Arab-Israeli Conflict: Part 1

[Arkain2K]

If Israel has the right to land conquered from its enemies then Palestinians have the right to fight to get it back.

I get what you're saying that the world isn't just but might kind of has right. But we should not support aggression.

Exactly how far did read into the OP, really?

The Arabs' Historic Mistakes in Their Interactions with Israel
By Fred Maroun
July 10, 2016​

• We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.
• Our worst mistake was in not accepting the United Nations partition plan of 1947.
  
• Perhaps one should not launch wars if one is not prepared for the results of possibly losing them.
  
• The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are.
  
• Jordan integrated some refugees, but not all. We could have proven that we Arabs are a great and noble people, but instead we showed the world, as we continue to do, that our hatred towards each other and towards Jews is far greater than any concept of purported Arab solidarity.

In May 1948, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, announced, regarding the proposed new Jewish part of the partition: that, "This will be a war of extermination, a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."​

In the current state of the relationship between the Arab world and Israel, we see a patchwork of hostility, tense peace, limited cooperation, calm, and violence. We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.

The Original Mistake

Our first mistake lasted centuries, and occurred well before Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948. It consisted of not recognizing Jews as equals.

As documented by a leading American scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world, Mark R. Cohen, during that era, "Jews shared with other non-Muslims the status of dhimmis [non-Muslims who have to pay protection money and follow separate debasing laws to be tolerated in Muslim-controlled areas] ... New houses of worship were not to be built and old ones could not be repaired. They were to act humbly in the presence of Muslims. In their liturgical practice they had to honor the preeminence of Islam. They were further required to differentiate themselves from Muslims by their clothing and by eschewing symbols of honor. Other restrictions excluded them from positions of authority in Muslim government".

On March 1, 1944, while the Nazis were massacring six million Jews, and well before Israel declared independence, Haj Amin al-Husseini, then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, declared on Radio Berlin, "Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

If we had not made this mistake, we might have benefited in two ways.

Jews would likely have remained in the Muslim Middle East in greater numbers, and they would have advanced the Middle Eastern civilization rather than the civilizations of the places to which they fled, most notably Europe and later the United States.

Secondly, if Jews felt secure and accepted in the Middle East among Arabs, they may not have felt the need to create an independent state, which would have saved us from our subsequent mistakes.

The Worst Mistake

Our second and worst mistake was in not accepting the United Nations partition plan of 1947. UN resolution 181 provided the legal basis for a Jewish state and an Arab state sharing what used to be British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.

As reported by the BBC, that resolution provided for:

"A Jewish State covering 56.47% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs; An Arab State covering 43.53% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem), with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants; An international trusteeship regime in Jerusalem, where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs."​

Although the land allocated to the Jewish state was slightly larger than the land allocated to the Arab state, much of the Jewish part was total desert, the Negev and Arava, with the fertile land allocated to the Arabs. The plan was also to the Arabs' advantage for two other reasons:

• The Jewish state had only a bare majority of Jews, which would have given the Arabs almost as much influence as the Jews in running the Jewish state, but the Arab state was almost purely Arab, providing no political advantage to Jews within it.
• Each proposed state consisted of three more-or-less disconnected pieces, resulting in strong geographic interdependence between the two states. If the two states were on friendly terms, they would likely have worked in many ways as a single federation. In that federation, Arabs would have had a strong majority.

Instead of accepting that gift of a plan when we still could, we Arabs decided that we could not accept a Jewish state, period. In May 1948, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, announced, regarding the proposed new Jewish part of the partition: that, "This will be a war of extermination, a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." We initiated a war intended to eradicate the new state in its infancy, but we lost, and the result of our mistake was a much stronger Jewish state:

• The Jewish majority of the Jewish state grew dramatically due to the exchange of populations that occurred, with many Arabs fleeing the war in Israel and many Jews fleeing a hostile Arab world to join the new state.
• The Jews acquired additional land during the war we launched, resulting in armistice lines (today called the green lines or pre-1967 lines), which gave Israel a portion of the land previously allocated to the Arab state. The Jewish state also acquired much better contiguity, while the Arab portions became divided into two parts (Gaza and the West Bank) separated by almost 50 kilometers.

