U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Capital of Israel, Palestinian Days of Rage to follow
A step toward righting a historical wrong, and putting the area on the path to peace if the Palestinians so choose.
Donald Trump is set to give a speech later today recognizing that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, which of course it is.
According to reports based on news pool briefings by the White House, Trump will not declare Jerusalem the “united and undivided” capital of Israel, which is how Israelis refer to it. Rather, Trump will leave open that the parties could, as part of a final peace settlement, provide for some part of Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a Palestinian state or political entity.
Trump also will announce that he has instructed the State Department to start planning to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a process that likely will take several years because securing a location and construction needs to take place. The move could have taken effect immediately by simply redesignating the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem (which by the way, is across the street from the SuperSol supermarket bombed by Rasmea Odeh in 1969) as the Embassy. Officially moving the Embassy immediately would have made Trump’s speech more dramatic. Instead, the physical move of the Embassy some years from now will be an afterthought, and likely will occur without more controversy.
While in some ways this is a half measure, it is important nonetheless. The Palestinian non-negotiating tactic since before Israel even was a state was to wait things out, to promote and engage in terrorism, and to hope that the international community will impose a solution on Israel that will leave Israel vulnerable to ultimate destruction.
The problem always has been, and continues to be, that the Muslim world in general, and the Arab Muslim world in particular, do not accept the presence of any Jewish entity of any size in what they view as occupied Muslim territory. They are joined in this rejectionism by many Western leftists, who have taken up the chant of destruction of Israel: “From the river to the sea, Palestine be free.”
This always has been a religious war against the Jews, not only with weapons and bombs, but also with economic boycotts. In my presentation, The REAL History of the BDS Movement, I demonstrate that the current Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a continuation of the economic boycott of Jews in what now is Israel since the 1920s.
As Israeli historian Benny Morris has documented, the 1948 war to destroy Israel was religious in nature (emphasis added):
Morris: What I discovered in the documentation relating to the war, at least from the Arab side, was that the war had a religious character, that the central element in the war was an imperative to launch jihad. There were other imperatives of course, political and others—but the most important from the enemy’s perspective was the element of the infidels who had the nerve to take control over sacred Muslim lands and the need to uproot them from there.
The modern rejectionism is still based on religion.
It’s also worth keeping in mind the history of Jerusalem.
In 1967, Israel did not capture the eastern portion of the city (including the Old City) and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) from some Palestinian entity. Rather, those territories were illegally occupied by Jordan, which captured them during Israel’s War of Independence. Jordan proceeded to ethnically cleanse the area of Jews and ransacked Jewish history in the area, including the Mount of Olives cemetery. In 1967 Israel re-captured the areas Jordan illegally occupied after Jordan attacked Israel, despite Israeli pleas for Jordan to stay out of Israel’s war with Egypt and Syria.
The eastern portion of Jerusalem and the West Bank were not considered part of a future Palestinian state so long as they were occupied by Jordanian Muslims. The original Palestinian National Charter of 1964 expressly disavowed that the Palestine Liberation Organization, the supposed sole and legitimate representative of Palestinians, had any territorial claims on the areas controlled by Jordan (eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank), Egypt (Gaza) or the Himmah (controlled by Syria).
“Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area …”
It was only once the Jews returned to those lands in 1967 that Palestinian Arabs, who previously considered themselves part of the greater Arab nation, made a claim.
How are the Palestinians, and the Arab and Muslim worlds reacting? With threats, as usual. Mahmoud Abbas is planning “Days of Rage” to incite violence. This is nothing new, and it’s not spontaneous:
“Mahmoud Abbas is seen as leading and not being led…The attacks won’t come from “lone wolves” or smaller Palestinian factions. Rather, the descent into chaos will be directed from above as in the days of Arafat.”
Keep in mind, the Palestinians didn’t need this diplomatic recognition to engage in terror. Take a look at this Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs list of terror attacks since the Oslo Accords were signed: Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (Sept 1993).
Or scroll through the coverage of Palestinian Terror we have documented at Legal Insurrection, including this compilation of our prior coverage as of May 2017, Remembering the Victims of Palestinian Terror on Israel Memorial Day:
1970 – Members of the Biton family killed in a 1970 rocket attack on a school bus near the Lebanese border.
1972- The victims of the May 1972 Lod Airport massacre
1972 – The 11 Israeli Olympic athletes killed in the September 1972 – Munich Massacre
1974 – The 27 victims of the May 1974 Ma’alot School Massacre
1978 – The victims of the Coastal Road Massacre – March 11, 1978
1997 – The victims of Three simultaneous Palestinian suicide bombings at Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem in 1997.
1997 – Anat Rosen-Winter, killed in the 1997 Café Apropo bombing.
2001 – Malka (Malki) Roth and the other victims of the Sbarro Pizzeria Massacre 2001, whose mastermind Ahlam Tamimi Jordan refuses to extradite to the U.S.
2001 – The 21 victims of the June 2001 Dolphinarium disco suicide bombing, including Simona Rudina.
