A Los Angeles litigator courageously stands in solidarity with Israel: channeling his aggressive zealous advocacy on behalf of Israel. Defending the State of Israel's: right to exist, right to protect her citizens from terrorism, right to defend her borders from hostile enemies. Prosecuting and impeaching Israel's defamers.
Iran today announced the Israel Hourglass Festival, a planned annual gathering and contest to countdown to Israel's destruction within 25 years, as Ayatollah Khamenei has predicted.
The festival’s press conference was held on Tuesday in Tehran, during which the main agenda and objectives of the festival were explained by the organizers.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Secretary-General of the International Conference on Supporting Palestinian Intifada and an international advisor to Iran’s Parliament Speaker, told the press conference that the “Hourglass Festival” is a symbol of the imminent collapse of the Zionist regime of Israel, as predicted by the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
He emphasized that fighting Israel is part of Iran’s national security because if the country fails to overcome the Zionists near their borders, it will have to fight against them in Tehran where they are assassination Iranian scientists and citizens.
Asked about the Islamic Republic’s plan to realize the victory of Palestinians over the Israeli regime, he said Iran is not the only one responsible for supporting the Palestinian cause, and all Muslim states must play their role in this regard.
He said he cannot publicize the Islamic Republic’s plan to realize the Leader’s prediction that the Israeli regime will collapse within 25 years, but it will definitely happen.
It is essentially a contest for people to submit anti-Israel videos, posters, cartoons, mobile apps, mobile and web-based games, social media and websites, where they will be publicly displayed in Tehran in April.
The subjects of the submissions to the festival are:
Why down with Israel?
The Quds-occupier regime (Israel) and human rights;
The Quds-occupier regime (Israel) and oppression;
How did the Quds-occupier regime (Israel) form?
The Quds-occupier regime (Israel) and Islamophobia;
The Quds-occupier regime (Israel) and terrorism promotion;
Zionist child- killing regime;
The Quds-occupier regime (Israel) would not survive the next 25 years;
Israel, a cancerous tumor;
Israel, a fake, racist and colonialist regime
Note that Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says that Israel's destruction is not merely a prediction but an active plan by Iran.
There is a large countdown clock in Tehran showing the supposed number of days Israel has left before it is destroyed in 2040, since Khamenei made his prediction in 2015.
It is unclear why the festival shows 25 years instead of 22 years to adjust for the original timeframe. Maybe it isn't as catchy, and this festival is all about creating memes.
One other part about the announcement that is interesting
The organizers will work with 2,400 anti-Israel NGOs in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Eastern Asia to promote the festival across the world, Qomi said.
2400 anti-Israel NGOs? That's more than one NGO for every 3000 Israeli Jews.
I'm curious if Iran is counting Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem and Oxfam in their count of anti-Israel NGOs.
Every week, Rami Hamdallah, the "prime minister" of the Palestinian Authority, a person who has no real power, has a cabinet meeting where pronouncements are made and nothing is actually done.
The statements do show how much the Palestinian Authority likes to fool itself, and its own people.
The Israeli government will pass a law to impose Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, annexing settlement blocs and retaining the Jordan Valley. The Judaization and uprooting confirms the insistence of the Israeli government to renounce all agreements between the parties, a clear expression of its unwillingness to peace or any intention to reach a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Israel has tried to negotiate, the Palestinians refuse. Israel has shown willingness to compromise, Palestinians haven't. But the lies continue.
Taking such a step would not only be the end of the two-state solution, but the end of any hope for peace and would have repercussions for the entire region.
I am still astounded that these regular threats - couched in terms of warnings - aren't recognized as such by the West.
And let me remind you of how seriously the Palestinians take the "two state solution" that they insist they want.
The Council saluted our people to continue expressing their rejection of the unjust American decision and condemned the serious Israeli escalation of the occupation against our defenseless people, which led in recent days to the martyrdom of a number of Palestinian citizens and the occurrence of dozens of injuries, in addition to the wide circle of raids and incursions.
The "salute" includes the two Palestinians who stabbed two rabbis to death, which is what prompted the raids and arrests. The Palestinian leadership tacitly supports such murders.
The Council condemned the draft racist law submitted by the Minister of the Israeli war, "Avigdor Lieberman," deducting the allocations of prisoners and families of the martyrs, from the funds of the Palestinian clearing.
Yes, they are defending paying terrorists and their families - and saying that anyone who disagrees is a "racist."