Perhaps one should not launch wars if one is not prepared for the results of possibly losing them.

More Wars and More Mistakes

After the War of Independence (the name that the Jews give to the war of 1947/1948), Israel was for all practical purposes confined to the land within the green lines. Israel had no authority or claim over Gaza and the West Bank. We Arabs had two options if we had chosen to make peace with Israel at that time:

• We could have incorporated Gaza into Egypt, and the West Bank into Jordan, providing the Palestinians with citizenship in one of two relatively strong Arab countries, both numerically and geographically stronger than Israel.
• We could have created a new state in Gaza and the West Bank.

Instead, we chose to continue the hostilities with Israel. In the spring of 1967, we formed a coalition to attack Israel. On May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad stated, "The time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." On May 27, 1967, Egypt's President Abdul Nasser declared, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel". In June, it took Israel only six days to defeat us and humiliate us in front of the world. In that war, we lost much more land, including Gaza and the West Bank.

After the war of 1967 (which Jews call the Six-Day War), Israel offered us land for peace, thereby offering us a chance to recover from the mistake of the Six-Day War. We responded with the Khartoum Resolutions, stating, "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel".

Not having learned from 1967, we formed yet another coalition in October 1973 and tried again to destroy Israel. We achieved some gains, but then the tide turned and we lost again. After this third humiliating defeat, our coalition against Israel broke up, and Egypt and Jordan even decided to make peace with Israel.

The rest of us remained stubbornly opposed to Israel's very existence, even Syria which, like Egypt and Jordan, had lost land to Israel during the Six-Day War. Today Israel still holds that territory, and there is no real prospect for that land ever going back to Syria; Israel's Prime Minister recently declared that, "Israel will never leave the Golan Heights".

The Tragedy of the Palestinians

The most reprehensible and the most tragic of our mistakes is the way that we Arabs have treated Palestinians since Israel's declaration of independence.

The Jews of Israel welcomed Jewish refugeesfrom Arab and other Muslim lands into the Israeli fold, regardless of the cost or the difficulty in integrating people with very different backgrounds. Israel eagerly integrated refugees from far-away lands, including Ethiopia, India, Morocco, Brazil, Iran, Ukraine, and Russia. By doing so, they demonstrated the powerful bond that binds Jews to each other. At the same time, we had the opportunity similarly to show the bond that binds Arabs together, but instead of welcoming Arab refugees from the 1947/48 war, we confined them to camps with severe restrictions on their daily lives.

In Lebanon, as reported by Amnesty International, "Palestinians continue to suffer discrimination and marginalization in the labor market which contribute to high levels of unemployment, low wages and poor working conditions. While the Lebanese authorities recently lifted a ban on 50 of the 70 jobs restricted to them, Palestinians continue to face obstacles in actually finding employment in them. The lack of adequate employment prospects leads a high drop-out rate for Palestinian schoolchildren who also have limited access to public secondary education. The resultant poverty is exacerbated by restrictions placed on their access to social services".

Yet, Lebanon and Syria could not integrate refugees that previously lived a few kilometers away from the country's borders and who shared with the country's people almost identical cultures, languages, and religions. Jordan integrated some refugees but not all. We could have proven that we Arabs are a great and noble people, but instead we showed the world, as we continue to do, that our hatred towards each other and towards Jews is far greater than any concept of purported Arab solidarity. Shamefully to us, seven decades after the Palestinian refugees fled Israel, their descendants are still considered refugees.

The worst part of the way we have treated Palestinian refugees is that even within the West Bank and Gaza, there remains to this day a distinction between Palestinian refugees and native Palestinians. In those lands, according to the year 2010 numbers provided by Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet at McGill University, 37% of Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza live in camps! Gaza has eight Palestinian refugee camps, and the West bank has nineteen. The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are. Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas claims a state on those lands, but we can hardly expect him to be taken seriously when he leaves the Palestinian refugees under his authority in camps and cannot even integrate them with other Palestinians. The ridiculousness of the situation is rivaled only by its callousness.

