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Jerusalem Tag

This past week I took a short but memorable and rewarding trip, both professionally and personally, to one of the holiest cities on the planet. Below I chronicle my 4 days in Jerusalem. Most of the images are personal photos and many were shared on Facebook, so I’ve included those posts as well. Enjoy!

Today (May 14) the U.S. embassy will officially move from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital city. The move, widely regarded as historic and “momentous” for Israel and the Jewish people, will coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence 70 years ago on the Gregorian calendar. It also comes one day after Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim), which marks the reunification of the city during the 1967 Six Day War, and the return of Jewish heritage and holy sites to Jewish sovereignty.

United States lawmakers Scott R. Tipton (R-Colo) and David B. McKinley (R-W.Va) were stopped and questioned by Israeli police on the morning of February 22nd while they were visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. According to media reports of the incident (see, for example, here and here), Tipton and McKinley were detained by Israeli officers guarding the site after the Waqf—the Jordanian-funded Islamic Trust that administers day-to-day activities there—brought to their attention that one of the congressmen had apparently taken an olive branch that he had found lying on the ground while touring the place.

A whopping 70,000 people gathered in Calcutta, India Wednesday to show their support for Israel. Protestors marched, demanding the Indian government recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The rally was held on the tenth anniversary of the founding of Hindu Samhati, an organization reportedly dedicated to unifying Hindus in Eastern India.

Bill Maher can be infuriatingly liberal, but when he gets something right, he gets it really right. And what he frequently gets right are issues related to free speech, political correctness, liberal intolerance and false accusations of Islamophobia. And Israel. Here are some of the things he has gotten really right that we have previously covered:

Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has angered the Palestinian Authority leadership so much that they cut off diplomacy with the U.S. regarding peace talks with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas tried, unsuccessfully, to get the Europeans to substitute for the U.S., and has launched nearly deranged tirades against the Trump (and also denied Jewish history in the region).

I reported this weekend on reports that the U.S. planned to move our Embassy from Tel Aviv, to Israel's capital Jerusalem, by the end of 2019. This timetable, which was faster than the 3-4 years previously discussed for building a new Embassy, was based on renovating the existing U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, the main location of which was built in 2010 and is actually larger than the Tel Aviv embassy.

Donald Trump's announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ordering preparations to commence to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, did not lead to the widespread violence that critics predicted. It has, however, caused the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to lay bare his decades old anti-Semitism in a recent tirade, and to engage in a name calling spree against Trump. The delay, to some uncertain future date, of the actual Embassy move was seen as making the recognition somewhat symbolic. And called into question whether it ever actually would happen.

Despite Palestinian and UNESCO efforts to remove the Jewish indigenous history in Israel, particularly Jerusalem, the evidence keeps showing up in archeological digs. It's why Israelis want to keep digging, and Palestinians oppose any digging, particularly in the area of the Temple Mount and Western Wall. One seeks the truth, the other is afraid of the truth.

The government of Guatemala is going to follow the U.S. lead, and move its Embassy to Jerusalem, in recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Ynet News reports:
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced in a Facebook post Sunday night his country will be transferring its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, following a conversation he had had with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the wake of President Donald Trump's recognition of the city as Israel's capital.

Jake Tapper of CNN is one of the few mainstream media stars who is willing to occasionally question his industry's assumption and practice journalism as opposed to simply accepting predetermined narratives. On Thursday he continued this tradition by ripping Wednesday's United Nations General Assembly vote rejecting President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, noting with a good deal of understatement that the critics of the United States had "questionable records or their own."

The Palestinian leadership has responded furiously to President Trump’s December 6th official recognition of the obvious reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Over the past several weeks, there’ve been heated denunciations, some of which trafficked in ugly antisemitic tropes and canards; the usual Hamas-incited “days of rage”; calls for demonstrations by the Palestinian Authority (which canceled school, so young people could participate in the clashes and rioting); and over a dozen rockets shot from Gaza into Israel.

The UN General Assembly voted by a margin of 128-9-35 to condemn Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and eventually to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The vote is non-binding, but is being cheered in many quarters. American liberals are loving it, because it is viewed as a loss for Trump. And any loss for Trump, even if it's an anti-US loss, is okay with the media Resistance.

The UN General Assembly is meeting this morning on a resolution that, without mentioning the U.S. by name, condemns Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and plan to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem at some future point. The resolution also demands a return to the so-called 1967 lines (which actually are the 1949 Armistice lines), which would put the main Jewish holy sites and the Jewish Quarter in the hands of Palestinians. General Assembly Resolutions are not binding under UN Rules and do not create international law. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, backed up by Donald Trump, has promised that the U.S. and Trump take this vote personally, and will be "taking names," as detailed in our prior post, Nikki Haley: “US will be taking names” during General Assembly vote on Jerusalem Embassy move.