The Council also condemned the Israeli intention to allow humanitarian aid to be provided by the international institutions to the Gaza Strip while continuing its unjust siege for the eleventh year in a row. Life, it bears full responsibility for the suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip.
Unreal - the PA, which only allowed Israel to restore electricity to Gaza when threatened by Israel, which withholds funds for hospitals and medicines and fuel for Gaza, is complaining when Israel allows humanitarian aid into Gaza - and blames Israel for the situation there, a situation that the PA has been actively exacerbating for the past year!
If only there was a truly free Palestinian media. If only there were journalists on the ground there who had the guts to report on the truth (outside a few Israelis.) If only there was a real opposition movement that truly wanted peace.
Nikki Haley: Jerusalem has been political, cultural, spiritual homeland of Jewish people for thousands of years; U.S. will not be told where we can put our embassy
Below are excerpts of U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley's remarks after the vote. Click here for video and full text.
I have been the proud Representative of the United States at the United Nations for nearly a year now. This is the first time I have exercised the American right to veto a resolution in the Security Council. The exercise of the veto is not something the United States does often. We have not done it in more than six years. We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance.
The fact that this veto is being done in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.
What is troublesome to some people is not that the United States has harmed the peace process – we have, in fact, done no such thing. Rather, what is troublesome to some people is that the United States had the courage and honesty to recognize a fundamental reality.
Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. They have had no other capital city. But the United States’ recognition of the obvious – that Jerusalem is the capital and seat of the modern Israeli government – is too much for some.
First, some have threatened violence on the street, as if violence would somehow improve the prospects of peace.
Now today, buried in diplomatic jargon, some presume to tell America where to put our embassy. The United States’ has a sovereign right to determine where and whether we establish an embassy. I suspect very few Member States would welcome Security Council pronouncements about their sovereign decisions. And I think of some who should fear it.
The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.
Buried even deeper in the jargon of this resolution is the accusation that the United States is setting back the prospects of peace in the Middle East. That is a scandalous charge. Those who are making it should consider that it only harms the very Palestinian people they claim to speak for. What does it gain the Palestinian people for their leaders to throw up roadblocks to negotiations?
A “peace process” that is damaged by the simple recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is not a peace process; it is a justification for an endless stalemate. What does it gain the Palestinian people for some of their leaders to accuse the United States of being hostile to the cause of peace? It gains them nothing, but it risks costing them a great deal.
The United States has done more than any other country to assist the Palestinian people. By far. Since 1994, we have given over $5 billion to the Palestinians in bilateral economic assistance, security assistance, and humanitarian assistance.
What we witnessed here today in the Security Council is an insult. It won’t be forgotten. It’s one more example of the United Nations doing more harm than good in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today, for the simple act of deciding where to put our embassy, the United States was forced to defend its sovereignty. The record will reflect that we did so proudly. Today, for acknowledging a basic truth about the capital city of Israel, we are accused of harming peace. The record will reflect that we reject that outrageous claim.
For these reasons, and with the best interests of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people firmly in mind, the United States votes no on this resolution.
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. All 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 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 U.S. 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 is 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 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 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 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 it.
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.
It is time for the many who desire peace to expel the extremists from their midsts. 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.
I lived in Jerusalem, Israel, for two happy years, and much of my work 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:
1. 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 recognizing Jerusalem that they will never talk again, it tells us that a negotiated agreement was never possible in the first place.
2. Despite the likelihood of protests and perhaps 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 that it will not permanently paralyze U.S. policy toward Israel. The cause of peace is weakened so long as the delusion of Israel’s impermanence is encouraged by U.S. policy.
3. 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 understand that only a strong, focused country can protect them. And that understanding will draw them closer to Israel.
4. 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. We cannot allow Middle East 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 those who deny Jewish history and Jewish political rights in Israel. 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.
5. Speaking of westerners who are happy to promote 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 and 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 an isolated policy change. It raises fundamental questions about a cherished multi-decade American diplomatic project, one that has been a pillar of Democratic Party foreign policy since the early 1990s.
Through three administrations, the script and the goals have 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 is 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 wish 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 quite significant for 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.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center applauds President Trump for his historic decision for the United States to correct a 69 year-old travesty and finally recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the State of Israel.
“Every nation in the world has the right to designate its own capital — except for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“President Trump's decision should inspire leading nations of the world, led by Canada, Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom to follow suit,” he added.
