Trump and Jerusalem: Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2017— Israelis’ gratitude to President Donald Trump for his twin decisions to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state and to commit to moving the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv was on display throughout the capital.
Trump’s Speech Recognizing Jerusalem: What It Says and What It Doesn’t Say: Nadav Shragai, JCPA, Dec. 7, 2017— The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel overturns American policy dating back 70 years and entails several immediate results, some of them declarative and some also practical:
It Took Trump to Expose the Stupidity of Denying Jerusalem's Reality: Vivian Bercovici, National Post, Dec. 7, 2017 — Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital.
Why Trump Is Right in Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital: Alan M. Dershowitz, The Hill, Dec. 7, 2017— Days away from the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry boasted about the success of the Obama administration's signature foreign policy achievement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)…
Jerusalem’s Old City Lit Up with American and Israeli Flags: Jewish Press, Dec. 6, 2017
Netanyahu Says More Countries to Follow Trump Lead on Jerusalem: Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel, Dec. 7, 2017
A Momentous Day: Jewish Leaders and Israel Advocates Respond to Trump Announcement on Jerusalem: Algemeiner, Dec. 6, 2017
The Real Palestinian Response to Trump's Jerusalem Speech: Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, Dec. 7, 2017
Editorial
Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2017
Israelis’ gratitude to President Donald Trump for his twin decisions to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state and to commit to moving the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv was on display throughout the capital. The Old City’s Ottoman-era walls were lit up on Wednesday night with red, white and blue lights. And the American flag was flying from posts along the streets of Jerusalem.
Trump’s decision finally righted a historic injustice on a number levels. Most fundamentally, it recognized the historical ties of the Jewish people to the city of Jerusalem that stretch back over 3,000 years. But it also put an end to the absurdity of relating to Jerusalem as though it were a corpus separatum – a separate body – as stipulated in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Seventy years ago, before the Palestinians and the Arab nations rejected outright the idea that the land that now makes up Israel could be shared between Jews and Muslims, the nations of the world envisioned a Jerusalem under international control. Sites holy to Islam, Christianity and Judaism would be respected and developed and members of all faiths would be given access and be allowed to worship freely.
Much has changed since. The Arab nations’ failed attempt to snuff out the Jewish state at its inception left Jordan in control of eastern Jerusalem. For 19 years between 1948 and 1967 Jews were banned from the Temple Mount. Synagogues and other Jewish sites in the Jewish Quarter were left in ruins. In a miraculous turn of events in 1967, a second attempt by the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, supported by eight additional Arab countries, to destroy Israel resulted in their resounding defeat and left Israel in control of a united Jerusalem.
For the first time in recent history Jerusalem became a free city that protected the religious rights of all faiths, as envisioned by the UN. The capital of Israel, the city has flourished as a home to a diverse population – Jewish, Muslim and Christian. Yet, the world – including the US – continued to relate to Jerusalem as though it were 1947. Finally, a US president has given official recognition to the reality on the ground. Anyone who has visited Jerusalem has seen first-hand how Jerusalem has thrived as Israel’s capital – not just for Jews but for Arabs as well. It is a bustling city where hi-tech exists alongside historical sites resonant with meaning for the three great monotheistic faiths.
All of Israel’s major state institutions are in Jerusalem: the Knesset, the Supreme Court and almost all of the government ministries. The international community’s failure to recognize and appreciate the transformation of Jerusalem under Israeli control and to honor Israel’s choice of capital was a long-standing injustice finally righted by US President Donald Trump.
Trump’s many detractors say that the decision was a bad one because it will spark unrest and discord among radical Muslims who have provided ample proof of their propensity to use violence to register complaints and get what they want. We sympathize with those who seek peace and wish to avoid unnecessary confrontations. But we also believe Americans should not compromise their own beliefs and values out of a desire to appease those who have a long history of using terrorism to further their interests.
Appeasing extremists never works for a number of reasons. First, because it only leads to more extremism by proving that bullying tactics work and providing an incentive for more violence. Also, it tends to distract attention from the real issue: that there are many Muslim extremists who refuse to reconcile themselves to the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East within any borders no matter what its capital. Why else would Palestinians and other Muslims be opposed to international recognition of parts of Jerusalem that will remain part of Israel in any conceivable peace deal?
