By any realistic standard, the U.S. embassy’s move to Jerusalem has been a resounding success - by Evelyn Gordon

By any realistic standard, the embassy move has been a resounding success. In the space of just one year, countries around the world have gone from a situation in which recognizing Jerusalem was unthinkable to one in which it is being discussed, debated and even acted upon. And as long as this trend continues, it’s only a matter of time until actual embassy moves follow.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
23 May '19..
Link: http://evelyncgordon.com/one-year-later-the-us-embassy-move-has-produced-lasting-gains/

The first anniversary of the U.S. embassy’s move to Jerusalem sparked multiple articles in the Israeli press declaring it a failure for both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. From the left-wing Haaretz to the centrist Times of Israel, headlines trumpeted the fact that only one minor country, Guatemala, has followed America’s lead. And even that might prove fleeting, as several candidates in next month’s Guatemalan election have pledged to return the embassy to Tel Aviv.

All this is true, but it also misses the point. And it thereby obscures the real and lasting gains of the embassy move.

To understand why, it’s worth recalling America’s own history on this issue. In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which ordered the embassy relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was approved by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the House (374-37) and the Senate (93-5). And in every subsequent election, every presidential candidate, whether Republican or Democratic, pledged to honor this directive.

Yet despite this consensus, it still took more than 20 years for the move to happen. Successive presidents, both Republican and Democratic, proved reluctant to defy international opposition. Consequently, they exercised a provision of the law allowing the move to be postponed due to national security considerations. These presidential waivers were renewed every six months for more than two decades.

In contrast, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was never been mooted as a possibility by any other country in the world. Outside America, not a single mainstream party, whether liberal or conservative, ever considered an embassy move, much less actively supported the idea.

Expecting other countries to go from having never even thought about moving their embassies to actually doing so in the space of just 12 months was always fatuous. Indeed, I warned a year ago that “Jerusalem isn’t going to be flooded with new embassies anytime soon.” If it took America more than two decades to move its embassy despite a bipartisan consensus that was codified in legislation, it will clearly take time for countries that have only just started considering the issue to reach the point of being ready to actually make the move.

What Trump’s decision did accomplish, however, was to break the global taboo on thinking and talking about this idea. Never again will recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital be an inconceivable option. Indeed, in many countries, it has already become a hotly debated one. And the more the idea is discussed, the more realistic the possibility becomes.

The day Jerusalem won - by Ron Proser

...every kindergartener knows that prior to Trump’s decision, the Middle East was a calm, peaceful place, and the Palestinians were spending the rest of the year meditating and doing yoga.

Ron Proser..
JNS.org..
14 May '18..

The opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is the fulfillment of what many Jews dreamed of, regardless of their political opinions, and carries historic and diplomatic weight that could affect the entire region.

For 70 years, we have heard many countries, including our greatest friend, make excuses about it “not being the right time” to move their embassies to Jerusalem, and we’ve heard over and over why such a move couldn’t happen so long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued.

In 1995, the U.S. Congress enacted a law requiring the United States to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem. But every president since then has taken care to use a loophole in the law to delay the move once every six months.

Then Donald Trump arrived—a new president, an outsider who wanted to think outside the box. Trump is an unusual politician who reminds us that politicians really can keep their promises.

When he said during his presidential campaign that if elected, he would move the embassy to Jerusalem, he meant it.

Six months ago, when the president declared his intention, the predictors of doom and gloom rose up. The Palestinians declared three days of rage over the decision, and some warned that the move would send the Middle East up in flames. Because every kindergartener knows that prior to Trump’s decision, the Middle East was a calm, peaceful place, and the Palestinians were spending the rest of the year meditating and doing yoga.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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What the War Over Jerusalem is Actually About - by Sultan Knish

...Moving the embassy to Jerusalem will do much more for America than it will for Israel. The Israelis already know where their capital is. We need to remember where we left our freedom. Islamic terrorists win when they terrorize us into being too afraid to do the right thing.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
11 December '17..