“This historic decision will ultimately serve the cause of peace and reconciliation. Millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims, as well as people of all faiths, have flocked to Jerusalem since 1967, knowing that unlike the years preceding the Six-Day War, everyone's rights to visit and pray are protected. Millions more will now follow,” Hier added.
“Like President Harry Truman’s singular recognition of the State of Israel, President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, will be a seminal moment in Jewish history,” Rabbi Hier concluded.
Thank you, President Trump, for again keeping your promise.
Now that he formally has announced that the United States of America fully recognizes Jerusalem as the undisputed capital of the country of Israel, President Donald Trump once again has proven that he is the first American President since Ronald Reagan who actually fulfills campaign promises he made to the American people who elected him. He promised to nominate to the United States Supreme Court a brilliant conservative judicial intellect in the tradition of the late Justice Antonin Scalia — and he named Neil Gorsuch to the High Court. He promised to continue naming impeccable conservative judges to the federal courts, and he continually has been doing so. He promised to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. To tighten the southern border and to begin the process of building a wall to choke off the opioids supply while addressing a broken and corrupted immigration policy.
He promised to roll back taxes to make American businesses competitive with those around the world, while ramping up the economy and laying the foundation for the creation of more jobs. He promised to address the regulatory stranglehold that has choked American energy and commerce. He walked away from the European climate conference and the Trans-Pacific boondoggle. He has confronted NAFTA and ended the nonsense of other multi-lateral global trade plans that always leave America subject to being cheated with little recourse. He is attempting to cut federal funds from Secessionist (“Sanctuary”) cities and “Resistance” states that defy the government of the United States. He has taken demonstrable steps to improve medical care for veterans. Hydraulic fracturing, oil exploration, clean coal development, and the entire gamut of all forms of energy harnessing now are back on the table, as he fulfills his promise to make America more energy-independent and thus less hostage to the fickle designs of tyrannical oil sheikdoms and two-bit dictatorships. He does not bow down to sheiks nor salsa with tyrants.
And now he has fulfilled his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the country of Israel.
Bill Clinton made that exact same promise, too. But he lied. Then George W. Bush promised the same — and he lied. Then Obama promised the same — If you like your capital, you can keep your capital — and he lied. Each one looked voters squarely in the faces and made the same bold promise, backed fully by Congressional bipartisan approval in a 1995 law that authorized such recognition, yet each knew he never would do it. And then came Donald Trump, uttering the same pledge — but this time honoring his word in his very first year in office. Thus, the promise to move America’s Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has become the Political Rosetta Stone of the Modern Age that deciphers whether a President is a bald-faced liar or can be trusted to do his best to honor and execute the promises that brought him into office.
As the chicken-hearted, yellow-bellied, lily-livered, gutless and spineless leaders of Western Civilization from Western Europe to New Zealand now shake and tremble in the face of a simple truth that they all know — that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel — we may expect to hear the meme interminably day-and-night, until the next television or movie icon’s pants fall, that “This decision now threatens the Middle East ‘Peace Process.’” For the last fifty years, someone in a European capital and in the U.S. State Department has uttered that sentence at least once weekly. If Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston divorce, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Megyn Kelly ever gets ratings on NBC, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Hillary Clinton admits that she knowingly spoliated those emails and that they had nothing to do with yoga, yogurt, or Chelsea’s wedding, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Netflix raises its prices again, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie divorce, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Eli Manning does not start for the New York Giants, or if Colin Kaepernick does start anywhere, it will endanger the Middle East peace process. If Bill Clinton admits that he raped Juanita Broaddrick, it will endanger the Middle East peace process.
So, while other experts debate the meme, let us share a secret: There is no Middle East “peace process” and there has not been a “Middle East peace process” for decades. It is a sham.
When Bill Clinton was President, only one person got to see him in the White House more often and closer-up than did Monica Lewinsky: Yasser Arafat. Arafat visited the White House more than did any other foreign visitor. With Clinton brutally pressuring Israel’s most ineffective and hapless Prime Minister in its history, Ehud Barak, Arafat was promised virtually everything he always had said he was demanding — but the butcher turned it down anyway and instead launched a civilian war, the so-called “intifada.”
