“Thank you, President Trump,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed, “for having the courage to keep your promises!” Netanyahu declared the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem as a “great day for Israel, a great day for America,” but also “a great day for peace.”
Trump pre-empted the praise with his own prerecorded speech for the ceremony, declaring that “it’s been a long time coming,” and “that for many years, we failed to acknowledge the obvious”:
“This city and this entire nation is a testament to the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people,” he said. “The United States will always be a great friend of Israel.”
The president went on to express his hope for peace in the region in the video message.
“We extend a hand in friendship to Israel, to Palestinians and to all of their neighbors. May there be peace. May God bless this embassy. May God bless all who serve there, and may God bless the United States of America,” Trump said.
Netanyahu followed Trump’s presentation with a longer address, in which he also personally thanked Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Continuing on a personal reflection, Netanyahu recalled his boyhood days in this same neighborhood, long before it got built up into its modern form. He told the crowd that his mother warned him not to wander too far into the neighborhood as it sat near the green line, and its streets were exposed to sniper fire. “What a difference!” Netanyahu proclaimed:
“We are here in Jersualem,” Netanyahu declared, “and we are here to stay!” That’s been obvious for decades, even as outside militaries and terror groups have tried to push Israel off its land and out of its capital. After the 1967 war, in which Jordan and Syria both lost territory (West Bank and Golan Heights, respectively) after attempting to relieve Egypt by opening new fronts in the east, it’s been clear that Israel (a) saw that territory as a necessary buffer after three separate attempts by Arab nations to invade through them, and (b) would never go back to agreeing that Jerusalem was an “open city.” Pretending otherwise made everyone look foolish and perpetuated false hopes in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
As Jeff B noted earlier today, the most virtuous aspect of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is the discarding of 50 years of ignoring reality:
I grudgingly hand it to Trump – never in 100yrs did I think the U.S. Israeli embassy would actually be moved to Jerusalem per his campaign promise but by gum he went and did it and demonstrated how pointless the longstanding refusal to acknowledge reality on the ground there was.
As Trump himself said, we refused to acknowledge the obvious for more than fifty years. It’s possible that this will exacerbate tensions and make peace more difficult to achieve, but … what has the fifty years of fantasy diplomacy achieved? We still have Mahmoud Abbas spouting nonsensical genealogical arguments to paint the entire state of Israel as illegitimate and no movement at all on numerous peace proposals offered by previous administrations that played along with Abbas’ nuttiness.
We’ve tried pretending for fifty years. Maybe a hard dose of reality is worth trying at this point. It certainly couldn’t do any worse.
Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. By finally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States has chosen fact over fiction. And fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace. https://t.co/u4wNzgrYP4
And count Chuck Schumer as one of the people cheering Trump in this instance:
Schumer: In a long overdue move, we have moved our embassy to Jerusalem. Every nation should have the right to choose its capital. I sponsored legislation to do this two decades ago, and I applaud President Trump for doing it.
No surprise there. Chuckie has always put Israel first. It's what keeps getting him re-elected.
It was killing him not to be there personally to try to grab more glory for himself. It had to gall him to have to thank Trump for it though. Those had to be tough words to swallow for that schmuck. : )
Turkey conquered northern Cyprus, took it for itself, then colonized the conquered territory. Kind of a replay of the Armenian holocaust. And they didn't do this in WW II but in the Seventies.
Turkey is far more a group of war criminals than Israel is. And they don't want anyone to dare mention Cyprus or the Armenians. And no one ever mentions Cyprus. Or the Armenians.
And they signed that contract to buy the S-400 missiles, which are not compatible with NATO systems. This is a clear violation of NATO treaty requirements that all members must use interoperable equipment and that they will not operate any incompatible equipment.
NATO needs to eject Turkey. They are not an ally, as they demonstrated during the Iraq invasion.
The 1948 Israeli War of Independence was between the neighboring Arab countries and the newly formed state of Israel. The Arab countries did not send troops to help the people that are today known as "Palestinians" but rather they sent troops to drive the Jews into the sea. Most of the "Palestinian Arabs" fled to avoid the fighting. Remember, in 1948 they were not referred to as "Palestinians". This name was was created by the Soviet disinformation masters in 1964 when they created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The term "Palestinian People" as a description of Arabs in Palestine appeared for the first time in the preamble of the 1964 PLO Charter, drafted in Moscow. The Charter was affirmed by the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council, handpicked by the KGB. This term was formally used by newspapers around the world after 1967.
United Nations Resolution 181 recommended a partition of the territory from the British Mandate for Palestine into two states - one for Jews and one for Palestinian Arabs. But the rejection of partition by the Arabs left in place as the legally operative Mandate for Palestine, the 1924 Anglo-American Convention, and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. All of the Arab countries objected to the creation of the Jewish state and fought a war against its creation. This was Israel's War of Independence in 1948. Despite their superior numbers, the Arab countries lost the war and the Palestinian state never materialized because of this loss. In the war that was waged, the territory allotted to be the Palestinian state by the UN partition resolution was divided between Israel and Jordan. The "Palestinian Arabs" were rejected by every single Arab country, with the exception of the small percentage that ended up in refugee camps in Jordan where they remain to this day.
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Myths
The "Palestinian People" have an historic connection to the land.
