Jerusalem!

Breaking from his predecessors, President Trump today gave official US recognition to Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, and ordered the State Department to start the process of relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump: "Israel is a sovereign nation with the right, like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace." Exactly. How can we expect the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world to acknowledge the reality of Jerusalem as Israel's capital if the US and the rest of the Western world will not do so?

Jerusalem has been the "capital" of the Jewish people for 3000 years, and the official capital of the modern State of Israel since its birth in 1948. The Left, including the Jewish Left, has it backwards. For example, the VP of government affairs of "J Street" (which holds itself out as a pro-Israel group, but to conservatives appears to be anything but) said this: "It (the US embassy) shouldn't be moved prior to agreement by the parties to the conflict as part of a comprehensive agreement ending the conflict."

But for those who still foresee a possibility of peace, J Street and others on the Left have it backwards. As Oren Dorell noted in Today's USA Today: "The Palestinians have learned that by saying "no" they can always get something better next time. They have to learn that if they say no, next time they won't get the same offer." Yes, that is how the real world works. The appeasement promulgated by the Left never works. It has only encouraged the "Palestinians" to seek the ultimate destruction of Israel.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), having voted for the 1995 resolution for the US embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, is now suddenly opposed. Feinstein fears that the move will "spark violence, further alienate the United States and undermine the prospects of a two-state solution." Spark violence? That is the equivalent of giving a "heckler's veto" - denying the right to speak because the audience may behave badly. It is also similar to: "let the kid have what he wants so he stops crying/complaining."

The British and French, not surprisingly, are opposed to the move. British P.M. May said this: our "longstanding" position "is that the status of Jerusalem should be determined in negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians..." Oh, really? So, Madam Prime Minister, how is it that you and your French counterparts voted for the UN Security Council resolution on December 23, 2016, condemning Israel, and ceding "East Jerusalem" to the Palestinians? You ceded the holiest sites in Judaism to the Palestinians. You call that a negotiated settlement?

So how did the Arab/Palestinian world react to Trump's declaration? Let's see. The Palestinians were burning the US flag in Gaza. (Meanwhile, Israel was projecting a large image of the US flag on the Western Wall.) Hamas said that Trump opened "the gates of hell." And in case anyone doubts their intentions, Hamas also said that Trump's action "will not succeed in changing the reality of Jerusalem being Islamic Arab land." How is that? The Jewish people have been around for over 3000 years; Islam started in about 600 C.E. That's 1400 years by my count. And the PA's chief representative to Britain said this: "He (Trump) is declaring war in the Middle East, he is declaring war against 1.5 billion Muslims."

None of that is true. Trump did not declare that Israel will maintain sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. The placement of the US embassy will undoubtedly be in the western part of Jerusalem, where the Israeli government offices are, and have been, for the last 70 years. Trump: "But today we finally acknowledge the obvious. That Jerusalem is Israel's capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality." By making this move Trump is showing his conservative stripes - he is letting reality dictate his belief about where the embassy should be. We'll allow the Left to continue in their dream world of letting their beliefs dictate their reality.

I cannot end this post without once again demonstrating the total lack of candor and honesty displayed by the New York Times in their December 6, 2017 editorial on Trump's anticipated announcement on Jerusalem. They claim that the big winner is Israeli PM Netanyahu, "whose hard-line government has shown no serious interest in peace." What "interest in peace" have the Arabs shown? Would that be all the thousands of missiles launched at Israel? The intifadas? The paying of thousands of dollars (US dollars, no less) to the murderers of Israelis? Then, the Times resorts to the Left-wing hand-wringing over what the reaction of the Arab world will be, as if it has been wonderful to date. Then, this gem - after expecting the negative reaction from the Saudis, they write that "Jerusalem is home to the Aqsa Mosque and that the Saudi king holds the title of custodian of Islam's two other holiest mosques, in Mecca and Medina."

Nice deflection. The Times, the so-called "paper of record," with "all the news that's fit to print," does not bother to inform its readers of the following little tidbit. After Israel won the the 1967 war, and captured the rest of Jerusalem with the Jewish Holy sites and the Aqsa Mosque, they turned over control of the Temple Mount where the mosque sits to the Jordanian Waqf. That's right. The Temple Mount, also the holiest site in Judaism, was turned over to the Jordanians. Keep in mind that when the Jordanians had control from 1948 until the 1967 war, Israelis were not given access to their holy sites. Under Israeli military control, Jews, Christians and Muslims all have access to their holy sites. Just a little tidbit that the "paper of record" did not see fit to comment upon.