Arafat and his cronies, chief among them Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian Authority dictator who now is entering the thirteenth year of his four-year elected term in office, never wanted a final agreement that would recognize the permanent existence of a non-Muslim, Jewish-majority country in the Middle East. There never was a “Middle East Peace Process.” Rather, it was a “Piece Process”: Fool one American President to get us a piece of the Sinai, the next to get us a piece of the Golan Heights, the next to get a piece of Gaza. There never was a “Peace Process” — and, if one simply pauses to contemplate the reality of the terrain and the demography, the painful conclusion is that a “Two-State Solution” is best when not contemplated. Consider:
Before June 1967, an Arab Muslim polity (Egypt) held Gaza, an Arab Muslim polity (Syria) held the Golan Heights, and an Arab Muslim polity (Jordan) held Judea and Samaria (misnomered the “West Bank”). Yet in 1964, three years before June 1967, the Arab world created the “Palestine Liberation Organization” (PLO). Which “Palestine” did that “organization” set about to “liberate” in 1964? Not Gaza, Golan, and Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). Jordanian Olympic athletes were not attacked for “occupying the West Bank.” Nor were Egyptian school children for “occupying Gaza.” Nor Syrian civilians for “occupying the Golan.” Rather, all PLO terror attacks, from the PLO’s 1964 founding through June 1967, aimed within pre-June 1967 Israel. That is what the PLO was organized to liberate: the “Palestine” that is Israel. Not Gaza, Golan, nor Judea and Samaria.
(By the way, how fascinating is the term “West Bank”! The Arab world could not assert with a straight face that “Judea and Samaria” belong to the PLO. So they gave it a different name. Only… they had no other name for it because Judea and Samaria never were part of their universe. Read the Torah. Read the Christian Gospels. Read the Encyclopedia Britannica before the 1960s. So, since Judea and Samaria lands are west of the Jordan River, they denominated it the “West Bank.” Anyone who has been there, to cities up and down Judea and Samaria, knows that the region is no river “bank,” not remotely close to the Jordan River. The term is a joke — akin to labeling Jersey City, Bayonne, Secaucus, and Hoboken the “West Bank” because of its immensely closer proximity to the Hudson River or calling the states of Arkansas or Iowa the “West Bank” because of proximity to the Mississippi.
(Yet the mainstream leftist media use the term “West Bank” rather than “Judea and Samaria” because they claim to shun the “Bibilical” name. But they call everywhere else in that region by their Biblical names: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Jericho, Hebron, Negev, Syria, Damascus, Lebanon, Tyre, Nineveh, Sidon, Jordan, Egypt. And Jerusalem… which brings back the fallacy of the “Mideast Peace Process” meme…)
Today more than 200,000 Jews live in the eastern part of Jerusalem and approximately 420,000 Jews live in approximately 150 cities and other communities throughout the rest of Judea and Samaria. The mainstream left media label these cities and communities “settlements.” The Ma’aleh Adumim “settlement” in Judea has approximately 40,000 residents (comparable to New Hampshire’s third largest city, Concord; Vermont’s largest city, Burlington; Cedar Falls, Iowa; Bozeman, Montana; and other such American “settlements”). The “settlement” of Ariel in Samaria has more than 20,000 residents and a full university. The “settlement” of Modi’in Illit has 70,000 residents. The Beitar Illit “settlement” has 52,000 people. Karnei Shomron in Samaria has close to 10,000 residents. The American “settlement” of Malibu is roughly the same size.
No one ever asks this question: Given that every single Arab Muslim polity — ever — has demanded that all Jews be uprooted and removed from East Jerusalem and from the rest of Judea and Samaria as part of any “Middle East Peace Process,” where exactly does that “Peace Process” contemplate re-settling those 620,000 Jews? And how would they do it? Would they refurbish Nazi Germany’s cattle cars, the only previous method used effectively in the last 500-plus years to relocate that many Jews from their homes? And how exactly would they be rounded up — these 620,000 Jews being relocated from the homes they have built and in which they have lived for decades? The Nazis found it effective initially to relocate them into walled ghettoes. But where would the “Middle East Peace Process” have them walled before forcing them onto the cattle cars? Has the “Peace Process” identified suitable ghetto areas for temporarily confining those 620,000 Jews?
And while thinking about it: After these 620,000 Jews are barbed-wired into walled ghettoes, and subsequently prodded onto cattle cars — exactly where will they be transported for a suitable final solution to house them under the “Middle East Peace Process”?