Where We Are Now

Because of our own mistakes, our relationship with Israel today is a failure. The only strength in our economies is oil, a perishable resource and, with fracking, diminishing in value. We have not done nearly enough to prepare for the future when we will need inventiveness and productivity. According to Foreign Policy Magazine, "Although Arab governments have long recognized the need to shift away from an excessive dependence on hydrocarbons, they have had little success in doing so. ... Even the United Arab Emirates' economy, one of the most diversified in the Gulf, is highly dependent on oil exports".

Business Insider rated Israel in 2015 as the world's third most innovative country. Countries from all over the world take advantage of Israel's creativity, including countries as remote and as advanced as Japan. Yet we snub Israel, an innovation powerhouse that happens to be at our borders.

We also fail to take advantage of Israel's military genius to help us fight new and devastating enemies such as ISIS.

Worst of all, one of our own people, the Palestinians, are dispersed -- divided, disillusioned, and utterly incapable of reviving the national project that we kidnapped from under their feet in 1948 and that we have since disfigured beyond recognition.

To say that we must change our approach towards Israel is an understatement. There are fundamental changes that we ourselves must make, and we must find the courage and moral fortitude to make them.

The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8388/arabs-israel-historic-mistakes

 

[brothir]

Well, the whole point of this discussion is on which area is negotiable.

I know, and I did see the maps. However, I don't feel qualified to determine exactly where the lines should be drawn in eventual treaties, by either de jure or tactical measurements. Israel giving Sinai back to Egypt was quite a successful diplomatic move from what I gather, but that doesn't mean the same would be true for giving back the Golan heights.

Expecting Israel to give up practically everything they've won in defensive wars is unreasonable. So as you say, the discussion will realistically have to be about where the lines go.

Due to it's international significance, I can see designating Jerusalem as a special zone that is not fully a part of Israel while Israel still having a significant influence and responsibility for it. This may also address the security concerns regarding terrorism: however, what this would mean in terms of precise legislation is beyond my knowledge to say. I also think that Jerusalem can be a part of Israel: unlike the UN, I don't really see the problem of Israel having annexed it. All in all, I think I favor the latter.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are a headache. The original draft of Israel and Palestine being so awkward is not really something I like personally, but I see the logic behind it in terms of interdependency. However, if Palestine were to be formed as those two areas as they stand now, being so separated would lead to administrative challenges while not having the power balance of the original borders. Israel has of course no real interest in giving up their own land to make WB and GS contiguous.

To deepen this issue, there seems to be a growing consensus that the two state solution is dead, which seems accurate to me.

In conclusion, I have no idea for any solutions. While unlikely to happen, I really don't want to see Israel being forced by the international community to give up land, as that seems unjust. Simultaneously, the current situation is not very good for the well-being of Palestinians, and I can see the argument of Israel being overzealous in terms of trying to secure themselves. I think the settlements on the West Bank have to go if any deal is to be struck, even in Area C: by the same token, the Arab Peace Initiative have to give up the idea of Israel going back to 1949 borders, like you say.

 

[Arkain2K]

Next Year in Jerusalem?
Trump's team should end U.S. procrastinating and move the embassy to Israel's 'eternal capital.'
By James S. Robbins
Dec. 21, 2016

In his March 2016 speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, then-candidate Donald Trump promised that his administration would "move the U.S. embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem." Last week, ambassador to Israel designate David Friedman said he looks forward to working "from the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem." Senior aide Kellyanne Conway has confirmed that the move is a "very big priority for this president-elect, Donald Trump."

Trump's intention to keep his promise is creating a political uproar. "Madness," fumed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. It will "constitute a potentially explosive provocation," said Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia University's Middle East Institute. Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, imam of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, said the move would be tantamount to a "declaration of war."

