Let’s peel back the blatant double standard behind the media’s Jerusalem outrage. And the claims that this will somehow destroy any possibility for peace.
Whenever the problem of peace is discussed, the prescription is always pressuring Israel, not the PLO.
Jerusalem was one of the pressure points.
Trump’s move applied pressure to the PLO’s Palestinian Authority in exactly the way that the left had wanted pressure to be applied to Israel. He did to the PLO, what Obama had been doing to Israel by covertly backing the PA’s statehood moves.
The double standard is that pressuring Israel in this way is deemed a very good thing because the Jews are somehow the obstacles to peace. While pressuring the PLO is a terrible thing because that will destroy the cause of peace.
Why is pressuring Israel a good thing and pressuring Islamic terrorists a bad thing?
That’s the bias that needs addressing.
It’s the PLO that has rejected every peace proposal. Despite the attacks on Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was Arafat and Abbas who made the decision to walk away from peace negotiations.
If anyone needs to be pressured to come to the table, it’s the PLO. And that is what President Trump did.
America’s border dysfunction was highlighted again this week by not guilty verdicts for the illegal immigrant who fired the shot that killed Kate Steinle in a sanctuary city.
This week we take you on a dangerous and sobering journey to see first hand what’s happening on our Southern border – without the spin.
We visited one of the busiest ports of entry for both legal and illegal traffic. It’s the predominantly Hispanic city of Laredo, Texas. During our visit, one overarching theme emerged: despite what you may think: they’re bullish on border security.
“This may surprise you, but the embassy move does not challenge Palestinian/Arab/Muslim claims to the city,” wrote Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “What is happening right now is reflective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict historically: Palestine advocates fighting against Israel rather than for the Palestinian cause.”
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Anti-Zionist groups were quick to pounce Wednesday following President Trump’s proclamation acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In a statement, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a virulently anti-Israel organization, “unequivocally condemn[ed] President Trump’s announcement that he will begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as part of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that would make the U.S. the only country in the world to do so.”
In contrast, Russia recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in April, and after Trump’s speech Wednesday, the Czech Republic also said it would recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
But for those who reject Israel’s very existence, Wednesday was a difficult day.
“#Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel no matter how many times Trump says it,” wrote political activist Linda Sarsour, who has argued Zionists can’t be feminists and that “nothing is creepier than Zionism. “He doesn’t speak for me.”
Good thing she cleared that up.
Trump’s proclamation “effectively hands Israel a blank political check for its illegal annexation of Jerusalem and legitimizes Israel’s ongoing displacement and disenfranchisement of the city’s Palestinian residents,” said the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), an organization leading the push for an economic boycott of Israel.
This statement, along with Sarsour’s, ignores the reality that Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital since 1949. It is home to its parliament, the Knesset, as well as the prime minister’s residence. The statements also deliberately ignore Trump’s specific caveat that the United States is “not taking a position of 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.”
The relocation of the American embassy affects peace talks only if the Palestinians choose to make that so.
Still, American Muslims for Palestine’s (AMP) national policy director Osama Abuirshaid joined a protest outside the White House to express outrage and say that Trump should be held responsible for any resulting violence. “Now our demand is very clear that this administration should inject some common sense, should inject some logic and withdraw this announcement,” he said.
At a news conference Tuesday, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad argued that the decision to move the embassy was due to the disproportionate influence of the “pro-Israel lobby” in Congress.
Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and committing to move the U.S. embassy there is “a reckless move that has put the interest of a foreign power and its domestic lobby above the interests of the United States,” he said. Awad, who publicly expressed support for Hamas in 1994 and was linked to a Muslim Brotherhood-run Hamas-support network, all but called Congress corrupt for the original, bipartisan legislation that makes the move possible.
“It is really the interest of those politicians who voted, and they voted. And they voted against the interest of their own country because of the money, the pressure and the favors that they get from the pro-Israel lobby,” Awad said.
He repeated that message Wednesday standing with Abuirshaid outside the White House.
The Senate voted 90-0 in June to reaffirm “the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (Public Law 104–45) as United States law, and calls upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions.”
As many people have commented this week, no peace proposal has ever contemplated Israel relinquishing Jerusalem as its capital. While some argue the U.S. embassy move should wait for a peace agreement, that strategy has shown no results and ignores the realities of the Israeli government.
“This may surprise you, but the embassy move does not challenge Palestinian/Arab/Muslim claims to the city,” wrote Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “What is happening right now is reflective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict historically: Palestine advocates fighting against Israel rather than for the Palestinian cause.”
As President Trump said in his speech, “Peace is never beyond the grasp of those willing to reach.”