Auschwitz-Birkenau is not available; it currently is in use as a museum and commercial tourist spot. Dachau? Majdanek? Bergen-Belsen? Buchenwald? Treblinka? Sobibor? All fascinating options. Or will Saudi Arabia offer them housing? Presently, Jews and Christians are barred from setting foot in Mecca and Medina, but there is tell that some women now may drive in some places there, often without being stoned. Or Afghanistan? Syria? Iraq?
The earliest “Middle East Peace Process” for twenty years from 1948-1967 included a solution: simply drive the Jews to their deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the solution’s neatness and elegance, the Arab Muslim world changed that meme from “Drive the Jews into the Sea” after the June 1967 war. In time, it became “The Peace Process” — without any thought as to the actual relocation of 620,000 Jews. But, if they are not to be slaughtered — a solution that the intransigent Israeli Likud government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resolutely continues to oppose despite United Nations intractability, as do most other Israeli political parties — what indeed is that part of the “peace process”?
For those who would ask “Well, can’t Israel just absorb 620,000 people into… — it’s tough to finish that sentence. In August 2005, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon uprooted 8,600 residents living in Gush Katif from the Gaza Strip so that Abbas could have that land as his own — land that rapidly was taken from his corrupt “Palestinian Authority” and that instead became the home base of the Hamas terrorist campaign. More than a decade later, Israel still has been unable to resettle them and get their lives back to normal. They lost their homes, jobs, often families. Thus, relocating and resettling 620,000 Jews is a puzzlement.
One more thing:
Look at the logo of the Hamas terrorists. See that green jagged “dagger” on the center-top? Now look at the logo of the Palestinian Authority’s Al Fatah terrorists. See that same green jagged “dagger” in the middle, partially obstructed by the two superimposed rifles? And now look at the logo of the terrorist Islamic Jihad. See that same jagged “dagger,” only this time in red and in the middle?
One picture is worth a thousand words — yet another meme. That depiction is not a jagged dagger. Rather, it is the map of “Palestine” that Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad all are determined to attain as part of the “Middle East Peace Process.” Thing is, for the uninitiated, that “Palestine” on their mind is not a map of Gaza and the “West Bank.” Rather, that is the exact map of all of Israel, down to Tel Aviv, Haifa, Hadera, Tiberias, Masadah, Eilat, and Ben Gurion Airport. For the Arab Muslim world, “Palestine” is Israel — all of it. Nothing has changed. One need not be fluent in Hebrew nor in Arabic to grasp this, simply capable of looking at four pictures. Want more pictures of more Palestine “Middle East Peace Process” aspirants? Here they are — they all want the same thing as their “Palestine”: all of Israel. That’s all.
The “Middle East Peace Process”? What Peace Process?
On Tuesday, the White House announced that President Trump would declare that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and that the government would begin the process of moving the American embassy to the Israeli capital. He will sign a six-month waiver designed to put off the actual legal obligation to move the embassy, however.
This move follows a day of Trump calling Middle Eastern leaders including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who threatened the outbreak of violence and said there would be no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital; Saudi King Salman, who suggested that such an announcement would “harm peace negotiations and increase tension in the region”; and the King of Jordan, who warned of “dangerous repercussions.”
Trump’s move would be a powerful one, a legal one, and a wise one. Here are seven reasons why.
1. Jerusalem Is The Eternal Capital Of Israel. Jerusalem is only important because the Jews made it important; it was the capital of the kingdom of Israel, the site of the Temple, and the wellspring of Judaic thought for millennia. Both Christianity and Islam value Jerusalem because Judaism did. The dream of Jerusalem has animated the Jewish people for its entire existence; there is a reason the Psalms (137:5) state, “If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.” Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Prophets and Writings (during the time of the Torah, it was not yet called Jerusalem). By contrast, Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Koran. If Jews do not have a historic claim to Jerusalem, they have no historic claim to any part of Israel, including Tel Aviv.
2. Congress Has Long Recognized Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital. In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, requiring the movement of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The act also said that Jerusalem should be undivided and be recognized as the capital of Israel. The executive branch has refused to implement the law thanks to both political and separation of powers concerns. Trump would merely be stamping Congressional law with approval. That law, by the way, passed 93-5 in the Senate and 374-37 in the House.
3. Recognizing Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital Recognizes Israel’s Sovereignty. By removing the United States from the position of pressuring Israel to sacrifice its historic, religious, strategic capital, Israel will now be able to negotiate on its own behalf. That means that the U.S. will no longer be in a position to twist the arm of our closest ally in order to pursue separate strategic interests. Imagine the United States pressuring Great Britain to hand over all of Belfast to the IRA. That’s what the U.S. has been doing to Israel for years.
