CAPITAL CALM
Life in Jerusalem is already back to normal
JERUSALEM Syndrome is a phenomenon in which people become psychotic, usually on a religious or messianic theme, upon visiting the holy city.
There seemed to be another kind of Jerusalem Syndrome going around since President Trump decided to, in his own words, “finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.”
The psychosis began with much of the media and the usual European suspects tut-tutting and breathlessly anticipating violence as if the Palestinians are Pavlovian lab subjects of condescending diplomats. Media outlets sent crews here from around the world to cover what they were certain would be explosive violence in Jerusalem.
Emma Green wrote in The Atlantic that journalists in the Old City of Jerusalem outnumbered protesters three to one. A reporter flown in from Germany told me, five days after Trump’s announcement, about how uneventful her days standing with her crew outside the Damascus Gate have been. When the anchors in Berlin asked about violence, she didn’t really have much to say. She really enjoyed the falafel, though.
True, there has been an uptick of violence in the West Bank, and an increase in rockets shot from Gaza at civilian populations in Israel, but hardly the war or third Intifada some seemed to hope for.
On the other side, we have the people who started having messianic visions about Trump.
The two most-read Israeli tabloids, Yisrael Hayom on the right and Yediot Aharonot on the left, both splashed thank-you messages to Trump in English across their covers with full-page photos of the Old City. Yisrael Hayom wrote JerUSAlem, with the “USA” bedecked in stars and stripes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lavished praise on Trump by putting the declaration among the “major moments in the history of Zionism,” including the state’s founding and the Balfour Declaration.
Trump’s announcement goes a long way toward reversing a decades-old injustice. For 70 years, the international community leaned on the 1947 partition plan, which allowed for Israel’s establishment, but also said Jerusalem should be a “Corpus Separatum” under international control. Israel accepted the plan, even though it wasn’t ideal. The Arabs rejected it, and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and troops from several other Muslim countries fought a war against the nascent State of Israel.
And Israel was punished for winning, surviving and retaining the western half of Jerusalem by being basically the only country whose capital is rejected by the world.
This is just one of the many areas in which Israel faces a double standard in international politics, so the president’s announcement definitely gives Israelis a good feeling.
But Trump was right when he said he was merely acknowledging reality: There’s no reason to take things out of proportion, in either direction. Jerusalem is the still the same Jerusalem.
Let’s look at the facts. Israel’s parliament, Supreme Court, President’s Residence and Prime Minister’s Office have been in Jerusalem for decades. Foreign leaders and diplomats, who say they don’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, still meet with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Even the Israeli Arab members of parliament, furious at Trump’s announcement, still go to work in Jerusalem. None of that has changed in the past two weeks.
Another thing that hasn’t changed? American citizens born in Jerusalem still can’t have “Jerusalem, Israel” on their passports and birth certificates. Quite a few of them or their parents expressed disappointment about that.
Life has mostly moved on for everyday Jerusalemites. The Palestinian Authority canceled school for a couple of days, apparently hoping to spur teens to riot, as they did when a recent Palestinian teachers’ strike kept them out of classes, and shopkeepers in the Arab Quarter were bullied into shutting their doors. But that passed quickly, and most residents of the city are going to work and school, shopping in the market, praying at holy sites or going to the movies like they always were.
And, of course, fielding the worried phone calls from relatives outside Israel who watch too much CNN.
For most Jewish Israelis, Jerusalem has been the capital for 3,000 years, and will continue to be. We appreciate Trump’s declaration, but we didn’t need him to know the truth, and we don’t need to be scared or panicked over him saying it, either. We don’t need Jerusalem Syndrome to spread beyond the people wandering around the city claiming to be Jesus or King David.