Israeli soldiers clash with Palestinians during a protest in the West Bank city of Hebron, following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, on December 7, 2017. Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90
It is no secret in Ramallah or Nablus that King Abdullah of Jordan has fallen out of favor with the majority of Arab rulers, especially the Saudi crown prince and strongman, the UAE emir and the Egyptian president. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources reveal that Riyadh has gone so far as to cut off financial assistance to Amman.
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The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas only found Jordan’s King Abdullah and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan to back him up Thursday, Dec. 7, in the first 24 hours after US President Donald Trump’s announced recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Arab street’s first response was also minor in scale and pitch – less than 100 protesters at most of the rallies. Prepared for an outbreak of “the third Palestinian intifada (uprising)”, foreign correspondents arrived on the scene kitted up in helmets and vests, only to find a fairly low-key event to cover rather than a violent backlash. The Palestinian sources reported 140 injured so far, most of them from inhaling gas and three from rubber bullets.
The Palestinians were called out by their leaders to stage massive protest marches in East Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, as well as at the Gaza border fence. Stones were hurled at Israeli troops and tires set on fire for the cameras, but nothing more lethal at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, for instance, than bottles of water. Only in Hebron did real clashes occur between security forces and protesters. They were broken up with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Extra Israeli security and military forces have been mobilized for the weekly Muslim Friday prayers at the mosques and Saturday. Will Palestinian protesters then turn out in force, as they have so many times before?
It must be said that, while most Arab and Muslim rulers have gone through the motions of condemning Trump’s pro-Israeli act, few are actively opposing it, which the Palestinian street has not been slow to notice. Their zeal for a violent confrontation with Israeli security forces is therefore less than expected – especially after their leader Abu Mazen had to fall back on the Jordanian king and Turkish president for support, instead of finding a rousing condemnation from the entire Arab leadership.
It is no secret in Ramallah or Nablus that King Abdullah of Jordan has fallen out of favor with the majority of Arab rulers, especially the Saudi crown prince and strongman, the UAE emir and the Egyptian president. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources reveal that Riyadh has gone so far as to cut off financial assistance to Amman.
Jordan has always been good friends with Turkey and so Abdullah flew to Ankara Wednesday to find a backer ahead of the Trump announcement. However, the ordinary Palestinian has a low opinion of President Erdogan and his efforts to set up an anti-American, Anti-Israel Islamic Front never found much response in Palestinian towns.
And so Abu Mazen’s panicky visit to Amman to talk with Abdullah is not expected to change the mood on the Palestinian street. At the same time, the situation is inflammable enough to catch fire in a trice. A large-scale Palestinian terrorist attack against Israel is always on the cards, and the potential for Israeli security forces facing a raging mob to inflict a large number of casualties cannot be ruled out for triggering a major outbreak.
US President Donald Trump holds up a signed memorandum after he delivered a statement on Jerusalem from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC on December 6, 2017 as US Vice President Mike Pence looks on. (Saul Loeb/AFP)
After days of speculation and rumour-mongering, Donald Trump delivered the speech of a lifetime – at least in the lifetime of the Jewish People.
I never thought he would have it in him, but I give Trump full credit. The speech was excellent. He hit all the right notes without committing any great diplomatic faux pas. He declared America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – “recognizing reality” as he accurately called it. He simply reaffirmed the blindingly obvious – that Jerusalem has always been the capital of Israel and that it’s about time America recognized that fact
He walked a diplomatic tightrope by not going into the details of exactly where the US Embassy will be located or how long it will take to get it ready. In this way he satisfied the Israelis, and if the Palestinians were so inclined, they could be satisfied too, since the issue of the Embassy was left open-ended.
He also didn’t mention the dreaded two-state solution – which by now should be recognized by all as a non-starter. He simply reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to peace and to settling the Arab-Israeli conflict, calling on all sides for restraint.
In fact the speech was startling for the lack of any great new insights. It was the very fact that every point was obvious, and has always been evident for anyone who cared to look, that was so unusual – because when it comes to Middle East Peace-processing, wishful thinking is the name of the game. This speech was almost an “Emperor has no clothes” moment, except that here Donald Trump was playing the part of the naive child who states the reality for all the world to see.