4. Recognizing Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital Will Minimize Violence. Every time negotiations fail, the Palestinians threaten violence and participate in terrorism. The sticking point for such negotiations has generally been Jerusalem — that’s the excuse the Palestinian Authority and Hamas use to launch campaigns of terror, to international approval thanks to the international community’s refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. They hope that using violence as a tactic will earn concessions from Israel, or pressure from the West on Israel. By leading the charge to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States will be sending the unmistakable signal that violence over Jerusalem will not be tolerated, and that pressure tactics through murder will earn no rewards.
5. Showing The United States Will Not Be Bullied By Terrorists Is Good Policy. The entire Oslo Accords was based on a blackmail program: Palestinians vowed not to murder Jews if Jews turned over land. That deal wasn’t just blackmail, it was a lie: Israel offered many generous peace deals, and the Palestinians responded with terror waves. The United States shouldn’t participate in such blackmail. If the Palestinians threaten violence, Trump should drop the other shoe: he should refuse to authorize the release of foreign aid to the terrorist government. There’s no reason taxpayers should be paying terrorists in the first place.
6. Recognizing Reality Makes Peace More Possible. A few days ago, the Saudi monarchy reportedly summoned Palestinian leadership and told them to support a peace deal with the Israelis. That deal would retain major Israeli settlement blocs, prevent the establishment of a Palestinian standing army, and leave the PA without Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital. By declaring Jerusalem Israel’s undivided capital, the United States would remove any other option from the table, thereby pressuring both the Saudis and the Palestinians into accepting that deal.
7. Recognizing Jerusalem Means Cementing The Anti-Iranian Alliance. President Obama's horrific foreign policy united Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel against Iran. But that alliance cannot be cemented until realities are recognized by all parties. Just as George H.W. Bush should have allowed Israel to join the coalition against Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War in order to force the Muslim states to recognize that their common interests with Israel outstripped their differences, Trump would be right to make clear to all parties that Israel has control over its own capital, and that the price of alliance is recognition of reality.
Jerusalem is, was, and always will be Israel’s capital. Failing to recognize that is a slap in the face to history, to reality, and to Israel itself. If Trump does what is necessary, he’ll deserve credit not just for bravery, but for decency.
Despite the fact that the Senaterecently voted unanimouslyto recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel — a bill co-sponsored by 17 senators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — media and religious figures have emerged from the woodwork to condemn the Trump administration for the supposedly precipitous step of announcing just that fact. And it is a fact: Jerusalem has always been and will always be the eternal capital of the Jewish people and Israel, the site of the Temple Mount and the place where Jacob was informed by God, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying… All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.”
The president’s decision to verify what Congress has made law since 1995, and to recognize a reality that’s been true for several thousand years, shouldn’t be all that controversial. But it is, largely thanks to misinformation put out by enemies of Israel, who suggest that to say true things amounts to provocation of violence.Here’s the reality: recognizing the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli authority isn’t what causes violence between Israel and its neighboring Muslim enemies. It’s the anti-Semitic religious fervor of Israel’s neighboring Muslim enemies. That’s been true since before there was a State of Israel, and before Israel controlled Jerusalem.
Here’s a brief history of violence and Jerusalem.
1929.Conflict began in British Mandate Palestine after Jews made the “provocative” move of bringing chairs for the elderly and the infirm to the Western Wall for prayer purposes. In October 1928, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem decided to build atop the Temple Mount, and purposefully led mules through the Western Wall area, excreting in the holy area to spite the Jews. All of this led to a Jewish march to the wall in August 1929. The next day, Muslims marched to the wall to show their sovereignty, even though the Western Wall isn’t holy to Muslims. The following day, Arabs stabbed a Jew to death in the city. By August 23, Muslims were rioting across Jerusalem. 17 Jews were murdered and a hospital was attacked in the city in Jerusalem itself. In Hebron, Arabs massacred more than 60 Jews.
The British Shaw report described the events thusly: “Arabs in Hebron made a most ferocious attack on the Jewish ghetto and on isolated Jewish houses lying outside the crowded quarters of the town. More than 60 Jews – including many women and children – were murdered and more than 50 were wounded.” Remember, this was long before Israel existed or Jerusalem was in Jewish hands. There were also anti-Jewish riots in 1920 and in the 1930s.
