U.S. to Open Embassy in Jerusalem Tomorrow
U.S. Presidents talked about it for a long time, but did no act. For all his faults — and he has many — Trump actually did something about it. The New York Times doesn’t like it:
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, President Harry Truman rushed to recognize it. He took just 11 minutes, and Israelis, about to go to war to defend their infant state, were euphoric.
Seventy years to the day — and nearly as long since Israel declared the holy city of Jerusalem its “eternal capital” — the United States will formally open its embassy on a hilltop here two miles south of the Western Wall.
The embassy’s move from Tel Aviv and President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — reversing decades of American foreign policy — comes at a moment so fraught with both pride and peril that Israelis seem not to know what to feel.
. . . .
To Palestinians, the official unveiling of the embassy is just the most concrete and latest in a cavalcade of provocations from Washington and the Israeli government.
“It’s might makes right,” said Hind Khoury, a former diplomat for the Palestine Liberation Organization who now heads a sustainable development nonprofit based in Bethlehem. Not only are Palestinians now expected to forget about Jerusalem, she said, but also the losses of their homes in 1948 and again in the fighting of 1967.
Calm down, Hind. The U.S. is moving its embassy to the country’s capital.
It is, of course, possible that this move will contribute to terrorist attacks. If that happens, that will be the fault of the terrorists — not of Israel for placing its capital in Jerusalem, or of Donald Trump for moving the U.S. embassy to Israel’s capital.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]