I will post below the video of Trump’s speech and the full text, but before that I just want to make a couple of points:
The Arabs, the Palestinians in particular, are threatening “days of rage” in response to Trump’s declaration. But did they ever declare “days of peace” when countless UN resolutions were passed in their favour? How about that miserable UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared all of Judea and Samaria as Palestinian territory, and calling all the settlements illegal, which was passed with the aid, abetting and active assistance of the United States under President Barack Obama? Did we get peace talks and normalization, or offers of land-swaps? We did not. We simply got more of the same old violence: stabbings, car-rammings, shootings and more. So please, give us Israelis one reason why we should take any more notice of these latest threats of days of rage than any other days of rage that are routinely declared on the slightest of pretexts.
The Palestinians assert that America is no longer an honest broker in the peace talks. My question is “what peace talks?”. And was America an honest broker when those UN resolutions were going your way?
Similarly with other countries who have strongly objected to Trump’s declaration. Britain’s Theresa May is going to express her concern to Trump, saying (wrongly) that Jerusalem is intended to be a shared capital between Israel and the Palestinians.
The UN, the EU and even the Pope criticized Trump for his move. All expressed their “concern for peace”. But where were they when Israel’s streets were exploding? When “lone-wolf” stabbers ran rampant. When car-rammings took place on a nearly daily basis? And all this while Jerusalem was NOT recognized as Israel’s capital, and while “peace talks” were ostensibly taking place!
So why should Israel, or Donald Trump for that matter, take the slightest notice of their ignorant opinion? Why do they think their dire warnings will resonate when they never paid more than lip service to the violence committed daily against Israeli civilians.
Where was their pressure on the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table? Where was their pressure on the Palestinians to stop the violence, stop the incitement?
Only the Trump Administration has had the courage to shake up the playing board and restate the facts as they are, rather than as anyone would wish them to be. In perfect timing, maybe not coincidentally, the Taylor Force act was just passed in Congress, targeting moneys passed from the Palestinian Authority to terrorists in payment for their terrorist acts.
None of this though is to derogate from the fact that Trump did not deny any Palestinian claims to Jerusalem, nor did he rule out the possibility of a Palestinian state. All they need to do for that is come to the table.
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And now to the main event. Watch the video of Trump’s speech:
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. When I came into office, I promised to look at the world’s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking. We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past. Old challenges demand new approaches.
My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In 1995, Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the federal government to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize that that city — and so importantly — is Israel’s capital. This act passed Congress by an overwhelming bipartisan majority and was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.
Yet, for over 20 years, every previous American president has exercised the law’s waiver, refusing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem or to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
Presidents issued these waivers under the belief that delaying the recognition of Jerusalem would advance the cause of peace. Some say they lacked courage, but they made their best judgments based on facts as they understood them at the time. Nevertheless, the record is in. After more than two decades of waivers, we are no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.
Therefore, I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.
I’ve judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This is a long-overdue step to advance the peace process and to work towards a lasting agreement.
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.
It was 70 years ago that the United States, under President Truman, recognized the State of Israel. Ever since then, Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem — the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times. Today, Jerusalem is the seat of the modern Israeli government. It is the home of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as the Israeli Supreme Court. It is the location of the official residence of the Prime Minister and the President. It is the headquarters of many government ministries.
For decades, visiting American presidents, secretaries of state, and military leaders have met their Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem, as I did on my trip to Israel earlier this year.
Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs.
Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
However, through all of these years, presidents representing the United States have declined to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In fact, we have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital at all.
But today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.
That is why, consistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This will immediately begin the process of hiring architects, engineers, and planners, so that a new embassy, when completed, will be a magnificent tribute to peace.
In making these announcements, I also want to make one point very clear: This decision is not intended, in any way, to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement. We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians. 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.
The United States remains deeply committed to helping facilitate a peace agreement that is acceptable to both sides. I intend to do everything in my power to help forge such an agreement. Without question, Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in those talks. The United States would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides.
In the meantime, I call on all parties to maintain the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites, including the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif.
Above all, our greatest hope is for peace, the universal yearning in every human soul. With today’s action, I reaffirm my administration’s longstanding commitment to a future of peace and security for the region.
There will, of course, be disagreement and dissent regarding this announcement. But we are confident that ultimately, as we work through these disagreements, we will arrive at a peace and a place far greater in understanding and cooperation.
This sacred city should call forth the best in humanity, lifting our sights to what it is possible; not pulling us back and down to the old fights that have become so totally predictable. Peace is never beyond the grasp of those willing to reach.
So today, we call for calm, for moderation, and for the voices of tolerance to prevail over the purveyors of hate. Our children should inherit our love, not our conflicts.
I repeat the message I delivered at the historic and extraordinary summit in Saudi Arabia earlier this year: The Middle East is a region rich with culture, spirit, and history. Its people are brilliant, proud, and diverse, vibrant and strong. But the incredible future awaiting this region is held at bay by bloodshed, ignorance, and terror.