1948.Israel’s creation was supposed to lead to a peaceful coexistence in Jerusalem. Instead, Arabs cut off all roads to Jerusalem and prevented Jews from reaching the city, blockading the inhabitants inside. Thousands of Israelis died attempting to reach their brethren in Jerusalem. The outcome: the split of the city between West Jerusalem, which did not include the Western Wall, and East Jerusalem, controlled by Jordan. Under Muslim rule, Jews were not able to visit Jewish holy sites; under Jewish rule, Muslims were. Muslims used gravestones from the Jewish cemetery Mount of Olives to pave their roads. During this period, while East Jerusalem was fully controlled by Muslims, the Palestine Liberation Organization (later the Palestinian Authority) was formed. It openly stated that its goal was the destruction of the State of Israel. Remember, this isbefore Israel controlled Jerusalem.
1967.Israel wins control of Jerusalem and unifies the city. Muslims are not just granted access to holy sites, the Islamic Waqf is given full control over the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Jews are still forbidden from praying at the Temple Mount to this day, despite Israel’s sovereignty over the site.
1993.In the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed to negotiate with the terrorist Palestinian Authority over a future Palestinian state. In return, the PA stated that it would acknowledge Israel’s right to exist (it never has) and cease violence (it never has). The Oslo Accords never made any statement about transfer of Jerusalem to Muslim rule. Despite that fact, the number of terrorist attacks on Israel dramaticallyincreasedin the aftermath of Oslo, with 27 Israelis murdered in October 1994 alone through Muslim terrorism.
2000.At the Camp David summit, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, of the Labor Party, offered Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat control over East Jerusalemand the Temple Mount itself. That’s according to Bill Clinton. Arafat refused the deal and walked away from the table without a counteroffer, then used Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount as a pretext to begin a terrorist wave that would result in the deaths of hundreds of Jews from terrorism (I was in Israel during the Second Intifada, and remember walking by the remains of murdered Jews in a Sbarro pizzeria).
2008.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered new Palestinian terrorist dictator Mahmoud Abbas — a man who was working hand in glove with Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — international control of Jerusalem’s Old City, which includes the holy sites. Olmert stated, “Remember my words, it will be 50 years before there will be another Israeli prime minister that will offer you what I am offering you now. Don’t miss this opportunity.” Olmert also offered near-complete withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, with retention of just 6.3% of the territory for existing settlement blocs, and even agreed to hand over Israeli land equivalent to 5.8% of the territory, as well as a land bridge between Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Abbas turned it down, and launched another round of violence instead in coordination with Hamas in Gaza. Incessant Muslim terrorism against Jews in Jerusalem has not ceased.
So no, sovereignty over Jerusalem has nothing to do with increased Muslim violence. Muslims in the region will not tolerate Israel’s existence; Jerusalem is just a convenient proxy issue for that inconvenient fact. Muslims launched violence against Jews in Jerusalem for the sin of visiting Jewish holy sites long before Israel existed; they pushed for Israel’s annihilation long before Israel had control over Jerusalem; they have turned down multiple peace offers including division of Jerusalem and opted for violence instead.
Don’t believe the lie that anti-Semitic Muslim regimes and populations require the pretext of Israeli sovereignty over the eternal capital of the Jewish people in order to excuse violence. They don’t, and they never have.
I welcome today’s decision by the United States to recognise as the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, whose name means “city of peace.” This recognition is an essential element in any lasting peace in the region.
Unlike other guardians of the city, from the Romans to the Crusaders to Jordan between 1949 and 1967, Israel has protected the holy sites of all three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and guaranteed access to them. Today, Jerusalem remains one of the few places in the Middle East, where Jews, Christians and Muslims are able to pray in freedom, security and peace.
The sustained denial, in many parts of the world, of the Jewish connection with Jerusalem is dishonest, unacceptable and a key element in the refusal to recognise the Jewish people’s right to exist in the land of their origins. Mentioned over 660 times in the Hebrew Bible, Jerusalem was the beating heart of Jewish faith more than a thousand years before the birth of Christianity, and two-and-a-half millennia before the birth of Islam.
Since then, though dispersed around the world, Jews never ceased to pray about Jerusalem, face Jerusalem, speak the language of Jerusalem, remember it at every wedding they celebrated, in every home they built, and at the high and holiest moments of the Jewish year.