2003 – Dominique Hass and the other victims of the Mike’s Place Suicide Bombing 2003
2003 – Tal Kehrmann and the other 16 victims of the 2003 Haifa Bus 37 Suicide Bombing, including many Druse students.
2010 – American tourist Kristine Luken, stabbed to death in the forest near Jerusalem while hiking.
2011 – Infant Hadas Fogel stabbed to death in her crib by Palestinian terrorists who also killed four members of her family in 2011.
2014 – Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Frankel kidnapped and murdered in June 2014
2014 – Almog Shiloni and Dalia Lemkus, stabbed to death separately the same day in October 2014
2015 – Shalom Sherki, killed in a car ramming in April 2015.
2015 – Rabbi Yaakov Litman, Hadar Buchris and an American yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz, in a week in November 2015 that saw One Wedding, Two Funerals, and a Stabbing
2015 – Rabbi Yeshaye Krishevsky killed in car ramming and Haviv Haim killed in bus shooting in October 2015.
2016 – Dafna Meir stabbed to death by a 16-year old Palestinian in front of her children in January 2016.
2016 – Yaffa Ariel, the 13-year old Israeli girl stabbed to death in bed by 17-year old Arab terrorist in June 2016
2016 – American student Taylor Force, stabbed to death in Tel Aviv in March 2016
2016 – Levana Malichi and Yosef Kirma killed in a Jerusalem shooting attack in October 2016
2017 – The four victims of the truck attack in Jerusalem in January 2017.
2017 – Hannah Bladon, a British exchange student stabbed to death on the Jerusalem light rail in April 2017.
So if there is violence after Trump’s announcement, don’t blame the announcement or Trump.
Palestinian Days of Rage are nothing new. What would be new and might hold out hope for peace, is for the Arab and Muslim worlds to accept that the Jews have returned to their homeland, for good.
(added) Prof. Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, who lives in Israel, summed the the significance:
When President Trump issues his pronouncement on Jerusalem, traffic here will stop, stores will be empty and we will be listening carefully. It’s not because we need the President of the United States to tell us where our capital city is located, but instead reflects the anticipation of righting a 70-year wrong — the insulting situation in which foreign powers, led by the world’s democracies, deny the obvious fact that Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish life for 3,000 years.
For us, the details are secondary. We can live with a decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv now, or in two years; and are OK with telling the Palestinians that if they ever agree to two states, they can name their own capital. For us, the issue is symbolic and emotional — finally giving international recognition to Zion, the Jewish Bible’s alternative word for Jerusalem, as the core of Jewish civilization.
The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel is a step toward righting a historical wrong.
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Comments
Palestinian days of rage to be match be liberal days of rage.
Although to be honest its hard to tell when the Palestinians and liberals stopped being all outrageously outragety to start with.
Dont know about you guys but Im not sick of all this winning yet! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I predict the level of violence will be only marginally different from the level of violence they inflict on the world anyway.
I say poke the bear and lets deal with the bear, instead of “hoping” they will calm down.
Suck it, terrorist sympathizers!
So “Days of Rage” and associated violence wins me over to their side? It sounds like an excuse for the traitors like the Dems to bash Israel. Or something.
That’s just it… all the outraged now… reserved the right to be incredibly outraged at the status quo.. might as well get this done. There is no appeasing a victim , especially one that is willing to hold ANY grievance from 2000 years ago as a cudgel to get what they want. And even if you give them what they say they want… they still want you dead.
the great irony in all this, is that the original chalutzim were NOT religious at all and only wanted ‘a place in the sun’.
had the Arabs, who had no sense of nation states, just left the Jews alone, the Arabs would have still been in power with a Dhimmi minority.
Now that just ain’t gonna happen and the Saudis are quietly begging for israeli help to keep their own necks from the 12ers.
If the Arabs react with outrage over something that is purely symbolic, so be it. Like outrage over pictures of Mohammad, it’s one more example of Arab juvenile behavior.
Juvenile? Try infantile. They are like thee year olds having a temper tantrum. A constant temper tantrum.
we need to cut off ALL funds and contacts with these Fakistinians (Jordanian, Egyptian, Bedouin) interlopers and Jew haters – see the Haj Amin, supporter of Hitler< and protected by the Brits post WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
Trump delivers again.
“I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An Elephant’s faithful 100%.” Donald Horton Trump
Muslims and their supremacist ideology of “Submission” have a 1,400-year, well-documented history of committing atrocities, waging war and attempting to subjugate, non-Muslim peoples and lands. Any person who doesn’t view the Israeli-Arab conflict through that lens of Islamic supremacy, belligerence and intolerance is ignoring facts and history and is not to be taken seriously.
Islamic pretensions to supremacy do not allow for the concept of a strong, prosperous and democratic non-Islamic state to exist in the midst of Islamic states.
and of course they consider any land that has a single Muslim as a conquered land in which they must be the lord and master (but you must be the ‘right’ kind – non of the sects agree to second class).
The violent heckler’s veto.
Muslim world:
“Don’t move the American embassy, or, we’ll commit more terrorist violence than we already do!”
