The US Embassy to The Netherlands is located in The Hague, not Amsterdam which is the capital. Of course, it should be noted that all government buildings in that weirdo nation are located in The Hague.
It may not seem like a big deal to a lot of Americans, but it’s a very big deal to the Palestinians. In the interest of trying to keep the mayhem in that part of the world to a minimum, most countries have demurred on calling Jerusalem the capital, and located their embassies in Tel Aviv. This could certainly create a new shit storm in that part of the world for us to get sucked into.
Not content with fucking things up in the U.S., Trump apparently wants to leave his mark on the world stage like a dog pissing to mark its territory. He is honoring a campaign promise, but one that will almost certainly result in more needless violence, death and futile appeals to metaphysical constructs by the family and loved ones of victims. That is the short term outlook. As there is no way to predict what impact this decision will have over the longer term, Trump is essentially throwing things into the air with no guarantee they will land in a favorable (to anyone) orientation.
As with W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, way to gamble with other people’s lives!
This has always been held as a bargaining chip: Stop building settlements in the West Bank and pull out some of the ones already there, procure a final peace of some sort with the Palestine folks, and you can have West Jerusalem as your capital. Trump just gave away that leverage for nothing in return.
Yes, according to the majority of the American people. And that’s been the majority opinion for about 20 years, since a Gallup poll of March, 1999. Maybe someday our government may catch up.
The US is supposedly the leader of the free world. That sort of implies that we, uh lead by example.
I don’t know if recognizing Jerusalem is the right choice or not. Fifty years of doing nothing certainly hasn’t fixed the Palestinian problem.
I support renewed relations with Cuba for much the same reason. Decades of doing nothing didn’t work. Castro simply gave us the finger and kept on governing.
Therefore, we must do this.
You didn’t answer my question, though; and nothing I’ve read about this move attempts to answer it, either. What does the U.S. get out of this? I thought Trump was all about making America great again, and negotiating all the best deals with foreign leaders.
I don’t know what America gets out of this. I’m not even sure why we even try to be the Leader of the Free World. It’s a major PITA.
We are trying to work a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
A lot of prominent people have tried and failed. Jimmy Carter worked on it for decades. Jared Kushner may fail too. He’s obviously got a vested interest in succeeding.
I can only speculate we’re seeing the first step of a bigger plan. Let’s give Kushner a chance. He may fail or he may succeed.
Trump is along for the ride on this trip. Kushner has been given the task of working out the details of a settlement.
There was so much hope invested in the Oslo Accords. It was the best chance they ever had for lasting peace.
The Palestinian Authority was created. They had their own government and police. It was the first step towards a Palestinian state. It fell apart and ended with Yasser Arafat surrounded in a building.
Considering some people don’t want a nation of Israel at all and never will, I can live with said country having whatever capital it wants at this point.
Remember UN Resolution 181 from 1947? The title was “United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine”. It divided the area into a two-state solution, one for Jews and one for Arabs.
The Jewish part became Israel; the Arab part is Jordan.