Hamas has announced that President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has opened the “gates of hell.” Its Muslim Brotherhood parent has declared America an “enemy state.”

The Arab League boss warned that the Jerusalem move “will fuel extremism and result in violence.” The Jordanian Foreign Minister claimed that it would “trigger anger” and “fuel tension.”

“Moderate” Muslim leaders excel at threatening violence on behalf of the “extremists”.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) warned that recognizing Jerusalem will trigger an Islamic summit and be considered a "blatant attack on the Arab and Islamic nations."

The last time the OIC was this mad, someone drew Mohammed. And wasn’t stoned to death for it.

According to the Saudi ambassador, it will “heighten tensions”. The Deputy Prime Minister of Islamist Turkey called it a “major catastrophe”. And the leader of the largest Muslim country in Europe, France's Emmanuel Macron "expressed concern" that America will “unilaterally recognize Jerusalem."

PLO leaders and minions meanwhile made it quite clear that now the dead peace process is truly dead.

The Palestinian Authority’s boss warned that recognizing Jerusalem will “destroy the peace process”. The PLO’s envoy in D.C. threatened that it would be the “final lethal blow” and “the kiss of death to the two-state solution”. A top PA advisor claimed it “will end any chance of a peace process.”

A day later, the peace process is still as alive and as dead as it ever was.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Some thoughts concerning the foolish embassy expectations game - by Jonathan Tobin

...sometimes tactics are as important as strategy. Right now, what friends of Israel need the most is for Trump to understand the truth about Abbas and his Hamas rivals’ refusal to make peace. Yet by raising expectations about the embassy that are bound to be disappointed, they may hand Israel’s foes an unearned and tragically important victory.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
12 May '17..

When President Donald Trump heads to the Middle East later this month, the world will be primarily watching closely to see if he makes any of his trademark gaffes that set off a cultural land mine in Saudi Arabia or Israel. But the more important question is whether he will use the trip to actually make policy.

The expectation is that at some point during his visit, Trump will announce the convening of a new Middle East summit. Trump appears to believe in the “outside-in” approach to peace talks, in which Arab states like Saudi Arabia would play a role in trying to encourage and even muscle the Palestinians into negotiating in good faith with Israel at a peace conference. But whether or not that dubious plan is put into action, Trump’s presence in Jerusalem is also being scrutinized for any hint that the U.S. is prepared to acknowledge his stay at the King David Hotel will be time spent in Israel’s capital.

Though Trump repeatedly pledged during the 2016 campaign he would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it hasn’t happened yet. It’s still possible he could do it, perhaps even when he’s there only a day before Israel celebrates Jerusalem Day—which this year marks the 50th anniversary of the city’s reunification during the Six-Day War. But few in the know think this is going to happen.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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NYT New Jerusalem Bureau Chief Passes Along Embassy ‘Speculation’ - by Ira Stoll

...The phrase “predominantly Arab East Jerusalem” is itself tendentious. When Israel recaptured it from Jordan in 1967, east Jerusalem was indeed “predominantly Arab” — but only because the Jews who had lived there for the previous thousands of years had been violently expelled or otherwise extinguished by Arabs in the 1948 war. Mr. Fisher might consult his own newspaper on this point.

NY Times new Jerusalem
bureau chief Ian Fisher

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
23 January '17..

The newly arrived New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, Ian Fisher, has a dispatch reporting:

The Israeli news media was filled with speculation on Sunday that the Trump administration would immediately announce the embassy move — as a de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured from Jordan during the 1967 war.

There’s no hyperlink, so it’s hard to know to what Mr. Fisher is referring. But as a Times reader, my hope is that its journalists will try to help assess whether “speculation” is accurate or not before passing it along.

In this case, the statement’s logic leaves a lot to be desired.