I don’t remember any fuss when Russia did it. Odd. And I hope we have pulled our nukes out of Turkey.
that is a VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE – no nukes in Turkey –
those turkeys cannot be trysted.
The Arabs of the area have been poorly served by the “Palestinian” leadership for decades.
FYI
UK MI5 Thwart Islamic Assassination Attempt on Prime Minister May…”…Government former terrorism watchdog David Anderson QC…In a briefing in London, Mr Anderson questioned whether tech giants had ‘gone far enough’ to remove extremist content from websites….In a briefing in London, Mr Anderson questioned whether tech giants had ‘gone far enough’ to remove extremist content from websites….Google yesterday apologised for some of the grotesque content on its YouTube Kids platform. Spokesman Malik Ducard admitted the video platform was ‘facing serious issues’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5149425/Plot-blow-Theresa-foiled.html
Ah, yes, but poor YouTube is FAR too busy hiding the content of radical terrorist organizations like PragerU, doncha know.
Oh, my word. After posting the above, I came across this:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/12/06/poland-government-migrant-youtube-jail/
Because apparently the Polish government forgot to check with the nice people at YouTube before formulating their policies. I mean, doesn’t everyone agree that limiting immigration in ANY way is mean, nasty, hateful, racist, and just wrong?
No, that’s the old consulate. The new one (opened in 2010) is down in Talpiot. There’s also the old East Jerusalem consulate, which is now called “America House” and serves as the unofficial embassy to the PA.
Recognizing that the capital city is Jerusalem is not really significant. It’s just an end to 69 years of insanity, of the US (and every other country) shutting its eyes and refusing to acknowledge an objective fact, just as real as “water is wet” or Mt Everest is the earth’s tallest mountain”.
What will be significant is if the US now recognizes that Jerusalem is part of Israel. If Trump mentioned that I missed it. But we will see soon enough, when the next Jerusalem-born US citizen applies for a passport. Will the State Department finally issue one that lists the person’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel”, or will it continue to refuse?
Wow, thank you for exposing to everyone how ignorant you are of this subject. It is not necessary for a country’s capital city to be within that country’s recognized territory. If Russia were to move its government to Sebastopol, i.e. the Duma, the courts, the president’s office, and all the government departments, that would undoubtedly make it the capital city, but it wouldn’t make the annexation legitimate.
This is not just a theoretical point. East Germany’s capital city was East Berlin, and all the foreign embassies were there, including ours, even though Berlin was legally still under occupation by the four powers, and thus not part of East Germany.
US policy for the last 69 years has been that no part of Jerusalem is in Israel. Only last year the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has no power to change this, because the recognition of foreign governments is entirely in the president’s hands.
So the proof of whether Trump has actually changed this policy will be the next time a Jerusalem-born US citizen applies for a passport. If Trump has changed the policy then the passport will list the person’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel”. I expect the Zivitofsky kid, who took his case to the Supreme Court, will be submitting a new application in the next days, and we’ll see how it’s handled. If he gets the change made to his passport then we’ll know Trump did something significant. If he’s rejected again then we’ll know Trump’s speech was meaningless.
The Fakistinians are in a quandry – keep killing Americans (Jewish or not) or forgo Uncle Sugars bribery payoffs.
what to do, what to do ?
they have also been brainwashing their kids with PA TV children’s programs
PA TV to kids: Christians and Jews are inferior, cowardly and despised
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq2P4e1acXM
where is the left yelling child abuse ?
oh yeah, they are backing BDS
Andrew Klavan: Who Put the BS in BDS?
http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/andrew-klavan-who-put-bs-bds
I guarantee you they will once not miss the chance to miss a chance at peace!
All this crying like a liberal cry baby COULD have been avoided had Palestinians accepted Israel’s offer of 97% of the West Bank (with a 3% land swap for security purposes) with East Jerusalem as their capital.
BUT instead of settling for peace with their Jewish neighbours Palestinians instead took the chance to miss a chance and continue their war of racial extermination against Teh Juices and rejected the offer out of hand.
I think its time we just ignored Palestinians and instead focussed our help on a people who actually want a viable working state, the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
I’m confused. Are we talking about American cities like Baltimore, or the Middle East?
Out of 100 Americans:
90 already believed that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem
5 planned on protesting Trumps decision anyway, even though they know nothing about it
3 nod knowingly
2 missed it, because they were texting
Not moving the embassy right now means there’s a good chance it never happens. The State Department will slow roll everything, from securing a site to bidding on the construction, and they will probably take the contractors aside and ask them to work as slowly as possible. Anything, of course, in the hope that the next President can undo it.
This has to happen within the next 2 years otherwise you could be right.
A law was passed by Congress demanding that we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel over 20 years ago and no one cared. Russia recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last spring and no one cared. Now that Trump follows the edicts of Congress and the sky is falling.
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And the result of this nonsense? All those various pro-Palestinian organizations who demand Israel’s destruction and who adamantly refuse to negotiate any Middle East peace in good faith are now claiming that they will no longer negotiate a Middle East peace offering in good faith.
Exactly. Wake me up when something new happens! HAHAHAHAHAHA