Yet the issue should not be controversial. U.S. officials across the political spectrum have supported moving the embassy from Tel Aviv for decades. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated the move by May 31, 1999, passed with strong bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Bill Clinton. Every president since then has given lip service to the idea. Erstwhile 2016 Trump opponent former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he backed moving the embassy "not just as a symbol, but a show of solidarity." Trump critic and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney supported the move in 2012. Even Hillary Clinton believed the embassy should be in Jerusalem at one time, though by 2016 she chose to avoid discussing it.

The issue, then, is raising a ruckus not because Trump said he would do it, but because he actually intends to. Previous candidates and elected officials have felt free to champion this cause because they knew that they would never have to do anything about it. A loophole in the 1995 law allowed presidents to defer moving the embassy for six months for reasons of national security. And every six months, presidents have issued waivers delaying the move. Friedman called the idea of moving the embassy an "evergreen. Everyone running for president tosses this out. No one actually does it."

The security loophole was intended to give presidents flexibility in case moving the embassy interfered with sensitive ongoing negotiations. But over time it became a crutch for procrastination. In the 21 years since the law passed, peace talks have come and gone, wars have flared and died down, and the embassy remains in Tel Aviv. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that moving the embassy could lead to "the destruction of the peace process as a whole." But is there any peace process left to destroy? If anything, the move could revitalize the process by demonstrating to the Palestinians that history is going forward without them.

Opponents of the move say there will never be a good time to do it. They say it will cause riots in the Muslim world, increase anti-American sentiment and play into the hands of Iran and other adversaries. However, the United States cannot allow its policies to be dictated by those who chant "death to America, death to Israel." Yes, moving the embassy will be upsetting to Middle East radicals and Western leftists, but they oppose most aspects of the U.S.-Israel relationship anyway. As such they have little credibility. If they riot, they riot; if it isn't over this, it would be something else.

Making the move will also be a major step towards resolving the status of Jerusalem. It will constitute official recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, something the United States has been unwilling to do since the U.N. partition in 1947, and the de facto division of the city. Since then, it has been U.S. policy to leave Jerusalem in legal limbo until some future settlement.

But much has changed in 70 years. Israel united the city in 1967 during the Six Day War. Since then, Jerusalem has grown and modernized, sprouted suburbs and built a thriving economy. Recognizing the city as Israel's capital would simply be accepting an established fact. Trump already views Jerusalem as "the eternal capital of the Jewish people." Once that is acknowledged, moving an office is the easy part.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/world...-is-right-to-move-the-us-embassy-to-jerusalem

 

[Arkain2K]

The New York Times' Room for Debate
Should the U.S. Embassy Be Moved From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?

During the campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump vowed that he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “fairly quickly” after taking office. A statement from the Trump transition announcing David M. Friedman as Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel said that Friedman looked forward to doing the job “from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Because Jerusalem is a contested city, the embassy’s location in Tel Aviv has long been a diplomatic thorn in the American-Israeli relationship. But is it time to move the embassy to Jerusalem?

Read the Discussion

Don’t Do It. The Downsides Are Too Great
Aaron David Miller, Woodrow Wilson Center

It is hard to see what overriding U.S. interest would compel a new administration to risk pouring gasoline on a fire.

It Would Show a U.S. Commitment to Peace
Robert Stearns, interfaith dialogue activist

It would signal that the U.S. is serious about ending this conflict, which would be a benefit to Israelis and Palestinians.

The Move Would Likely Lead to Violence
Gregory Khalil, Telos

Talk of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem before resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could spark massacres and even ignite distant wars.

Please, America, Move Your Embassy to Jerusalem
Amiad Cohen, Hashiloach magazine

Keeping it in Tel Aviv says: We won’t acknowledge Israel’s permanence in Jerusalem because maybe one day there will be a new reality.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...s-embassy-be-moved-from-tel-aviv-to-jerusalem

 

[SouthoftheAndes]

It is unfortunate that Trump does not seem to be the one who will end the settlement farce, but who knows. Maybe he surprises me despite his 'I will blindly back Israel' stance.