If President Trump moves the American embassy to west Jerusalem — which has been under Israeli control since the establishment of Israel in 1948 and is the location of the Knesset, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Israel Museum, the Jewish Agency for Israel and a host of other institutions that have been there since before the 1967 war — how does that say anything about, let alone constitute “de facto recognition” of, Israel’s annexation of “predominantly Arab East Jerusalem”?

The phrase “predominantly Arab East Jerusalem” is itself tendentious. When Israel recaptured it from Jordan in 1967, east Jerusalem was indeed “predominantly Arab” — but only because the Jews who had lived there for the previous thousands of years had been violently expelled or otherwise extinguished by Arabs in the 1948 war. Mr. Fisher might consult his own newspaper on this point.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Will Jerusalem Embassy Actually Spark Unrest? - by Michael Rubin

...Simply put, the threat that moving the embassy to Jerusalem will spark chaos in Jordan and Egypt is overblown, an excuse more manufactured than real.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 January '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/jerusalem-embassy-spark-unrest/

President Donald Trump has promised to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move which many in the U.S. Congress say they would endorse. While promises to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem have become a staple of presidential campaign rhetoric, no president has taken serious action to fulfill his pledge once he enters the Oval Office. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to erase near a quarter century of Oslo Accord-era peace process by resetting their parameters with UN Security Council Resolution 2234, however, appears to have galvanized Trump and Congress to force the State Department to push through with the relocation.

The recognition that Trump is serious has led diplomats and Middle East analysts to argue that moving the embassy to Jerusalem could spark serious unrest. That violence would not be limited to Palestinians, either. It may also engulf Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have full diplomatic relations with Israel, and also two of America’s closest partners in the Arab world. Back in December, Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg that “Arab diplomats in recent days have told me that they worry an embassy move would stoke violent protests in their own countries.” Several former peace processors—Aaron David Miller and Edward Djerejian, for example—told Politico that moving the embassy might kill the peace process.

Kerry told CBS News, that should Trump move the embassy, “You’d have an explosion – an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region. The Arab world has enormous interest in the Haram al-Sharif, as it is called; the Temple Mount, the Dome [of the Rock], and it is a holy site for the Arab world.”

Let’s put aside that no one is suggesting moving the embassy to disputed portions of Jerusalem, but rather to West Jerusalem which is an undisputed part of Israel proper. And also forget for the moment that the peace process has hardly advanced since Palestinian chairman Mahmoud Abbas turned down Israel’s 2008 peace offer. Could Kerry be correct? And should the Arab diplomats warning behind-the-scenes of dire consequences be believed?

(update) What does the Jerusalem embassy have in common with Mohammed cartoons? - by Elder of Ziyon

...This is how the "enlightened" nations of the world treat their Muslim and Arab friends - as irrational, illogical liars. And when you treat them that way, they are happy to take advantage of it. There is a third parallel: In neither case would anyone actually get hurt if it wasn't for the same people "warning" the West of a "spontaneous outbreak of violence" being the ones who incite the violence to being with.

Elder of Ziyon..
15 January '17..

France's foreign minister says moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from its current place in Tel Aviv would be a "provocation" and a threat to efforts for a two-state solution to the protracted Mideast conflict.

Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault ...cautioned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump against moving the U.S. embassy before new peace negotiations can be held. The move could be seen as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital after decades of insisting that the city's status must be determined by direct talks.

Ayrault said France would work to maintain good relations with the Trump administration but stressed French fears that an embassy move will unleash new Mideast violence. (AP)

It is Mohammed cartoons all over again.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Long Past Time to Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem - by Dr. Michael Curtis

...The U.S. Congress on October 23, 1995, by overwhelming majorities in both chambers, passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act to initiate and fund the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It made clear that every sovereign state, under international law and custom, may designate its own capital, and that since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State of Israel.

Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
10 January '17..
Link: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/enough_already_move_the_us_embassy_to_jerusalem.html

Since 1993, residents of New York City have had a sister city in Israel named Jerusalem. On December 5, 1949, the Israeli government declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and on January 23, 1950, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, proclaimed that Jerusalem was and had always been the capital of Israel.

Everyone understands that the city of Jerusalem is holy to three religions, and there are conflicting claims to it by two peoples. But the historical evidence confirms the forthright Knesset declaration. David made Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom in 1003 B.C. and it remained so for 400 years until the kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians. After Jews had returned from the Babylonian exile in 538 B.C., Jerusalem again became the capital of the Jewish people. During the Muslim rule over the area, Jerusalem never became the capital of a Muslim state, or even became a distinct province.

Between 1922 and 1948, the city did become the center of political power during the British Mandate as Jerusalem became the seat of the British high commissioner.

The U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, the partition resolution, of November 29, 1947 that proposed the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine, also proposed that Jerusalem become a separate entity, corpus separatum, a special administrative regime separate from either state and administered by an agency of the United Nations.

Thanks to the war resulting from the invasion of Arab armies into the state of Israel, on the day of its creation on May 14, 1948, Jerusalem became a divided city, with barbed wire. The Old City was annexed by Jordan, while the western section became the Israeli capital. Israeli citizens and all Jews of other states were denied access to holy sites in the area controlled by Jordan. In April 1950, Jordan declared that it had annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem, an annexation that was supported only by the U.K. and Pakistan.

As a result of the six-day June 1967 war, the city was reunited under Israeli administration. Since 1967, Jerusalem has been a united city administered by Israel. Israel, on June 27, 1967, extended legal and administrative jurisdiction to the whole area and expanded the municipal borders of the city. The Knesset passed the Protection of the Holy Places law granting special status to the holy sites.

The Israeli Basic Law of July 1980 affirmed Jerusalem, "complete and united" as the capital of the country. It promised protection of the holy places and free access to them.

Will the American Embassy Finally Move From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? - by Jonathan Tobin

...On Jerusalem and One China, Trump may not be playing by the existing diplomatic rules. But it’s time for even those who doubted his fitness for the presidency to admit that those rules don’t always make sense and changing them might do more good than harm.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
13 December '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/can-trump-really-move-the-embassy-jerusalem/

When Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said yesterday that the president-elect had been talking privately about moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the weeks since the election, a long-dormant issue sprang to life. Can Donald Trump get away with altering a longstanding U.S. policy by recognizing at least the partial sovereignty of Israel over Jerusalem, a change the foreign policy establishment has told us would lead a cataclysm?

After watching Trump break every rule of American politics this year and then shock the international community after his victory by tossing aside the “One China” policy that had governed U.S. relations with the Far East since 1972, why would anyone doubt that he would be willing to do the same on Jerusalem? One of Trump’s chief drawbacks is his ignorance of complicated policy issues and his lack of respect for those who know more than he does. But even his critics have to admit that one of his strengths is his ability to view such topics from outside of the boxes in which those professionals have imprisoned themselves.

To Trump, if something doesn’t make sense to a layman, then maybe it’s not such a great idea. “One China” is a complicated formula that tacitly recognizes Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan while still supporting the island’s independence. But as far as he is concerned, America’s stance on the issue is just one more bargaining chip to be thrown into the pot in negotiations, not the religious obligation more experienced hands act like it is.

The same is true of Jerusalem. The refusal to move the embassy is a relic of the 1947 United Nations partition agreement in which the holy city was treated as an international zone—not allocated to either the putative Jewish state that became Israel or the Arab state the Muslim world rejected. Israel’s War of Independence ended with the city divided between parts controlled by the Jews and areas illegally occupied by Jordan (including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, whose inhabitants were thrown out of their homes and their synagogues all destroyed). The western sector controlled by Israel was named its capital, but no nation recognized that designation or Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city. That didn’t change even after June 1967, when the city was reunited after the Six Day War.