Vice President Pence will travel to the region in the coming days to reaffirm our commitment to work with partners throughout the Middle East to defeat radicalism that threatens the hopes and dreams of future generations.
t is time for the many who desire peace to expel the extremists from their midst. It is time for all civilized nations, and people, to respond to disagreement with reasoned debate –- not violence.
And it is time for young and moderate voices all across the Middle East to claim for themselves a bright and beautiful future.
So today, let us rededicate ourselves to a path of mutual understanding and respect. Let us rethink old assumptions and open our hearts and minds to possible and possibilities. And finally, I ask the leaders of the region — political and religious; Israeli and Palestinian; Jewish and Christian and Muslim — to join us in the noble quest for lasting peace.
Thank you. God bless you. God bless Israel. God bless the Palestinians. And God bless the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you.
(The proclamation is signed.)
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Israel expressed its gratitude to America by lighting up Jerusalem in red, white and blue:
I just videoed Jerusalem’s Bridge of Strings lit up in Red White and Blue and Blue and White in honor of the historic and just US recognition of #Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. All countries who value peace, freedom and justice should follow suit.🇺🇸 🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/u3hxseDuWw
NOW: Jerusalem Old City walls light up in colors of Israeli and American flags as Trump to declare Jerusalem capital of Israel. pic.twitter.com/uu6s1LNRR3
President Trump’s move to Jerusalem was what opened the floodgates. Seems that going it alone and asserting one’s sovereignty in the name of national interests, not EU and UN diktats or Saudi cash is being recognized by quite a few nations as good for everyone. All it took was President Trump to light the candle. This is wonderful.
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There’s nothing like a little U.S. leadership. President Trump’s announcement that he was moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is seeing a heartening chain reaction as other nations follow our lead. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he’s hearing from all kinds of nations now. And the reasons are as much internal to the states following President Trump’s lead as they are supportive of Israel. It seems that to affirm Israel is to affirm oneself.
The Czech Republic wasted no time declaring that it, too, would be moving its capital [embassy?] to Jerusalem. It would make sense, yet it’s a little bit curious. The move has none of the religious overtones that fueled the move in the U.S. The Czechs are one of the most atheistic countries in Europe. But there are other factors: the Czechs surely wanted to throw a sopping mop into the face of its European Union masters who are attempting to foist millions of angry Islamic “refugees” onto the tiny unwilling nation. And it’s possible the Czech leaders, even the lefty they have elected, gets along well with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But even more likely, the Czechs and Israelis get along very well as peoples, given that both nations, generally speaking, have a lot of brainy people: intellectuals, people of high culture, and entrepreneurs. There may have been domestic political pressures in the Czech declaration that it would move its capital to Jerusalem.
There’s also a wave of sub-Saharan African states, Christian nations, preparing an exodus to Jerusalem. Many of these states are under threat of Islamicization and Islamist terror, of course. But Ethiopia and Israel have had good relations for years, and Ethiopia is deeply Christian. Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania and Angola are all nations worth watching, too. In the case of Africa, there’s a repeating cultural motif of love for Israel and the promised land, too, linked to its generally dynamic Christian culture. To move a nation’s embassy to Jerusalem is to signal a fealty to the Lord, and to express something about what one is as a nation, an identity move. South African folk singer Johnny Clegg has a notable song in his repertoire on Jerusalem, Ethiopia has heritage of attachment to Zion, too. Religious factors are likely to run deep in this region’s move toward Jerusalem.
Lastly, there is talk that the Philippines may move its embassy to Jerusalem. This may have a religious aspect, too. But the personal is not to be dismissed here, it’s probably pretty marked. President Duterte of the Philippines is well known for going it alone and he has a significant contempt for Europe’s polite society. What better way to show that than to follow President Trump on Israel now that the Eurotrash and all its human rights investigators is howling about it? Not being an especially virtuous man himself, he can virtue-signal to the Philippines’ religious people about being aligned to Jerusalem to make up for some of his less justifiable actions internally, while annoying the global elites at the same time.
Another factor, which will have to be investigated, but is likely worth looking at is the impact of the great wave of arrests in Saudi Arabia and the oil bust. Saudi cash from the now-arrested princelings has until recently been spread liberally in the U.S. (the Clinton Foundation sopped it up like a sponge) and throughout the third world. The oil bust and the demise of the patrons and their cash has ended a lot of buying off of nations for Arab grievance causes such as terrorist-infested Palestine. No Saudi money, no reason to follow the old agenda – especially since Saudi Arabia under its new ruler isn’t interested in that agenda, either. Saudi Arabia with its new leadership actually wants to get along with Israel. We can await Saudi Arabia’s move to Jerusalem to really shake things up.
