President Trump’s Wednesday declaration that he is formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel came with a flurry of last minute warnings against such a move, and was followed by even more expressions of alarm about the implications.
The declaration was endorsed by Israel’s government, and pretty much nobody else. France slammed the unilateral move, while Britain warned the declaration risked doing serious harm to the peace process.
Across the Arab world, the complaints understandably centered more heavily on the implications for occupied East Jerusalem, and concerns that Trump had effectively meant a recognition of the occupation as permanent.
This led nations like Egypt and Jordan, which are on relatively good terms with Israel, to declare the Trump statement legally meaningless, while others warned that it did massive harm to US credibility throughout the region.
While Israeli officials expressed hope that Trump’s statement could lead to a rush of recognition for Jerusalem this broadly appears not to be the case, and if anything seems to be cementing in other nations grave concerns about the occupation of East Jerusalem.
This might serve as a wake up call to the Arabs and the Persians that they should stop their self destructive religious wars and challenge their common enemy–Israel. Both the West and Israel have been successful in exploiting the Shia, Sunni divide. The combination of Arab states and Iran would create a powerful economic and military alliance.Joined together with China and Russia they could change the world.
They’ll get back to it soon enough. They always have.
There is one way this could work out well — if Trump also overturned other parts of the pattern of Peace Process stasis, and forced both sides to confront reality.
He won’t. He hasn’t the slightest interest in that. But when his supporters try to justify this, they hint at what could be possible, getting away from what is not working. It is just that Trump has no intention of getting away from that, just of doing this one favor for his far right Israeli supporters.
It sounds like this is the end of the charade that the US is an impartial arbiter of the “peace process.” That’s probably a good thing.
Of course, it’s the end of the charade that the US is an impartial arbiter of the so-called “peace process”; but it’s not a good thing.
We have to research the ancient Middle East in order to clarify what’s just happened regarding Jerusalem’s status.
First of all, in the 8th Century BC, there was no Israeli state. The region was divided between two separate Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel to the south and the Kingdom of Judah to the north, where Jerusalem was built and established. Around 721 BC, the Kingdom of Israel was conquered and assimilated by the neo-Assyrian Empire; and, in 586 BC, the Kingdom of Judah came to an end .. How it came to an end, I have no idea. However, Jerusalem was never the capital of Israel. Even in 1948, after modern Israel gained its independence, its capital was established in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem .. That was due to the fact that Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza were under Jordan’s jurisdiction. The seizure of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Jerusalem, didn’t actually settle that city’s status; the UN stepped in and declared Jerusalem an International city, and it still is. As a result, Trump violated the law, just as Congress did over 20 years ago with legislation on Jerusalem’s status. The law prohibits the unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the move of the US Embassy from the Zionist Entity’s true capital of Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. All of this was at the demand of PM Bibi Netanyahu.
Some editorial corrections:
Kingdom of Israel to the north and the Kingdom of Judah to the south