Settlements and land-taking are the key problem in my opinion. It is in open defiance of international law and every new settlement is a new hurdle to any viable two state solution. Therefore talk about a two state solution from Netanyahu is all hot air imo. When I see @SouthoftheAndes is talking about a Palestenian state on Jordan soil, he is advocating ethnic cleansing.

All in all, not that smart of a move from Netanyahu.

Jews have been persecuted and brutalized more than anyone else in history. The desire by some Jews Jewish to have the entire west bank is logical after all the land Jews have previously rightfully conquered in war and then returned.

I am sick of liberals like you in a country that committed the holocaust trying to tell Jews how to operate and live. You don't face their oppression or persecution and you are influenced by antisemitic propaganda.

I am not advocating death to Palestinians but rather advocating that we help create a state for them in Jordan or better yet we create a state between Israel and Jordan or a state in both territories.

What I am proposing is that Israel forfeit some of Area C, and build a contiguous Palestinian state that borders Jordan.


at the least we should look into the Lieberman plan of land concessions on both sides but with Jews holding Jerusalem.

 

[Arkain2K]

Trump’s plan to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could help the peace process
By Miriam F. Elman
December 29, 2016

Jerusalem’s Old City​

President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his selection of an ambassador to Israel who heartily supports the relocation have produced a deluge of dire warnings. Critics claim the move would unleash a wave of extremism, making past clashes pale by comparison. But these warnings may be exaggerated. A careful look at conflict-resolution theory suggests that moving the embassy could be a constructive move, pushing Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

Many assumed Trump would renege on his campaign pledge once in office, as Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did. But relocating the embassy allows the Trump administration to reinforce that, unlike the Obama administration, it doesn’t consider settlements the key obstacle to peace. Trump will be particularly keen to make this distinction after the U.S. abstention Friday on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which effectively declares illegal all Israeli presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines, including in East Jerusalem. Trump’s transition team has publicly called moving the embassy a “very big priority” and is reportedly exploring the logistics for its new location.

Conflict-resolution experts call this tactic a “burning bridges” move, which sends a clear, credible commitment to act. The costs of a move may be high, but the literature on conflict resolution suggests this could prove a strength, not a weakness. As has long been noted by scholars, the perception of a party’s will and commitment is essential to peacemaking. Demands and offers need to be believable, and concrete actions can display a readiness to react.

Though some Arab states may protest, official relations between Israel and its neighbors have never been better as they face down common threats, from Islamist extremism to an expanding Iranian influence. Additionally, the argument that moving the embassy would drive a wedge between the United States and Arab states or Europe is less tenable following the passage of the U.N. resolution.

As highlighted by a former member of the Knesset, not only does the resolution delegitimize Israeli communities set up on land captured in the 1967 war, but it also designates pre-1967 territory as “Israel proper.” So while the international community hadn’t previously recognized Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, the resolution actually commits the world to recognizing the western half of the city as part of the state of Israel, making Trump’s campaign promise more feasible than before.

Critics are right that an embassy move could spark demonstrations and perhaps even other forms of retribution, undermining the shaky Palestinian Authority. But Jerusalem has already faced a wave of violence in recent months, and the potential for future clashes isn’t sufficient cause for delay. For the moment, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would probably be able to control any fallout after emerging considerably stronger since last week’s Security Council vote and the Fatah central-party elections earlier this month.

Negative reactions may be dampened if the move recognizes Muslim and Palestinian connections to the city. One small site shows how this might work. On the outskirts of Jerusalem, perched on a hilltop with magnificent views, the Tomb of Samuel is a model of interfaith harmony. Jews and Muslims conduct prayers there simultaneously. Scholars who study sacred sites note that it’s the only place on the planet where a functioning synagogue operates underneath a working mosque. The tomb’s low-density population area and relatively minor religious importance for Muslims have helped to preserve the peace. But strong coordination and dialogue between the local Muslim clerics who administer the mosque and Israeli civil authorities who control the Jewish prayer room there as a national park have also been essential to stability.