But President Trump’s move to Jerusalem was what opened the floodgates. Seems that going it alone and asserting one’s sovereignty in the name of national interests, not EU and UN diktats or Saudi cash is being recognized by quite a few nations as good for everyone. All it took was President Trump to light the candle. This is wonderful.
Europe has betrayed Israel. Only America can and must do the right thing. And the right thing is to certify the inalienable and millennial Jewish right to the most beautiful city in the world.
A macabre joke circulated at the airport during the harrowing weeks preceding the 1967 war was “The last one to leave turns off the light”. Today, Jerusalem is full of lights. Hallelujah! Next year in Jerusalem!
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Palestinian Arabs assault Israelis on the Temple Mount? The metal detectors’ fault.
UNESCO Islamizes the places holy to Judaism? Not to worry.
The UN floods the Palestinian propaganda machine with money? Give them more. The European Union marks Israeli goods? Just fine.
For years the world has violated the “status quo” between Israelis and Palestinians. But now that America is re-establishing reason and facts as it should have done since 1995, by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, all the newspapers speak of “provocation”.
If the Jews had to wait for the state to be served on a silver platter, Jews and Holocaust survivors would still be in the Red Cross camps. The Jews had to fight to get their land back and for the last 80 years they have had to defend it with their fingernails and teeth. The world will always find reasons to dismantle Israel piece by piece, all the way to the Ben Gurion international airport (Lydda).
There has never been a moment like this one, when the Middle East is devastated, and the West should be showing its unwavering solidarity with Israel. Instead the always smiling Macron, the UN, the mainstream media all in unison, the Hamas terrorists, the kleptocrat Abbas, the Vatican, the Saudi satrap, the caliph Erdogan, the Jordanian king and the European bureaucrats all agree that the American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a “provocation”. Because Israel represents a deadly threat to Islamist regimes. Because those who oppose today are those who have focused on “peace” for Israel, rather than on freedom and progress.
They are those who are working hard to get Jerusalem and Israel back to the time before that magnificent day in 1967, when the city was still divided by barbed wire. No one then worried about making it a Palestinian capital, no one in the Vatican worried about the Jewish holy places ravaged by the Jordanians. Then there was apartheid, segregation, discrimination. Today there is freedom. Thanks to the fact that it is the capital of Israel, not another Arab potentate.
Being democratic today means understanding that the enemies of Israel are not only afraid of its weapons, but also of its sensational ideals, on which the Israelis have built their beautiful capital.
Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years and the capital of the State of Israel for 70, whether or not that is recognized by the UN, the EU, Erdogan, Jordan and all those who have always worked with blackmail, threats and wars to turn Israel into an ever smaller ghetto and erect a “Palestine” in its place, not alongside of it. No physical and diplomatic jihad will ever take Jerusalem from the Jews.
The Arab-Islamic world and the Palestinian Arabs themselves, will always find what they see as valid reasons for “burning up the region”. They have always found or manufactured reasons. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been killed in these extraordinary 80 years of war. If the Damascus gate in Jerusalem resembles Israel and not the Syrian Damascus it is only thanks to the Israeli presence.
Much of the international community does not recognize even pre-1948 Israel (see the boycott of Jeremy Corbyn and others of the Balfour Declaration), let alone the post-1967 Israel, the eastern part of Jerusalem where much of Jewish history took place.
Europe has betrayed Israel. Only America can and must do the right thing. And the right thing is to certify the inalienable and millennial Jewish right to the most beautiful city in the world.
A macabre joke circulated at the airport during the harrowing weeks preceding the 1967 war was “The last one to leave turns off the light”. Today, Jerusalem is full of lights. Hallelujah! Next year in Jerusalem!
Recently, more than 300 Muslim worshipers were massacred by Muslim terrorists while praying in a mosque in Sinai, Egypt. That tragedy was probably covered by fewer journalists than the orchestrated Trump-poster episode in Bethlehem. Where was the outcry in the Arab and Islamic world? Now, Arabs and Muslims are talking about “days of rage” in protest against Trump. Why were there no “days of rage” in the Arab and Islamic countries when more than 300 worshipers, many of them children, were massacred during Friday prayers?
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By misrepresenting the poster burning “ceremony” as a reflection of widespread Palestinian rage concerning Trump’s policy on Jerusalem, the international media is once again complicit in promoting the propaganda of Palestinian spin doctors. The journalists, including photographers and camera crews, have been handed detailed schedules of events that will take place in different parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
When we sit in our living rooms and watch the news coming out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, let us ask ourselves: How many of these “events” are, in fact, media burlesques? Why are journalists allowing themselves to be duped by the Palestinian propaganda machine, which spews hatred and violence from morning until night?
