US: “Guys, knock it off with the settlements, please?”
Israel: “No.”
US: “Okay, well, we’re moving our embassy to please you. That’s what I meant by “please” in my previous statement.”
Time is not on the Palestinians side. They messed up badly by not fully supporting the Oslo Accords in the early 90’s. There were two, one in 1993 and the other in 1995.
This may have been prevented. We’ll never know for sure.
This has caused offence across the Middle East because Jerusalem is a city that is important to three major religions and it upsets the delicate balance of interests between them. Even Saudi Arabia, a key US ally in the region, has protested. It will bring focus back to the Israel and the Palestine Question after a few years when the centre of conflict lay elsewhere in the Middle East. All those crazies looking for a new holy war now have a new mission. Hitting a hornets nest with stick is never a good idea.
I am guessing Trump did this as payback to key supporters of his Presidential campaign. Whether he stopped to consider the consequences of giving up and important bargaining chip in the peace process, seems doubtful. It undermines any confidence that the powers in the region might have that the US could be relied upon to act as an honest broker in any peace process.
Normally a superpower would sit astride all the players in the region playing one off against another while pursuing its own interests. Given that the major flash points are Israel/Palestine and the proxy wars between the Saudis and the Iranians, US policy is far from balanced, it is becoming very partisan. Its feet are both in the Israeli camp and in the Saudi camp. They may be happy about it, but it seriously undermines US influence.
However, I guess these diplomatic nuances might be lost on Trump, who is more concerned with his domestic supporters. It certainly won’t be lost on China and Russia who will be looking to extend their influence at the expense of the US. Trump is a gift that keeps on giving, a US president who is clearly out of his depth in the fragile geopolitical balance of this important region.
I remember this. It was a PR disaster for Israel.
This is from the earlier NPR article.
I certainly can’t see the issue here, and I hate Trump. Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, in fact. Saying so should hardly be an issue. Regardless of what other people may wish to be the case, it is.
Pretending Tel Aviv is actually the capital because that’s what Palestinians would prefer seems about as useful as pretending Hillary Clinton is actually the president because that’s what many Americans would prefer. Acknowledging the reality that Trump is president and not Hillary does not mean that I actually like that fact. It merely means it is, in fact, a fact.
The Palestinians don’t want it to be a fact. They want to pretend that Israel will divide its capital. That wasn’t ever going to happen, and now that has been made harder to pretend.
The reason there hasn’t been peace for the last twenty years is not Israel.
Regards,
Shodan
As of only six months ago, the Senate vote was 90 to 0. I’m surprised it was so overwhelming.
“For $25,000 and the win, what is the capital of Israel?”
Again, that some people don’t like the answer isn’t relevant to the correctness of it. What other country in the world would you deny naming its own capital when it has been there for longer than most of us, and those protesting that fact, have been alive?
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Wait, what? Jerusalem is the capital only because Israel unilaterally declared it so, against international objections. And virtually no country in the world has recognized it as such. You state the status of Jerusalem as if it was some immutable universal law of nature.
The most significant effect of this asinine declaration is that it pretty much guarantees violent conflict while at the same time the US loses all credibility as a trustworthy peace broker. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do, like everything else this idiot does. And the ultimate irony is that it will probably never happen anyway, since the process is projected to take years, and he’ll be out of office by then, with cooler heads hopefully prevailing.
Should he also order that the USA recognize Taiwan as an independent country? It is, so saying so should hardly be an issue.
Well there is one good thing with this. Actually 2.
First-this eliminates any possible facade of the US passing themselves off as an impartial broker in negotiations. Future negotiations will be between Israel+US vs the Palestinians. I doubt they will go any better than earlier negotiations but at least no one will pretend to be something they aren’t. The Palestinians will have one more demand on their list that Israel+US will refuse, the US+Israel will demand an end to Palestinian violence that the Palestinians will refuse and everyone will go home for “consultations”.
Second-this is a lesson to Congress not to pass laws even when they are counting on them to be ignored. Laws are powerful, launching them hoping they will always miss is not safe.
What, exactly, is in this for Israel? “Jerusalem, as recognized by Donald Trump, is the capital of Israel” is not an easier sell than “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.” And Trump obviously isn’t the only American politician who supports this, and indeed he probably couldn’t find Jerusalem on a map, but this will have his stench on it anyways.
Kind of the way it works, actually. I’m sure the Brits probably were bent when the US declared their capital back in the day.
The international community pretty much objects to Israel (and Jews, btw) existing. Certainly most of those in the UN who continuously pass resolutions against it.
As a Canadian, if we decided to relocate our capital from Ottawa to, say Winnipeg (more central within Canada), I’m sure lots of Canadians will have opinions on the matter. I can assure you that yours, assuming you are not Canadian, is of no value at all and will be considered appropriately. Once moved, we’d expect you to accept our decision or go f*ck yourself.
If you can’t move forward, you can at least hold your place and not move backwards.
That’s really all we can do in the Middle East. Peace isn’t going to exist until all the countries there are interested. And that’s not on the horizon.
Most Presidents have realized this. American policy in the Middle East has been to try to keep things from getting more violent and waiting for opportunities to arise (like when Sadat decided he wanted to move Egypt forward towards peace).
Trump isn’t smart enough to understand this. He believes he can run into the middle of a decades-old diplomatic problem and unravel it with his personal skills. He thinks he can make a “deal”.
I’m not denying Israel anything. As far as I’m concerned that can declare that Tokyo is the capital of Israel. That’s their business.
The topic here is what policy the United States should take on this issue. Because the President of the United States is supposed to be advancing American interests.
So how are American interests advanced by this decision? What is it accomplishing for America?
On this point I’m in full agreement. In fact, I’d push it back all the way to 1948. Israel has always been willing to engage in reasonable negotiations.
If you see this situation as “Israel alone against the entire world, which hates it”, then there’s something seriously wrong with your analytics.
At least part of what is being communicated by this move is to tell the Palestinians that, if they won’t move forward, they are going to be moved backwards.
Regards,
Shodan
I just started watching Wolf Blitzer interviewing Nikki Haley about this stupidity. I had to stop watching it — every sentence she uttered was stupider than the one before. Is there a transcript? It could be Plaintiff’s Exhibit A in the case for Trumpist idiocy and hypocrisy.
This is quite literally already being done by the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.