This is very interesting since there is no such thing as a "Palestinian People". When the Romans changed the name of Israel to Palestine, the people living there at the time were Jews, not Arabs. If there had been a "Palestinian People", which there never was, they would have been Jews.
The Palestinian People have been in the land from time immemorial.
For centuries pre-Israel Palestine was a forgotten, desolate wasteland inhabited by a remnant of Jews, along with some Christians and wandering Bedouins who certainly had no thought of a national identity of any kind.
There were no Jews in Palestine until Israel became a state in 1948.
The Romans officially banished the Jews from Israel (Palestine) in 135 CE. However, historical records show there was always a Jewish presence in the land. While many were scattered, other Jews simply moved out of harm's way until a less hostile power ruled the land. Jews were returning to what is now Israel well before 1948. Many left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
Arabs and Jews lived in harmony before Israel became a state.
Throughout the centuries, Jews as well as Christians, living under Islamic rule suffered persecution and humiliation, the intensity of which was determined by the character of a particular Moslem ruler. As second-class citizens, there was never a "good time" for non-Muslims living under Islamic rule. Because of the way that most Islamic countries look down on non-Muslims, they are always considered second-class citizens and less than equal. Arabs have rarely lived in harmony with anyone if they were the majority.
The returning Jews displaced the Palestinian Arabs
The ancestors of most of the present-day Arab population migrated to the land after Jewish pioneers began to reclaim the land. They came from many different countries and were not original inhabitants of the land.
The Jews stole Arab land
Jews returning to the land settled on unclaimed, unoccupied land or bought land from absentee Arab landowners at outrageously high prices. This is a matter of record.
The Jews forced Arabs to flee Palestine
When Israel was declared a state in 1948, leaders from the surrounding Arab countries declared war on Israel and instructed the Arab civilians living in the land to flee until the Jews were annihilated. Israeli leaders, to no avail, urged the Arabs to stay. Property that they owned was abandoned.
The Jews caused the Arab refugee problem
If Arab countries would assimilate and care for the "Palestinian" refugees, as Israel did for their Jewish refugees, there would be no refugee problem. Instead they use the refugees as political pawns in their struggle against Israel. No Arab country that wants "Palestinian Arabs" in their country as they would rather use the "Palestinian Arabs" as pawns rather than assimilate them into their populations and bring peace to the Middle East.
Israel is the aggressor against defenseless Palestinians
In its brief history, Israel has had one war after another and each time they are blamed as the aggressor. The Arabs do not recognize the right of Israel to exist and are in a constant state of hostility against Israel. Their aim is to destroy Israel.
Jerusalem is holy to Muslims
While Jerusalem is mentioned over eight hundred times in the Bible, it is not mentioned one time in the Koran. Muslims have had little or no interest in Jerusalem until the Jewish presence in modern times.
In its brief history, Israel has had one war after another and each time they are blamed as the aggressor. The Arabs do not recognize the right of Israel to exist and are in a constant state of hostility against Israel. Their aim is to destroy Israel.
Jerusalem is holy to Muslims
We can sum this up as the longest living example of a religious war to determine whose "God" has the "biggest pair".
The Jews have been fighting with their neighbors ever since the first Jew was born.
Not really.
Nobody knows what happened in really ancient history. Maybe the Bible is a somewhat accurate historical record, maybe not, but it seems as though everybody was fighting everybody back then, and there's nothing that particularly distinguished the Jews as having been particularly bellicose, as compared to the Gauls or Germans or Romans or Greeks or Assyrians or Huns or whomever.
After they rebelled against Rome for the second time, they were splattered, everything destroyed, shipped all over the place as slaves.
When did the Jews fight with anybody from about 140 AD until 1948? They had no country and they were minorities everywhere. Lots of people didn't like them, for religious reasons, but where did Jews actually organize and fight? They didn't. Couldn't.
Starting with the Zionist movement in the early 20th Century, some Jews stirred up trouble in Palestine. Pretty small beer considering that the European and US empires were all aggressively expanding and taking vast swathes of territory by force at the time.
Certainly from 1948 until today the Jews in Israel have been at the center of a maelstrom of fighting, for survival.
Tough to call 70 years of fighting in the last 1970 "always fighting their neighbors". Every other major nation has been a lot worse than THAT.
When they were lending various Kings the money to wage wars.
They lent money. The Kings and their tribes took the money because they wanted it, and did the fighting because they wanted to. The Jews of Europe saw a business opportunity and seized it. They didn't cause the wars: the bellicosity of non-Jews did that. Nor did they fight the wars: the Europeans chose to do that of their own volition.
The Jews provided money for that, and every other enterprise. So did Gentile bankers like the Medicis. Barclay's Bank was founded by a Quaker.
In the Middle Ages, Jews often had the money lending monopoly because the Christians read their Bible to forbid the charging of interest among Christians. But Jews could do it, and Christians wanted to borrow money, so Jews were encouraged to do it.
That's akin to saying Hitler didn't murder anyone.
Without the loans the wars wouldn't have happened.
The Jews provided money for that, and every other enterprise. So did Gentile bankers like the Medicis. Barclay's Bank was founded by a Quaker.
Ad the only reason they aren't as guilty as the Jews is because they haven't been doing it as long.
NONE of those bankers were stupid or even ignorant of the death and destruction their money would bring about. They just didn't care because all they cared about were profits.
Just like their modern-day replacements sitting on Wall Street.
