Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
In “Israel should not be extolling President Trump” (Observations, January 12), Richard H. Schwartz asserts that US President Donald Trump’s pronouncement about Jerusalem “did not change the overall situation.” This conclusion is quite unjustified.
Trump’s pronouncement effectively nullified, for the United States, UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, and thus has considerable significance for American constitutional law and international law.
As far as the US is concerned, former president Barack Obama’s scheme to override Security Council Resolution 242, redivide Jerusalem and thereby bar access by Jews to their holy sites was countermanded. Trump stated categorically that the boundary issue was to be settled between the parties. SHLOMO SLONIM Jerusalem
The flying pink elephant in the room that no one wishes to mention with regard to President Donald Trump’s declaration is its linkage to the supersessionary ideas held by many Christian sects and Islam.
For better or worse, Jews are the only people who figure in the theology and eschatology of all three revealed faiths, the result being that the fate of the Jews and Judaism has relevance to the perceived legitimacy of each such faith.
For faiths espousing supersessionary ideas, a prophecy from a “superseded” religion that something will happen “someday” or at the “end of time” must become invalid (i.e., it can’t happen ever without contradicting the notion of supersession) if the older religion’s prophecies remain valid.
As most readers of The Jerusalem Post know, Judaism’s prophets foretold the return of the Jews to their homeland and the reestablishment of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. This would happen “someday” or perhaps at the “end of time.” If it didn’t happen during the lifetime of a Jew, the prophecy remained valid; the time simply hadn’t arrived. However, if one believes that something can’t happen, and then it does, that becomes an infuriating matter.
The reestablishment of the Jewish state, and the more recent acknowledgment that Jerusalem is its capital, are theological challenges to those who hold supersessionary beliefs. The solution posed by Pope John Paul II in his “big brother-little brother” formulation is to recognize that God is capable of providing parallel revelations to different peoples so that no religion need feel compelled to deny the validity of others.
It could be that Trump’s move on Jerusalem will serve to inoculate global politics against the illnesses engendered by supersessionary theology. If only there were also a way to get international relations specialists to abandon their commitment to the secular counterpart of supersession.
YALE ZUSSMAN Framingham, Massachusetts