Capital watch
After U.S. move on Jerusalem, waiting and seeing
Americans are following the reaction of the rest of the world, particularly among Muslims and in the Middle East, to President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, given both its departure from America’s previous approach to the problem and the potential it raises for violence, including directed against the United States.
The United States’ and Israel’s first hope was that Mr. Trump’s decision finally to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would cause other countries to do likewise. It prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to European Union headquarters in Brussels on Monday to test the waters with the EU members on such a decision. He received a resounding, public “no” on that score, although there was some thought that some of the smaller, more xenophobic European nations had been leaning that way. (The Czech Republic has pulled back from its statement last week that it would consider moving its embassy.)
The Jerusalem event seems to have stepped up the nearly always ongoing, sputtering violent conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The Palestinian side has fired rockets; the Israelis have bombed Gaza. There have been demonstrations and some street battles in the West Bank, notably in Bethlehem, no doubt because of the world focus on that town at this season of the year.
There have also been public antiU.S. and anti-Israel demonstrations in other cities in the world, including a particularly sharp confrontation in Beirut. What America has not seen yet is violence directed against American targets abroad or in the United States in response to the U.S. move on the Jerusalem issue. Whether Monday’s attack in New York carried out by a Bangladeshi immigrant was prompted by Mr. Trump’s change of policy on Jerusalem remains to be revealed or not by the investigation into his motivation. Early reports indicate he was reacting against U.S. airstrikes against ISIS, but coherent motivations are generally not a feature of such attackers.
In the meantime, the world has not seen the possible third intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel proper that could have occurred. It may be that such convulsions, if not spontaneous, take a while to build up. It could also be that the Palestinians and the Arabs have heard all this before, and don’t see it as entering in significantly to the evolution of relations among Israelis, Palestinians, the rest of the Arab world, the United States and the international community. In any event, the decision by the Trump administration does not yet have a physical manifestation. A functioning U.S. embassy in Jerusalem might be a better test of counter-reaction, though its establishment will be years away.
The latter interpretation of postJerusalem declaration events leaves still hanging the very real need for a process that results in two states, one for the Israelis and one for the Palestinians, if a sustainable peace is to be reached.