The assumption of those promoting a two-state solution is that the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem would serve as the capital of the Palestinian state that would be created as part of a peace settlement. We don’t know whether the Palestinians will ever take yes for an answer and accept a peace that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. But no reasonable person can dispute that Israel will always keep Western Jerusalem and those Jewish neighborhoods that were built after 1967. The city is the country’s capital, and always will be.

A Great Opportunity for the New President: Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem - by Dr. Max Singer

Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a good example of the kind of policy change that President-Elect Donald Trump has said is needed in Washington. More importantly, this action could mark a new US strategy for pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace: Telling the truth.

Dr. Max Singer..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 378..
21 November '16..
Link: http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/378-singer-moving-us-embassy-jerusalem-great-opportunity-new-president/

The US State Department, which has always opposed moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, understands very well that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will leave at least western Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and part of sovereign Israel. So why will the State Department nevertheless advise President-Elect Donald Trump not to fulfill his promise to move the embassy?

Moving the embassy to Israel’s actual capital would provoke Arab anger at the US and lead to protests that might turn violent. The foreign policy establishment wishes to prevent this result and protect America’s status as an “honest broker.” It therefore continues to insist that because Jerusalem’s ultimate status can only be determined by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and that it would be wrong for the US to “prejudge” the outcome by acting on the truth that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem.

This is a perfect example of the kind of politically-correct establishment pettifogging that Trump campaigned against. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a low-cost action that he could take as soon as he is inaugurated, and one of the easiest and quickest changes in policy that he could implement. The new US consulate in Jerusalem was built with security features that would be needed for an embassy, so the move could be started almost immediately, without any prejudice to the Palestinian claim to eastern Jerusalem.

The State Department’s insistence on the diplomatic fiction that none of Jerusalem is part of Israel helps preserve the Palestinian hope that, someday, Israel will be forced to give up its capital and will be destroyed as the independent, democratic Jewish state.

That Palestinian hope is the main obstacle to peace. The Palestinians can only make peace when their community – and perhaps the Arab world of which it is a part – comes to understand that international pressure will never force Israel to acquiesce in its own destruction. One of the best ways the US can demonstrate that it will never consent to the Palestinian destruction of Israel is for Washington to stop ignoring blatant Palestinian lies that work against peace.

Ettinger - JerUSAlem - American people vs. White House

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
25 May '12..

Jerusalem has been one of the most dramatic issues of discord between the will of the American people and Congress on the one hand, and State Department-driven presidential policy on the other hand.

In contrast to most Americans and their state and federal representatives, who cherish Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of the Jewish state, all U.S. presidents have embraced Foggy Bottom’s denial of Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, or even as part of Israel. Moreover, the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy has disavowed the 1947 non-binding U.N. General Assembly Partition Plan, but for one segment — Jerusalem, which the U.N. designated as an international city.

Israel is the only country in the world whose (3,000 year old) capital is not recognized by the State Department and by the presidents of the U.S. However, the American people consider Israel to be the second most trusted and dependable ally of the U.S. (after Britain), and 71% support (and 9% oppose) Jerusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital.

President Barack Obama has gone further than any U.S. president in implementing the Jerusalem policy of denial. He is pressing for an unprecedented construction freeze in Jerusalem beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines, and is trying to eliminate any reference to “Jerusalem, Israel” in present and past official documents and communications.

PalArabs happy about Obama's Jerusalem decision

Elder of Ziyon
04 June '11

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/06/palarabs-happy-about-obamas-jerusalem.html



From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority on Saturday welcomed as “encouraging” US President Barack Obama’s decision not to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.


Obama on Friday invoked US national security interests to notify Congress that he will not move the embassy to Jerusalem.


Obama’s notification did not include a commitment to moving the embassy at some point in the future, unlike his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who did suggest that this may be a possibility.


Nabil Abu Rudaineh, spokesman for the PA, said that Obama’s decision affirms that the world and the US don’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.


