As a candidate Donald Trump promised to make the long overdue move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem – Israel’s capital, as have all presidential candidates for several decades. Now that Trump is President he is going to honor his promise. Once again a debate has broken out over recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, let alone the movement of the U.S. Embassy there, and yet again the arguments against recognizing reality are nonsense.
Israel declared its independence as a sovereign nation in 1948 and shortly thereafter declared Jerusalem as its capital – which is the right of any sovereign state. For the presidents of France, Turkey and other nations to state otherwise is absurd. They don’t get to make this decision. The fact that both the Obama administration refused even to acknowledge this over half a century later remains a fundamental disgrace ─ yet another stain on the “Obama legacy.” If North Korea, Iran, Cuba and other nations get to decide what their own capital is, why not Israel? Obama himself had no answer and fortunately he and Crooked Hillary are now gone from power.
The debate over Jerusalem predates goes back several decades and involves the broader legal and diplomatic community. When Israel was admitted to the United Nations in May 1949, some U.N. members refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, citing various U.N. resolutions calling for an international status for the city. Over half a century and several wars later, this pipedream has yet to materialize.
Israel continues to battle the effects of U.N. Security Council Resolution 478, adopted in 1980, another anti-Israel resolution, which held Israel's "complete and united" capital is a violation of international law, and called upon member states to withdraw their diplomatic missions from the city. Almost immediately 11 of the 13 states that had embassies in Jerusalem shut them down, with the last two closed in 2006. Israel categorically rejected the resolution, and its Foreign Ministry announced, "It will not undermine the status of Jerusalem as the capital of a sovereign Israel and as a united city which will never again be torn apart."
For their part, the U.S. Congress has done far better. In passing the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act Congress, Congress recognized not only Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital but specifically directed that the U.S. Embassy be moved from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing that Israel is the only nation on earth with which the U.S. has diplomatic relations but where the U.S. embassy is not located in that nation’s capital. Unfortunately this act also provided the President with the ability to waive implementation of the law every six months, on “national security” grounds, which has been done by every President since 1995.
Once again critics are resisting both recognition and moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem for fear doing so could alienate Arab allies, trigger protests in the Middle East, and damage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, among other outcomes. So what has this position and status quo produced in the last fifty years of the so-called peace process – nothing. These policy concerns are at best exaggerated and only serve to deprive Israel of its fundamental right to choose its own capital.
Historically the Western part of Jerusalem has always been part of Israel. The armistice that ended Israel’s War of Independence with the Arab states left the city divided with the armistice lines – not national borders – cutting Jerusalem in two. Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six Day War ended this division and a united Jerusalem merely described reality. Immediately after this war Israel’s government united Jerusalem, expanding its municipal borders to include areas that had been under Jordanian occupation since 1949.
Since 1967 a succession of Israeli governments, the U.N. and others including the U.S. have looked to a lasting and peaceful resolution of the issues here with the potential establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. One element of this two-state concept is that some part of East Jerusalem might serve as the capital of this Palestinian state – a solution that has escaped implementation for many years. While the future of the vaunted “two state solution” is increasingly in doubt, no question exists as to whether Jerusalem is in fact Israel’s capital and, contrary to statements by various prior U.S. administrations, this issue is not the subject of any current plan.
Where this process is going now is hard to say. Jared Kushner and his team have certainly brought new life here, where the old burned-out bureaucrats accomplished nothing. They have enlisted the Saudis and others while trying to get Abbas and the Palestinians to face reality. Even so, the political realities in Israel and among the Palestinians may render a major breakthrough too hard to achieve. True believers on the Israeli Left are now seeing that the two-state paradigm may simply not be workable. While the 1993 Oslo Accord produced two Nobel peace prizes, the hoped for peace has never been realized as the Palestinians did not reject violence or fully recognize Israel’s right to even exist as required. Now Trump, Kushner and other key advisers seem to be taking a broader and more realistic look at the situation.
The proposed Embassy move gets additional pushback from opponents worried that that this would lead to additional violence in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who strongly embraces the move, has stated that Israel is capable of dealing with any possible disturbances. Other opponents are concerned that the move will anger key Arab allies. U.S. Let them be angry – it will pass. Right now they need the U.S., and indeed Israel, in a region that is in great turmoil with threats from Iran, ISIS, and a Syrian civil war that won’t end.
Ultimately Trump cares about solutions that work, and not the optics of what may look good. Such a move is not just symbolic. I would be a substantial step in correcting some of the damage caused by the Obama foreign policy that impaired U.S. credibility worldwide. The U.S. can begin to rebuild credibility with its most important ally in the Middle East. It is more than just moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. By taking this key step that none of Trump’s predecessors were willing to make, it would show critical support of the America’s most embattled ally, and that show that America can again be trusted.
The move will accomplish this goal without placing any U.S. military at risk, and at the limited cost of construction and moving – a minute fraction of the billions already wasted on failed Middle East policies and initiatives. Even more important, from Israel’s perspective, it shows that Trump, unlike Obama and other Democrats, sees Israel as an important ally and not a financial burden. It is an important element of the evolving Trump foreign policy which aims to solve problems, rather than avoid them.