Though the Jewish people does not need international recognition for proof of its historic ties to the city of Jerusalem, we are nevertheless grateful to the US president for having the courage to stand up for what is right.
TRUMP’S SPEECH RECOGNIZING JERUSALEM:
WHAT IT SAYS AND WHAT IT DOESN’T SAY
Nadav Shragai
JCPA, Dec. 7, 2017
The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel overturns American policy dating back 70 years and entails several immediate results, some of them declarative and some also practical:
Burial of the UN Resolution to Internationalize Jerusalem: Trump put paid to the notion of “internationalization,” which the United States had not officially renounced since November 29, 1947. That same day, of course, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 on dividing the Land of Israel between the Jews and the Arabs. The partition resolution stated, among other things, that: “The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations.”
According to the United Nations, the boundaries of Jerusalem then also encompassed the city of Bethlehem, and the internationalization of the city was to be in place for 10 years. However, it was never implemented. The outcomes of the Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence and the division of Jerusalem between Israel and Jordan turned internationalization into a dead letter.
Until the “recognition speech,” the United States had never officially renounced internationalization while giving most of the emphasis in its policy to repeated statements that Jerusalem’s status would be determined in negotiations between the sides. Now that Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, internationalization has become, from the U.S. standpoint, irrelevant history.
Plans for Dividing the City – In Deep-Freeze: Trump’s speech puts into deep-freeze the audacious plans for a division of the city, which were on the negotiating table during the tenures of Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert. Barak and Olmert were prepared to divide Jerusalem, and two U.S. administrations, that of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, were intensely involved in mediating between the sides and encouraging them to adopt such a plan in the hope of achieving peace. The countries of the European Union also took part in the negotiations on dividing Jerusalem at different stages. In the wake of Trump’s speech and his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the chances that during his tenure such plans will again be broached are low.
Jerusalem – No Longer “Occupied Territory”: During the 50 years that the city has been unified, the U.S. administration has sometimes defined parts of Jerusalem as “occupied territory,” while at other moments it eschewed that language. For example, Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s secretary of state, avoided the term. In President Carter’s administration, however, the State Department made frequent reference to the notion, calling the eastern part of the city “occupied Palestinian territory.” It now appears that for the Trump administration, following Trump’s announcement that he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Jerusalem is no longer “occupied Palestinian territory.”
A Single Territorial Unit without Sacrosanct Borders: Until Trump’s speech, the United States did not recognize either west or east Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, even though presidents, secretaries of state, and American diplomats were regularly hosted in the western part of the city.
Trump’s speech did not distinguish between west and east. He referred to Jerusalem with all its parts as a single unit. At the same time, the speech made clear that the United States does not necessarily regard the current borders as sacrosanct, or as the president himself put it: “We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved.”
Formal Recognition of the Reality of “One Jerusalem”: Trump again mentioned the Jewish people’s historical bond to Jerusalem, while also emphasizing his awareness of the current reality in the city. One of the consequences of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is, then, concomitant recognition of the facts that Israel has created in the areas that it added to Jerusalem in 1967. In those areas – north, south, and east of the Green Line – more than 200,000 people now live (about 40 percent of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem). Facts have been created as well in the vicinity of the Old City where thousands of Jews reside, mainly in the Jewish Quarter.
The alley of the Western Wall has become a huge plaza. After many years, Jews can now visit the Temple Mount. The U.S. president now, in effect, recognizes all these places, along with the network of infrastructures, national parks, and governmental and national institutions that have been built in the added parts of Jerusalem – including on Mount Scopus, where Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University were re-established after 1967. In Atarot to the north, the Atarot Airport was put to use (and later closed). Numerous archaeological digs have been conducted in all parts of the city, and Jerusalem’s glorious past through the ages has been revealed. All of this – along with, of course, the older reality in the western part of the city, where the government offices, the Knesset, the president’s residence, and the Supreme Court are located – the United States now recognizes as part of “Jerusalem, capital of Israel.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
IT TOOK TRUMP TO EXPOSE THE STUPIDITY
OF DENYING JERUSALEM'S REALITY
Vivian Bercovici
National Post, Dec. 7, 2017
Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this as a fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace.” And with that simple, clear statement Wednesday, President Donald Trump exposed the fallacy of what has long been the go-to canard of international diplomacy on the question of the capital of the state of Israel. No other country has ever had its designated capital rebuffed. By whatever metric — political, historical or religious — the international refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has always been baseless.