Abu Rudaineh added that the decision indicates that the world recognizes that east Jerusalem has been occupied since 1967 and that the city would be the capital of Palestine “in the context of a two-state solution.”

Indeed, by breaking with the (symbolic, but still important) declarations of previous presidents, Obama is in fact giving the message that Jerusalem will be a capital of only one state - and that state is not Israel.

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Obama's Pro-Palestinian Policy Comes In Waives

Daled Amos
28 October '10

No surprise to this first waiver--it's been going on since Clinton was president:

Obama extends Jerusalem embassy waiver
June 3, 2010 

President Obama has extended a waiver for an additional six months delaying moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Obama's waiver, issued Wednesday, follows in the footsteps of predecessors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who also extended the waiver every six months since the law was adopted in 1995 calling for the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Presidents are permitted to delay the move on national security grounds.

Some Jewish groups have pushed for the United States to move the embassy as a way to bolster Israeli claims to the city. Those favoring the use of the waiver say that such a step would anger the Arab world and put the United States in the position of taking sides on an issue that should be settled in peace talks.

But now Obama has added one of his own--and he wonders why his Mideast peace talks lies in shambles:

(Read full post)

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On Israel, Obama Playing the Mideast Game Wrong

Mortimer B. Zuckerman
U.S. News and World
23 April '10

The Middle East peace process is stalled thanks to a second deadlock engineered by the United States government. President Obama began the process with his call for a settlement freeze in 2009 and escalates it now with a major change of American policy on Jerusalem.

The president seeks to prohibit Israel from any construction in its capital—in an exclusively Jewish suburb of East Jerusalem. This, despite the fact that all former administrations had unequivocally understood that the area in question would remain part of Israel in any final peace agreement. Objecting to this early phase of the planning process for housing in East Jerusalem is tantamount to getting the Israelis to agree to the division of Jerusalem in any settlement—even before the start of final status talks with the Palestinians. In 1995, it was by a substantial bipartisan majority that Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act calling for the movement of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem—and equally importantly, stating that Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty.

But Obama has undermined the confidence of the Israelis in the United States from the start of his presidency. He uses the same term, "settlements," ambiguously for both massive neighborhoods that are the homes to tens of thousands of Jews and for illegal outposts, raising the question for the Israelis about whether the U.S. administration really understands the issue. The Palestinian Authority followed the president's lead and refused to proceed with planned proximity talks until Israel stops all settlement activities, including in East Jerusalem.

The president's attitude toward Jerusalem betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the city. After Israel was recognized as a new state in 1948, it was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The attacks were repelled, but the Jordanians, who were asked not to join the Egyptian war effort, conquered East Jerusalem and separated it from its western half. In 1967, the Arab armies again sought to destroy Israel, but it prevailed in the famous Six-Day War and reconquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip.

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The Full Measure of Joe Biden's Hypocrisy on Jerusalem

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
31 March '10

Not that long ago, Joseph Robinette Biden was supposedly gravely insulted by Israel announcing that potential housing to be built in Jerusalem had passed one stage of a multi-stage approval process. Biden was so insulted by this dastardly act that he stood up the Prime Minister of Israel for 90 minutes and that he and various Obama Administration officials proceeded to lambaste Israel for "insulting" Biden.

Hillary Clinton proclaimed; "it was not only an insult to Biden, but an insult to the United States." "There was an affront, it was an insult", huffed Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod. Hundreds of newspapers immediately penned editorials denouncing Israel's grave insult. The essence of it was that Israel had insulted Biden by laying claim to Jerusalem during his visit.

There's just one problem with this. In 1995 Biden himself served as a co-sponsor of S. 1322, known as the Jerusalem Embassy Act. (Additional Senate co-sponsors included such obscure legislators as John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Jesse Helms, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, Strom Thurmond and Bob Dole.) Let's look at the text of the Jerusalem Embassy Act now.

(Read full article)
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