The peaceful coexistence that has emerged at Samuel’s Tomb contrasts sharply with the record of confrontation on the 35-acre Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. The site has become a place of violent struggle because of not only its centrality to the religious beliefs of both Jews and Muslims but also the lack of coordination between the many political actors and organizations that operate there.

An embassy move will upend long-standing U.S. policy. But that policy has been based primarily on the prospect of a negotiated two-state solution. Since June 1967, the United States has maintained that Jerusalem’s final status should be decided through direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Successive U.S. administrations have claimed that recognizing the city as Israel’s capital and relocating the U.S. Embassy there would prejudice any negotiated outcome. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 mandated that the embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by May 1999. However, a built-in waiver provision intended as a temporary measure has allowed every president since then to delay the move at routine six-month intervals.

The symbolic act of relocating the embassy would do nothing to resolve the day-to-day problems — such as entrenched pockets of poverty and the continued frictions between the city’s religious and secular residents — that have long plagued Israel’s most populous multicultural urban space. But a reversal of the longtime U.S. diplomatic boycott of Jerusalem could bode well for Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects. Sending a strong message that the new administration stands with the Israeli government on a major symbolic issue with high potential costs could push the Palestinian leadership to a greater sense of urgency in negotiations. The U.S. Embassy move could even help advance efforts to duplicate the precious Jewish-Muslim coexistence model of Samuel’s Tomb for Jerusalem’s other contested sacred spaces.


Miriam F. Elman is an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and is a research director in the Program for the Advancement of Research in Conflict and Collaboration. She is the co-editor of “Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...sy-to-jerusalem-could-help-the-peace-process/

 

[Arkain2K]

Why moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a bad idea
Victor Kattan For The Straits Times
January 2, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel, his bankruptcy lawyer, Mr David Friedman, recently said in a statement to the press that he is looking forward to doing the job "from the US Embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem".

Mr Friedman was evidently speaking tongue-in-cheek, for the United States does not have an embassy in Jerusalem. It only has a consulate-general there, which is responsible for US affairs with the Palestinians. The US Embassy is located in Tel Aviv, where it has been since 1948.

Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would violate longstanding US policy, which is not to recognise any sovereign in the Holy City. Every single US president, whether Republican or Democrat, from Mr Harry Truman to Mr Barack Obama, has refused to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Even the adoption by Congress of the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995 calling on the administration to move its embassy to Jerusalem failed to move presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Mr Obama, who refused to move the embassy by signing presidential waivers on national security grounds.

There are scores of United Nations resolutions refusing to recognise Israel's annexation of Jerusalem. One of the most important is Security Council Resolution 478 that was passed following the adoption in July 1980 of an Israeli law that declared Jerusalem Israel's capital. Israel's legislature passed the law during the autonomy negotiations between Israel and Egypt which were brokered by US President Jimmy Carter. The law greatly upset Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who suspended the negotiations, and angered Mr Carter, who had invested much time in the process.

Resolution 478 also came on the heels of complaints from Europe and the Vatican about Israel's settlement policy in Jerusalem. The resolution declared that Israel's law making Jerusalem its capital was "null and void". In the same resolution, the Security Council called upon "those states that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City". Following the adoption of this resolution, 13 countries that had diplomatic missions in Jerusalem moved them to Tel Aviv.

More recently, the Security Council passed Resolution 2334 (on Dec 23 last year). Resolution 2334 reiterates the Security Council's view that it will "not recognise any changes to the June 4, 1967, lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations". Israel occupied East Jerusalem on June 4, 1967, but note that Resolution 2334 refers to "Jerusalem", not East Jerusalem nor West Jerusalem. This is because no state has sovereignty over Jerusalem, neither East nor West.

In June 2015, the US Supreme Court gave judgment in a case that addressed US policy towards Jerusalem. The court admonished congressional attempts to force the executive branch to confer recognition on Israel's claims to sovereignty over Jerusalem through a provision in an Act of Congress that sought to oblige the State Department to record the place of birth of US citizens born in Jerusalem as "Israel" on their American passports. This is because this policy would imply Jerusalem is sovereign Israeli territory, even though this is contrary to longstanding US policy that no state has sovereignty in Jerusalem.