Zion, the ancient place that is Jerusalem, is mentioned 850 times in the Torah. Throughout millennia of dispersal and exile, Jews have prayed to and kept a consistent presence and population in Jerusalem. Archaeological finds and ancient texts corroborate this fact. Yes, Jerusalem is important to all three Abrahamic religions, but even Islamic leaders agree that Jerusalem, unmentioned in the Quran, is the third most significant site for Islam, after Mecca and Medina.
The Western Wall of the Second Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, is located inside the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. Now part of “East Jerusalem,” the Old City was controlled by Jordan from 1948 to 1967, and Jews were prohibited any access. After being attacked by Jordan and Arab allies in the Six Day War in 1967, Israel recaptured its ancient capital and the West Bank, thus beginning the “occupation.”
Since then, all three religions have enjoyed access to their holy sites in Jerusalem. Yet Arab and Palestinian leaders still demand Jerusalem be denied to the Jews as their capital. When Palestinians murdered two Israeli policemen patrolling the Al-Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount this summer, Israel installed metal detectors to screen visitors. So PA President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of trying to take over the Muslim holy site, Palestinians rioted, and Israel relented.
What has all this modern political history got to do with recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? Absolutely nothing. Because none of it changes that all historic and religious evidence is clear that Jerusalem is fundamentally central to Judaism, that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and so it is of the Jewish State. Even Trump stated Wednesday that the final outcome of the status of East Jerusalem must still be negotiated. But it is nonetheless absurd to suggest, as some countries and NGOs have, that there is no legitimate Jewish connection to the ancient city of Jerusalem.
Through a secular lens, the evidence is just as clear. Jerusalem was designated the capital of the state of Israel in 1948. From 1950, Israel’s major government institutions, including the Knesset, government offices and the Supreme Court have been located in “West Jerusalem.” West Jerusalem is indisputably a part of Israeli territory and recognized as such by the United Nations and the international community. So on what basis does any country refuse to locate an embassy in West Jerusalem? There is no less logic or validity, in terms of respecting international law, to locating an embassy in West Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv, where these embassies now sit.
Any U.S. president before Trump, or any other country’s leaders, could have located an embassy in West Jerusalem and recognized that part of the city as the capital of the State of Israel. Yet most governments have robotically acquiesced to the illogic promoted by the Palestinians and Arab leaders that to recognize Jerusalem as the capital would be to pre-judge the outcome of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s poppycock. And it took Donald Trump, of all people, to expose that big fat lie. How does recognizing a fact predetermine the outcome of anything? It doesn’t.
By Wednesday afternoon, both the Czech Republic and the Philippines were talking about moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Still other countries, including Canada and France, were quick to issue statements restating their same boilerplate reasons for not doing so. They don’t, or won’t understand that their purported justifications for maintaining this position have nothing to do with logic, fact, international law, or political or religious reality.
With their lie finally called out by the Trump White House, Palestinian leaders are now threatening days of rage and violence in protest. Speaking with the National Post Wednesday after Trump’s announcement, Naftali Bennett, a minister in Israel’s security cabinet, noted that no nation should surrender its diplomacy to violent threats. “Countries must act based on what’s right, not have their actions dictated by the threats of terrorists and extremists,” he said.
The Jerusalem issue is one of Israeli politics’ rare points of consensus and leaders across the spectrum (with the exception of the Knesset’s United Arab List party) have been praising Trump’s resolve in honouring a commitment he had made, and righting what, in their eyes, is a terrible wrong. Since its founding, Israel has been attacked and lived surrounded by neighbours pledged to its annihilation. But its existence is a fact that is not going away, and Jerusalem’s paramount place in Israel is non-negotiable. “The announcement by the president is welcome, but natural,” said Bennett, “We have patience and believe that, in due course, all countries will recognize Jerusalem as our capital.”