It is high time for some self-reflection on the part of the media: Do they really wish to continue serving as a mouthpiece for those Arabs and Muslims who intimidate and terrorize the West?
The “rivers of blood” we are being promised are flowing as we speak. Yet, it is the knife that Arabs and Muslims take to one another’s throats that is the source of this crimson current, not some statement made by a US president. Perhaps that could finally be an event worth covering by the roving reporters of the region?
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.
The callers were Palestinian “activists,” who invited the photographers to come to the city to document an “important event.” When the photographers arrived, they discovered that the “important event” was a handful of Palestinian “activists” who wanted to burn posters of Trump in front of the cameras.
The “activists” waited patiently as the photojournalists and cameramen set up their equipment to get the “important event” on film. Shortly thereafter, the media was abuzz with reports about “angry Palestinian protesters taking to the streets to protest” Trump’s intention to move the embassy to Jerusalem and his recognition of the city as the capital of Israel. The handful of Palestinians who were filmed burning the Trump pictures were made to look as if they were part of a mass protest sweeping Palestinian communities.
The handful of Palestinians in Bethlehem who were filmed burning pictures of U.S. President Donald Trump on December 6 were made by the media to look as if they were part of a mass protest sweeping Palestinian communities. (Image source: CBS News video screenshot)
The incident represents yet another example of the collusion between the Palestinians and the media, whose representatives are always more than happy to serve as mouthpieces for the Palestinian propaganda machine and provide an open platform for broadcasting Palestinian threats against Israel and the US.
Had the photographers and cameramen not shown up to the erstwhile “spontaneous” poster-burning event, the Palestinian activists would have been forced to quietly slink back to one of Bethlehem’s fine coffee shops.
Yet, there was no worry on that score: the Palestinian activists are well aware that local and foreign reporters are starving for sensationalism — and what better fits the bill than posters of Trump going up in flames in the middle of the birthplace of Jesus, on the eve of Christmas and as thousands of Christian pilgrims and tourists are converging on the city?
By misrepresenting the poster burning “ceremony” as a reflection of widespread Palestinian rage concerning Trump’s policy on Jerusalem, the international media is once again complicit in promoting the propaganda of Palestinian spin doctors. Palestinian leaders and spokesmen strive to create the impression that Trump’s policy regarding Jerusalem will bring the region down in flames. They also seek to send a message to the American people that their president’s policies endanger their lives. In effect, the media has volunteered to serve the Palestinian campaign of intimidation. And the media convergence on the poster-burning farce in Bethlehem is just the beginning.
Now that the Palestinians have managed, with the help of the media, to burn these images into the minds of millions of Americans, they are planning more staged protests. The goal: to terrify the American public and force Trump to rescind his decision regarding the status of Jerusalem. This tactic of intimidation through the media is not new. In fact, it is something that has been happening for decades, largely thanks to the buy-in of the mainstream media in the West.
Now, Palestinian and Western journalists have been invited to cover a series of protests planned by the Palestinians in the coming days and weeks in response to Trump’s policies. The journalists, including photographers and camera crews, have been handed detailed schedules of events that will take place in different parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The journalists have been promised more scenes of burning photos of Trump and US flags. Some of the journalists have even received tips as to the locations where “clashes” are supposed to take place between Palestinian rioters and Israel Defense Forces soldiers. In other words, the journalists have been told precisely where they need to be in order to document Palestinians throwing stones at the soldiers — and the predicted the IDF response.
Here is the funny part. If, for whatever reason, the cameras are a no-show, the “activists” are likely to be as well. In the Palestinian world, it is all about manipulating the media and recruiting it in favor of the cause. And the cause is always bashing Israel — with bashing Trump not far behind.
Yes, the Palestinians will protest in the coming days against Trump. Yes, they will take to the streets and throw stones at IDF soldiers. Yes, they will burn pictures of Trump and US flags. And yes, they will try to carry out terror attacks against Israelis.
But when we sit in our living rooms and watch the news coming out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, let us ask ourselves: How many of these “events” are, in fact, media burlesques? Why are journalists allowing themselves to be duped by the Palestinian propaganda machine, which spews hatred and violence from morning until night? And, why are the journalists exaggerating and compounding the Palestinian threats for violence and anarchy?
