Exposing a diplomatic lie

“Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this as a fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace.” And with that simple, clear statement Wednesday, President Donald Trump exposed the fallacy of what has long been the go-to canard of international diplomacy on the question of the capital of the state of Israel.

No other country has ever had its designated capital rebuffed. By whatever metric — political, historical or religious — the international refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has always been baseless.

Zion, the ancient place that is Jerusalem, is mentioned 850 times in the Torah. Throughout millennia of dispersal and exile, Jews have prayed to and kept a consistent presence and population in Jerusalem. Archeological finds and ancient texts corroborate this fact.

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Yes, Jerusalem is important to all three Abrahamic religions, but even Islamic leaders agree that Jerusalem, unmentioned in the Qur’an, is the third most significant site for Islam, after Mecca and Medina.

The Western Wall of the Second Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, is located inside the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. Now part of “East Jerusalem,” the Old City was controlled by Jordan from 1948 to 1967, and Jews were prohibited any access. After being attacked by Jordan and Arab allies in the Six Day War in 1967, Israel recaptured its ancient capital and the West Bank, thus beginning the “occupation.”

Since then, all three religions have enjoyed access to their holy sites in Jerusalem. Yet Arab and Palestinian leaders still demand Jerusalem be denied to the Jews as their capital. When Palestinians murdered two Israeli policemen patrolling the alAqsa mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount this summer, Israel installed metal detectors to screen visitors. So PA President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of trying to take over the Muslim holy site, Palestinians rioted, and Israel relented.

What has all this modern political history got to do with recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? Absolutely nothing. Because none of it changes that all historic and religious evidence is clear that Jerusalem is fundamentally central to Judaism, that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and so it is of the Jewish State. Even Trump stated Wednesday that the final outcome of the status of East Jerusalem must still be negotiated. But it is nonetheless absurd to suggest, as some countries and NGOs have, that there is no legitimate Jewish connection to the ancient city of Jerusalem.

Through a secular lens, the evidence is just as clear. Jerusalem was designated the capital of the state of Israel in 1948. From 1950, Israel’s major government institutions, including the Knesset, government offices and the Supreme Court have been located in “West Jerusalem.” West Jerusalem is indisputably a part of Israeli territory and recognized as such by the United Nations and the international community. So on what basis does any country refuse to locate an embassy in West Jerusalem? There is no less logic or validity, in terms of respecting international law, to locating an embassy in West Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv, where these embassies now sit.

Any U.S. president before Trump, or any other country’s leaders, could have located an embassy in West Jerusalem and recognized that part of the city as the capital of the State of Israel. Yet most governments have robotically acquiesced to the illogic promoted by the Palestinians and Arab leaders that to recognize Jerusalem as the capital would be to pre-judge the outcome of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s poppycock. And it took Donald Trump, of all people, to expose that big fat lie. How does recognizing a fact predetermine the outcome of anything? It doesn’t.

By Wednesday afternoon, both the Czech Republic and the Philippines were talking about moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Still other countries, including Canada and France, were quick to issue statements restating their same boilerplate reasons for not doing so. They don’t, or won’t, understand that their purported justifications for maintaining this position have nothing to do with logic, fact, international law, or political or religious reality.

With their lie finally called out by the Trump White House, Palestinian leaders are now threatening days of rage and violence in protest. Speaking with the National Post Wednesday after Trump’s announcement, Naftali Bennett, a minister in Israel’s security cabinet, noted that no nation should surrender its diplomacy to violent threats. “Countries must act based on what’s right, not have their actions dictated by the threats of terrorists and extremists,” he said.

The Jerusalem issue is one of Israeli politics’ rare points of consensus and leaders across the spectrum (with the exception of the Knesset’s United Arab List party) have been praising Trump’s resolve in honouring a commitment he had made, and righting what, in their eyes, is a terrible wrong. Since its founding, Israel has been attacked and lived surrounded by neighbours pledged to its annihilation. But its existence is a fact that is not going away, and Jerusalem’s paramount place in Israel is non-negotiable.

“The announcement by the president is welcome, but natural,” said Bennett, “We have patience and believe that, in due course, all countries will recognize Jerusalem as our capital.”