Outside the United Nations building in New York is a wall bearing the famous words of Isaiah: "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." Too often the nations of the world forget the words that immediately precede these: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Those words, spoken twenty-seven centuries ago, remain the greatest of all prayers for peace, and they remain humanity’s best hope for peace in the Middle East and the world.
We are repeatedly scolded for not agreeing to the opinion that “Islam is a peaceful religion,” that “the Islamic Radical Terrorists don’t represent true Islam” and so on and so forth. Except when it comes to Israel, Islam proves it is not a religion of peace, but a religion of pure unadulterated terrorism. Take, for instance, the Islamic reactions to President Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Virtually every Islamic or Arab leader’s reaction is laced with threats of extreme violence against anything and everybody. The Islamic reaction to President Trump’s “Jerusalem is Israel’s capital” declaration exposes the true face of Islam as a religion of extreme violent terrorism.
Arutz Sheva reported that “Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the supreme Islamic institution of Sunni Muslims, on Tuesday warned that “the gates of hell” will open if the United States goes through with plans to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy to Jerusalem.” So, here you have the “Grand Imam” of the “supreme Islamic institution of the Sunni Muslims” proclaiming a clear grotesquely violent terroristic threat against everyone and everybody if Jerusalem is declared Israel’s capital. This is the Grand Imam of Egypt, a country that is supposedly at peace with Israel!
One would think the Grand Imam would have been more concerned about the hundreds of Sufi Muslims who were just murdered in the name of Sunni Islam in the northern Sinai a week or so ago. One would have thought the Grand Imam would have wanted to use this Trump Jerusalem Declaration moment to show how peaceful and non-violent Islam was so as to set a good example for all Muslims. But no, the Grand Imam shows he is just as much a bloodthirsty Muslim terrorist as the Muslim terrorists that murdered over 300 praying Muslims in a mosque.
Can anyone claim the Grand Imam doesn’t represent mainstream Islam?
Can anyone claim the Grand Imam doesn’t directly represent Islam itself?
Can anyone claim the Grand Imam doesn’t really understand Islam or the Koran?
All this proves is that we were fed a steady pablum of lies by President Obama, and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster that ISIS and al Qaeda and all of other Islamic terrorists “aren’t following Islam,” and that “we are not at war with Islam.” The Islamic reaction to Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration proves that al Qaeda and ISIS are not the exceptions of Islam, but its central pillar. It proves that peaceful Muslims are an imaginary exception that doesn’t exist.
Islam will never allow any Palestinian leader to share any part of Jerusalem with Israel. Unfortunately, the Islamic hysterically violent and extreme reactions to Trump’s declaration prove we are at war with all of Islam. When it comes to Islamic leaders, it appears incontrovertible that the lunatic terrorists are in control of the Islamic asylum.
But, most of all, the Islamic reactions to Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration prove the Two-State solution is, has been, and always will be a total fraud and lie from the start. Islam will never allow any Palestinian leader to share any part of Jerusalem with Israel. Any Palestinian Arab leader who compromised on any part of Jerusalem would have “Betrayed Islam” and quickly become a dead Palestinian leader, just as Sadat became a dead Egyptian leader.
Forget the katyusha rockets from a Palestinian Arab 'West Bank' State, forget that entity stealing all of Israel’s water, forget Iran taking over the 'West Bank', and forget the millions of Palestinian Arabs pouring into the 'West Bank', pushing to pour into pre-1967 Israel. Israel’s presence in any part of Jerusalem, or any part of the Muslim Wakf of the Levant, would always have been the raison d’etre of th Muslim world to continue satisfying its blood lust to murder every Israeli west of the Jordan River.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but emphasized that he was not pre-empting negotiations over the final status of the city.
“It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said in a televised address from the White House, with Vice President Mike Pence standing behind him.
“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. I today am delivering.”
Trump in the proclamation also directed the State Department to start planning an embassy in Jerusalem. The U.S. Embassy is currently in Tel Aviv.
The president said the decision should not impinge on efforts led by his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, to bring about a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Trump said the proclamation does not presume the outcome of Jerusalem’s status in negotiations.
“We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who welcomed the announcement, has said repeatedly that Jerusalem will remain undivided as Israel’s capital. Palestinian officials hope to establish the capital of a Palestinian state in the city’s eastern sector.
Trump also made a point of urging the preservation of the status quo on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The controlling authority on the Temple Mount now is the Muslim Waqf, and Jews are forbidden to pray on the site.
