Embassy Act in the first place.
What is significant about Trump’s declaration is not what he said, but what he didn’t say. The president carefully avoided calling Jerusalem the “undivided” capital of Israel, thus leaving open the question of borders, which should be decided later, in concert with the parties directly involved. That was proper, and politic. He also specified that the status of the Temple Mount would remain unchanged. That, too, is proper and politic.
Once elected, every president has declined to move the U.S. Embassy.
There are those who say that the entire question of Jerusalem should be avoided until the final negotiations, and that the president’s statement introduces an impediment to those talks. That is nonsense. No American president would sit by and allow Jerusalem to be taken away from Israel in any final agreement; nor would Israel allow it. Where the city’s borders are to be drawn is the only Jerusalem question that will be on that table.
There are those who say that the president should not have made this statement because it will anger the Arab world and lead to more Palestinian violence. That anger and that violence will undoubtedly come to pass, and might very well have by the time this editorial is being read. But fear of such reaction should not dictate U.S. policy.
Our question, however, is why now? What does the United States gain by Trump making this statement at this time? With Jared Kushner preparing to assert himself as the region’s main peace broker, the president’s statement seems strangely provocative.
But it is not a deal-breaker and is not revolutionary. Trump may be the first sitting president to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but he is simply giving voice to what the U.S. position on that question is and should be.
Or maybe he’s the first president with balls and the intelligence to understand that the idiots in the state department don’t have a clue about the world outside their little whitebread ivy league world.
It’s time to stop giving the arabs everything they want. The status quo is that the un, the state department and of course American Jews have pretty much settled the idea that no matter what else happens the arabs are going to get their totalitarian, bigoted, mysoginistic, anti-gay, Muslim state bent on jew murder and the destruction of Israel. Thats settled.
The minimum outcome meets the requirements of arabs.
And the arab leaders are getting billions a year in foriegn aid that’s got them set up real nice in compounds behind walls and big ole swiss bank accounts. So they’re not hurting. None of these guys have ever had to have a job or had to stand for election for over a decade. (Note that they’ll need those swiss bank accounts cause if an Arab state ever happens those guys are probably going to get killed first) However Jews have to pay a ransom for living free as Jews every day in terms of military expenditures and violence. Jews have to stay away from our holiest site. We have to constantly plan for then next wave of jew murder that the world-especially lefty American Jews-just laugh off as Arabs being Arabs. It’s how they play with Jews. We should know better than to live here anyway.
And the world has decided that the Arabs get whatever they want no matter what kind of state they propose no how many Jews they kill in the interim. They don’t have to hold elections or build infrastructure or guarantee human rights or even stop paying terrorists to murder Jews. See it’s just so terrible for arabs to have to live among Jews that that’s all that’s important. The same arguements everyone rejects from racist white separatists in the us American Jews accept from Arabs. Cause it’s Israeli Jews. Nobody should have to live in peace with Israeli Jews.
And then there’s public opinion. The lefties in the us government hate Israel. Europeans (the guys that murdered one out of three of us not so long ago) hate Jews. And everybody else needs Arab oil. Delaying might give Arab money the time it needs to convince the world to do a south Africa on the only democracy in the middle East. A war somewhere else might let Arabs armies slip into Israel and start another war of genocide while the world is distracted.
So Arabs have nothing to gain by making a deal and so much more to gain by delaying.
Unless someone has the bright idea to put in a shot clock. After a while Arabs start losing. Jerusalem. Areas between Israel proper and jerusalem. Annexed. Gone bye bye. Little by little every month, every year.
Convince them to make a deal before there’s nothing left.
That’s how anyone with a brain makes peace in the middle East. Unless if course he’s an anti-Semite. Then you just set up Jews to be murdered. You know like the lefties in the state department, lefties, Europeans and yes lefty American Jews have been doing for decades.
Trump’s trying something that might actually scare the arabs into making a real peace.