First, many of the journalists want to appease their readers and editors by offering them stories that reflect negatively on Israel. Second, some of the journalists believe that writing anti-Israel stories paves the way for them to win awards from assorted professed “virtue-signaling” organizations. Third, many journalists believe that writing anti-Israel reports give them access to so-called “liberals” and a supposedly “enlightened” coterie who romanticize being “on the right side of history.” They do not want to see that 21 Muslim states have been trying for many decades to destroy one Jewish state; instead, they appear to think that if journalists are “liberal” and “open-minded,” they need to support the “underdog,” who they believe are “the Palestinians.” Fourth, many of the journalists see the conflict as being between bad guys (supposedly the Israelis) and good guys (supposedly the Palestinians) and that it is their duty to stand with the “good guys,” even if the “good guys” are engaged in violence and terrorism.
Recently, more than 300 Muslim worshipers were massacred by Muslim terrorists while praying in a mosque in Sinai, Egypt. That tragedy was probably covered by fewer journalists than the orchestrated Trump-poster episode in Bethlehem. Where was the outcry in the Arab and Islamic world? Now, Arabs and Muslims are talking about “days of rage” in protest against Trump. Why were there no “days of rage” in the Arab and Islamic countries when more than 300 worshipers, many of them children, were massacred during Friday prayers?
It is high time for some self-reflection on the part of the media: Do they really wish to continue serving as a mouthpiece for those Arabs and Muslims who intimidate and terrorize the West?
Journalists are actively colluding with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to create the false impression that World War III will erupt if the US embassy is moved to Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians have been massacred since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” more than six years ago. They were killed by Muslim terrorists and other Arabs. The bloodshed continues to this day in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Egypt.
So, make no mistake about it: the “rivers of blood” we are being promised are flowing as we speak. Yet, it is the knife that Arabs and Muslims take to one another’s throats that is the source of this crimson current, not some statement made by a US president. Perhaps that could finally be an event worth covering by the roving reporters of the region?
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.
A picture taken from the Mount of Olives shows the Old City of Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock mosque in the centre / Getty Images
I lived in Jerusalem, Israel, for two happy years, and much of my work ever since has involved U.S.-Israel relations. I should know better, yet still I am surprised at the rending of garments and apocalyptic predictions pouring forth from western pundits over something that will not change a single stone in the holy city, or a single person’s access to its holy sites, or a single border—and that overwhelming majorities of Congress and virtually every president and presidential candidate has endorsed for decades. Chalk it up in part to the hysteria that has characterized our political debates in the past two years, and also in part to the enormous influence that former Obama administration officials have in setting media narratives and frames for covering issues on which the current president repudiates the approach of the previous one. So here are some notes of calm, in no particular order:
One of the first arguments critics make against recognizing Jerusalem is that it would so anger the Palestinians that the peace process would never recover. But the Palestinians have rejected every offer of statehood, and have not been willing to engage in real talks with Israel since the Bush administration. They’re already unwilling to negotiate, and were especially unwilling during the Obama years, when the president was openly acting as their advocate. If they are so incensed that the United States is finally acknowledging the plain fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel that they will never talk again, it tells us that a negotiated agreement was never possible in the first place. Despite the likelihood of protests and perhaps some violence in the next few days, U.S. recognition of Jerusalem will actually promote peace in the long run because it will help disabuse the Arab world of its fantasy of Israeli impermanence. It will also show Palestinians for the very first time that their rejectionism has costs, and will not permanently paralyze U.S. policy toward Israel. The cause of peace is weakened so long as the Arab self-delusion about Israel’s impermanence is encouraged by U.S. policy.
Another argument common among Middle East pseudo-sophisticates is that recognizing Jerusalem would drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab states, right at the moment when the threat from Iran is bringing them together. This sounds plausible, but the opposite is probably true. The Arab states’ recent rapprochement with Israel is not ideological—it is expedient, because the Arabs are comparatively weak and are seeking protection from a stronger power. Israel’s embrace of U.S. recognition doesn’t change this reality. Indeed, by confidently demonstrating its willingness to assume risk, and by showing its closeness to America, Israel’s attractiveness to the Arab states who need its help against Iran only increases. Arab regimes will howl in public, but in private they will understand that only a strong, determined country can protect them. And that understanding will draw them closer to Israel.
The most craven argument against recognition is that it will spark Arab violence. This argument is being aggressively promoted by former Obama administration officials and their media allies, and by Palestinian and Jordanian officials, who barely attempt to conceal their mau-mauing of western countries with threats of rioting and terrorism. The United States’ response to this tactic should be to tell them to pound sand. The United States cannot allow Middle Eastern rent-a-mobs to exercise a veto over our foreign policy, especially not on an issue in which the threat of violence originates in the rank anti-Semitism of Islamists who deny Jewish history in Israel and Jewish political rights in the region. If the King of Jordan wants to send crowds of his subjects into the streets to riot, that is his problem. What has been pathetic and depressing to witness is the astounding number of western reporters and pundits who are happy to retail a messaging campaign that is barely distinguishable from blackmail.