Should Mr Trump not sign the presidential waiver and move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, not only would he prejudice peace negotiations, but he could land the US in legal hot water. Given the overwhelming international consensus that Israel's annexation of Jerusalem is null and void, the UN General Assembly could request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice questioning the legality of locating the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

Finally, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would alienate key US allies. The kingdoms of Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, for instance, all claim to be custodians of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. They would not take kindly to the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem unless this was also reciprocated by establishing an embassy to Palestine in the same city. The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was specifically established to safeguard Muslim holy places in Jerusalem following an arson attack on Al-Aqsa in 1969. In 2013, former OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu warned that its members could cut ties with any state that recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or that moves its embassy to Jerusalem.

Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem without also recognising Palestinian rights could potentially offend Christians and Muslims for whom Jerusalem also holds special reverence. Given these sensitivities, Mr Trump would be wise to avoid any further controversies.


The writer is senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute and an associate fellow at the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore.

http://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/why-moving-the-us-embassy-to-jerusalem-is-a-bad-idea

 

[jeffk]

Why moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a bad idea
Victor Kattan For The Straits Times
January 2, 2017

http://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/why-moving-the-us-embassy-to-jerusalem-is-a-bad-idea

 

[jeffk]

It would be a big mistake to try to unilaterally move the embassy.

It would likely mean goodbye to the peace agreement with Jordan and hurt relations with Israel and Egypt. And the US would not be seen as a worthy of leading negotiation in the future.

 

[cincymma79]

If Israel gave up every piece of land except for two ssquare miles does anyone really think they'd get peace in return? Are you fucking stupid?

 

[jeffk]

A talk by Amos Oz from a couple years ago. He points out what people see of Israel on the news is a distorted view of reality. Most Israelis are not religious settlers and are not gun toting soldiers at checkpoints. He makes some good points throughout it.

A lot of the conflict is due to Europe's treatment of both Palestinians and Jews. The Arabs see the Jews as a new wave of colonization. Jews were not accepted in Europe. Jews had nowhere else to go but return to their ancient home. Palestinians have no were to go. They are not accepted by other Arabs. Palestine is a giant refugee camp. Israel is a refugee camp. They both have legit claims to the land.

The only solution is a two state solution. Both parties are like a hospital patient who is not happy to have to go into surgery to have part of their body amputated. The way forward is to have competent and willing doctors on both sides at the same time who can perform this surgery.

The peace that will come about will not be a compromise where everyone is happy. People will mourn and feel there is injustice. Israel will lose part of their ancient homeland and Palestinians will lose lands that were Arabic and they will not be able to fully correct what they feel is a historic injustice. But better to feel some injustice than have a Shakespearean tragic ending.

 

[Gervinho]

If Israel gave up every piece of land except for two ssquare miles does anyone really think they'd get peace in return? Are you fucking stupid?

oooh the old argument if we stop stealing land you think we would have peace? So we might as well keep stealing land argument. Disgusting

 

[cincymma79]

oooh the old argument if we stop stealing land you think we would have peace? So we might as well keep stealing land argument. Disgusting

Oooooooooooh the strawman argument

 

[Gervinho]

Oooooooooooh the strawman argument

Thats exactly what you said....since when has anyone demanded Israel to give every piece of land? At best people are saying go back to 1967 boarders, but more importantly people are saying stop expanding the settlements NOW. And your argument is settlements isnt the problem.....stopping it wouldnt bring peace, so why stop. Its this kind of dishonesty that really makes me dislike die hard Israel supporters. atleast be honest what you really believe. God gave you the land and you have every right to build in any land. Israel dont want peace. Anyone with any sense knows that

 

[cincymma79]

Thats exactly what you said....since when has anyone demanded Israel to give every piece of land? At best people are saying go back to 1967 boarders, but more importantly people are saying stop expanding the settlements NOW. And your argument is settlements isnt the problem.....stopping it wouldnt bring peace, so why stop. Its this kind of dishonesty that really makes me dislike die hard Israel supporters. atleast be honest what you really believe. God gave you the land and you have every right to build in any land. Israel dont want peace. Anyone with any sense knows that

No dipshit, my argument is no matter what the Jews do the palis and company will still try and kill them. They don't want peace. Acting like the settlements will cause anything to change is silly. That's reality. Now you say I hate Muslims or some other purely thought out strawman.