WHY TRUMP IS RIGHT IN RECOGNIZING
Alan M. Dershowitz
The Hill, Dec. 7, 2017
President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a perfect response to President Obama's benighted decision to change American policy by engineering the United Nations Security Council Resolution declaring Judaism's holiest places in Jerusalem to be occupied territory and a "flagrant violation under international law." It was President Obama who changed the status quo and made peace more difficult, by handing the Palestinians enormous leverage in future negotiations and disincentivizing them from making a compromised peace.
It had long been American foreign policy to veto any one-sided Security Council resolutions that declared Judaism's holiest places to be illegally occupied. Obama's decision to change that policy was not based on American interests or in the interests of peace. It was done out of personal revenge against Prime Minister Netanyahu and an act of pique by the outgoing president. It was also designed improperly to tie the hands of President-elect Trump. President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution.
So if there is any change to the status quo, let the blame lie where it should be: at the hands of President Obama for his cowardly decision to wait until he was a lame-duck president to get even with Prime Minister Netanyahu. President Trump deserves praise for restoring balance in negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians. It was President Obama who made peace more difficult. It was President Trump who made it more feasible again.
The outrageously one-sided Security Council Resolution declared that "any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem," have "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law." This means, among other things, that Israel's decision to build a plaza for prayer at the Western Wall — Judaism's holiest site — constitutes a "flagrant violation of international law." This resolution was, therefore, not limited to settlements in the West Bank, as the Obama administration later claimed in a bait-and-switch. The resolution applied equally to the very heart of Israel.
Before June 4, 1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall. They were forbidden to attend classes at the Hebrew University at Mt. Scopus, which had been opened in 1925 and was supported by Albert Einstein. Jews could not seek medical care at the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, which had treated Jews and Arabs alike since 1918. Jews could not live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where their forebears had built homes and synagogues for thousands of years. These Judenrein prohibitions were enacted by Jordan, which had captured by military force these Jewish areas during Israel's War of Independence, in 1948, and had illegally occupied the entire West Bank, which the United Nations had set aside for an Arab state. When the Jordanian government occupied these historic Jewish sites, they destroyed all the remnants of Judaism, including synagogues, schools and cemeteries, whose headstones they used for urinals. Between 1948 and 1967, the United Nations did not offer a single resolution condemning this Jordanian occupation and cultural devastation.
When Israel retook these areas in a defensive war that Jordan started by shelling civilian homes in West Jerusalem, and opened them up as places where Jews could pray, study, receive medical treatment and live, the United States took the official position that it would not recognize Israel's legitimate claims to Jewish Jerusalem. It stated that the status of Jerusalem, including these newly liberated areas, would be left open to final negotiations and that the status quo would remain in place. That is the official rationale for why the United States refused to recognize any part of Jerusalem, including West Jerusalem, as part of Israel. That is why the United States refused to allow an American citizen born in any part of Jerusalem to put the words "Jerusalem, Israel" on his or her passport as their place of birth…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Jerusalem’s Old City Lit Up with American and Israeli Flags: Jewish Press, Dec. 6, 2017—In anticipation and in honor of President Trump’s upcoming announcement on Jerusalem, the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem have been lit up with American and Israeli flags.
Netanyahu Says More Countries to Follow Trump Lead on Jerusalem: Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel, Dec. 7, 2017—Israeli officials downplayed threats of a diplomatic backlash in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the country’s capital, saying other countries were eager to follow suit and international ties would not be affected.
A Momentous Day: Jewish Leaders and Israel Advocates Respond to Trump Announcement on Jerusalem: Algemeiner, Dec. 6, 2017—
The Real Palestinian Response to Trump's Jerusalem Speech: Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, Dec. 7, 2017—A short three hours after US President Donald Trump phoned Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to inform him of his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a number of Palestinian photojournalists received a phone call from Bethlehem.