Just got this in my in box from Ayman Odeh, leading Arab Israeli member of parliament: “Trump is a pyromaniac who could set the entire region on fire with his madness.
Speaking of westerners who are happy to promote Islamist blackmail: The hypocrisy of their sudden concern for violence in the Middle East can only be described as shameless. The very same people—the Obama administration officials and their media and think tank friends—who made endless excuses for doing nothing about the mass slaughter in Syria or Iran’s takeover of Iraq/fueling of war in Yemen, and who cheered the nuclear deal with Iran, which filled the coffers of the leading state sponsor of terror with billions and put it on a glide path to nuclear weapons—these very same people are now so concerned about peace and stability in the Middle East that they need fainting couches over a speech that recognizes Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. How stupid do they think we are?
A final thought: what to make of the hysterics from the peace-process guild, that class of Washington analysts, diplomats, and former officials who have made careers of attempting to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace? Their supercilious denunciations of Trump’s announcement mask an undercurrent of fear – fear for the loss of their own status. They understand, I think, that for them, recognizing Jerusalem represents much more than a discrete policy change. It raises fundamental questions about a cherished multi-decade American diplomatic project, one that has been a pillar of Democratic foreign policy since the early 1990s.
Through three administrations, the script has remained the same: America brokers talks in which the parties reach compromises on the issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees, settlements, and security, at which point an agreement is signed and everyone involved receives the Nobel Peace Prize and recognition in history as consequential statesmen. Needless to say, this script hasn’t worked. There is not a single issue on which the two sides have ever come close to reaching an agreement.
But for the peace process guild, that’s not a problem. The important thing is to keep trying, to remain guardians of the issue, and to treat alternative approaches with so much contempt and ridicule that they are never given serious consideration.
In recognizing Jerusalem, Trump is showing that this tired script need not be followed—and that this tired guild need not be obeyed. The peace process community correctly recognizes that Trump’s announcement is not just a policy change, but an attack on their authority. And so they are desperate for it to fail, and one senses based on their breathless tweeting over the past few days that many in this community would experience enormous schadenfreude should the coming days be marked by rioting and terror. Any other outcome makes them look like fearmongers, and delegitimizes the other counsel they dispense.
If a president can show that adherence to the traditional confines of the peace process is unnecessary on Jerusalem, why can’t he do it on other issues? Trump’s announcement is not significant in terms of changing facts on the ground, because Jerusalem has always been Israel’s capital. But it may be very significant for the peace process and the network of experts, think tanks, journalists, politicians, diplomats, and ex-officials who have so much vanity and prestige invested in protecting a failed understanding of the region.
A few days after the US and South Korea launched a joint air drill, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official issued a fierce statement on behalf of the deputy minister. “The large-scale drills that the US is conducting with the South Korean military and the American threats of a preemptive strike against Pyongyang make war on the Korean Peninsula unavoidable,” he warned.
North Korean soldiers Photo Credit: Reuters/Channel 2 News
In a sharp statement issued Thursday morning, the North Korean deputy foreign minister warned that the outbreak of war with the US is unavoidable, adding that Pyongyang will make “the US will pay dearly.”
The statement was released by the deputy minister’s spokesperson via the state news agency KCNA. “The large-scale drills that the US is conducting with the South Korean military and the American threats of a preemptive strike against Pyongyang make war on the Korean Peninsula unavoidable,” the statement read. The warning was most likely a response to the major US-South Korean air drill that began earlier this week.
“The only question left is when the war will break out,” the official stressed. “We are not hoping for a war but we are also not hiding from one. The Americans shouldn’t misinterpret our patience and light the fuse for a nuclear war. We will certainly make the United States pay dearly using our great nuclear power.”
Earlier this week, JOL reported that the US and South Korean militaries launched a large-scale joint air drill dubbed Vigilant Ace. The drill began less than a week after Pyongyang’s latest missile launch, which reportedly demonstrated an unprecedented breakthrough in its ballistic missile capability.
The annual drill will include a total of 230 aircraft that will operate from various locations. North Korea has warned against the pre-planned air drill, saying it could lead to a nuclear war. Seoul’s Defense Ministry spokesman said during a press conference that the drill was designed to enhance the wartime operational cooperation between the two allies.
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