 

[Gervinho]

No dipshit, my argument is no matter what the Jews do the palis and company will still try and kill them. They don't want peace. Acting like the settlements will cause anything to change is silly. That's reality. Now you say I hate Muslims or some other purely thought out strawman.

The settlement is the biggest issue in this conflict. This is what brings the most anger. stop downplaying it. Some Palis will always hate them sure and vice versa. But hating other people and being at war with them is different thing. They want their own state, the world think they should. But they have brainwashed American media and politics and basically runs America from behind the scenes to do their dirty work

 

[cincymma79]

The settlement is the biggest issue in this conflict. This is what brings the most anger. stop downplaying it. Some Palis will always hate them sure and vice versa. But hating other people and being at war with them is different thing. They want their own state, the world think they should. But they have brainwashed American media and politics and basically runs America from behind the scenes to do their dirty work

See? Third time I'm responding and this is it. I put less words in this time. See if you can spot the hole in your argument

 

[VivaRevolution]

Jews have been persecuted and brutalized more than anyone else in history. The desire by some Jews Jewish to have the entire west bank is logical after all the land Jews have previously rightfully conquered in war and then returned.

I am sick of liberals like you in a country that committed the holocaust trying to tell Jews how to operate and live. You don't face their oppression or persecution and you are influenced by antisemitic propaganda.

I am not advocating death to Palestinians but rather advocating that we help create a state for them in Jordan or better yet we create a state between Israel and Jordan or a state in both territories.

What I am proposing is that Israel forfeit some of Area C, and build a contiguous Palestinian state that borders Jordan.


at the least we should look into the Lieberman plan of land concessions on both sides but with Jews holding Jerusalem.

Let's be honest here. This is about Jerusalem.

For the money that has been spent in defense of Israel, they could have bought north and south dakota.

 

[brothir]

Tough one. If it pisses of Saudi Arabia, good. However, it would also entrench USA as an ideological ally of Israel. The legality of it with respect to international law is interesting, as it'd be fun to see how a lawsuit would be carried out.

It would most likely spur on the effort of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which I'm not fond of. However, I do think that Israel realistically has sovereignty over Jerusalem, and that the position that it should not have that is mostly out of spite or placeless idealism. I don't really see how one would realistically roll back the legal status of Jerusalem, so there is some sense in the US doubling down on it to force the issue.

I don't think the backlash would be anything either the US or Israel hasn't already seen: the UN will wail and gnash their teeth and ultimately not do much of anything. Some terror attacks would probably happen as retaliation.

I guess I support it, in no small part because I'll enjoy the aftermath. It's not a necessary thing to do, and it's not a good solution to the conflict: however, good solutions have consistently failed to present themselves in a tangible way with respect to this conflict.

 

[Arkain2K]

It would be a big mistake to try to unilaterally move the embassy.

It would likely mean goodbye to the peace agreement with Jordan and hurt relations with Israel and Egypt. And the US would not be seen as a worthy of leading negotiation in the future.

Whose permission do you think the United States have to seek if President Trump give the order next month to move the U.S Embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem, on the Israeli side well-within the 1949 Green Line?

Neither Jordan, Egypt, or any other member of the Arabs League would raise objection to that if they're not stupid, and they should immediately and enthusiastically endorse the idea of an U.S Embassy in West Jerusalem now.

Why? Because there's always the alternative option of an U.S Embassy being built in East Jerusalem instead, and then we'll hear more lamenting about "Arab mistakes" years from now.