Posted tagged ‘Jerusalem – status’

America is re-establishing reason and a respect for facts

December 7, 2017

America is re-establishing reason and a respect for facts, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, December 6, 2017

(Please see also, A Two State Solution for Europe? — DM)

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.

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!

Report: Trump expected to move embassy to Jerusalem within days

November 30, 2017

Report: Trump expected to move embassy to Jerusalem within days, Israel National News, David Rosenberg, November 29, 2017

TrumpReuters

Israeli officials expect President Donald Trump to announce plans to relocate the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the coming days, and to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

According to a report by Channel 2, senior Israeli officials have claimed that the Israeli government expects an announcement from the president in the coming days regarding the Israeli capital, following a comment by Vice President Mike Pence at a special event in Manhattan on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Israeli mission to the United Nations to mark the 70th anniversary of the historic United Nations General Assembly vote on Resolution 181, endorsing the establishment of a Jewish state, Pence said that the president is “actively considering” moving the embassy, calling it a matter of “when and how”.

“President Donald Trump is actively considering when and how to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Pence said.

Senior officials in Jerusalem told Channel 2, President Trump is expected to authorize the relocating of the embassy even before his administration presents its plans for a regional peace deal.

The sources claim that Trump has resolved not to renew a waiver allowing the embassy to remain in Tel Aviv.

In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, requiring the president to move the US embassy to Israel’s capital.

The law, which was signed by President Clinton, despite his own opposition to the bill, after it passed with broad bipartisan support.

Under the law, the president may delay implementation of the act for security reasons, renewing the waiver every six months.

In June, President Trump renewed the waiver, despite a campaign pledge to move the embassy.

Unconfirmed reports claim that President Trump is set to announce the formation of a special team to implement the embassy move.

Earlier this month, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman reiterated his belief that President Trump would in fact relocate the embassy, calling the move a matter of ‘when, not if’.

“The president has also made clear that he intends to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when. And I take the president at his word, and I’m personally committed to do all that I can to advocate for this move.”

Best Not to Move US Embassy to Jerusalem Until US law is Changed

June 4, 2017

Best Not to Move US Embassy to Jerusalem Until US law is Changed, The Jewish PressDavid Bedein, June 4, 2017

(Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, when U.S. law does not even recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel, would be a symbolic act, but not a good one. Is anyone trying asking the Congress to change the law? If not, why not?– DM)

US Embassy in Israel, currently located in Tel Aviv

Meanwhile, the delay in the application of the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem can now energize the advocates of the US initiative to recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel and to campaign for the US Congress and White House to act upon legislative changes that should take place before the US embassy is moved.

If the US embassy had moved to Jerusalem under the current constraints of US law, that would have established the “de jure” precedent that the US embassy would move without recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.

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Covering events in the US capitol when Congress passed the “US Embassy Jerusalem and Recognition Act” in October 1995, there were great expectations that the US would then renounce its position adopted in 1948 that Jerusalem would not be recognized as a part of Israel.

There was also speculation that the US would abandon its position from 1948 stating that all of Jerusalem must be a corpus separatum – an international zone.

However, the final wording of the US Embassy Jerusalem and Recognition Act removed any explicit references to Jerusalem as part of Israel and made no promise that Jerusalem would remain the exclusive capital of Israel.

The late Faisal Husseini, head of the PLO Jerusalem committee, was present in Washington at the time, as was the architect of the Oslo process, Yossi Beilin, who was then the deputy foreign minister of Israel.  Both Husseini and Beilin endorsed the new wording of the US Embassy Jerusalem and Recognition Act in 1995, as it was passed into law.

In other words, the US embassy relocation act did not violate two cardinal rules of US policy since 1948; Jerusalem was not to be recognized as a part of Israel, and Jerusalem could still become an international zone.

The US Embassy Jerusalem and Recognition Act preceded the War of Independence, declaring that Jerusalem must be defined as an international zone under US trusteeship, and remain extraterritorial to Israel.  The US State Department went so far as to appoint its own governor for Jerusalem.  The assassination of the UN envoy to Jerusalem in September 1948 suspended that process, but did not cancel US policy.

A case in point:  The family of Ben Blutstein, a US citizen who was murdered by a terrorist bomb in July 2002 while eating lunch in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at the Hebrew University, could not get the US State Department to allow his US death certificate to read “Jerusalem, Israel.” The same US policy applies to birth certificates.  An American whose child is born in Jerusalem receives a birth certificate which defines the place of birth as Jerusalem, with no nation stated.

Meanwhile, the delay in the application of the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem can now energize the advocates of the US initiative to recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel and to campaign for the US Congress and White House to act upon legislative changes that should take place before the US embassy is moved.

If the US embassy had moved to Jerusalem under the current constraints of US law, that would have established the “de jure” precedent that the US embassy would move without recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.

If the US still does not recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel, the next time Israel objects to an Arab war education curriculum in Jerusalem, and the next time Israel objects to a given policy at the Western Wall, the US can simply repeat the mantra “Well, Jerusalem does not belong to you.”

Wise advice to those who have been so passionate in the fight to move the embassy to Jerusalem – Best to first ask Congress to enact a US law that would recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.