Jerusalem rises above politics

Jerusalem is a city of peace, not politics. Jerusalem is equally holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The legal status of Jerusalem is defined by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which recommends the city be administered as a separate entity. When Israel applied to be admitted to the UN in 1949, it specifically recognized the legal effect of Resolution 181 on Jerusalem. The U.S. policy since then has treated Jerusalem as a city whose fate must be decided by negotiation, and not by force.

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, and later it annexed the city of Jerusalem in 1980. However, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, adopted by 14 votes to none, declared the law null and void. No foreign country today has an embassy in Jerusalem.

U.S. policy has long refrained from recognizing Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, and it always has been. In 1980, Israel illegally declared the city of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. In 2015, the Supreme Court issued a decision reaffirming U.S. practice that forbids Americans born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their country of birth on passports.

Tel Aviv, and not Jerusalem, is the capital of Israel.

Israel's leaders are arrogant enough to believe that might is right. Israel is very powerful and thinks it can do whatever it wants unchallenged, even if its action is, in fact, unjustified. President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is a self-proclaimed expert on the Middle East, would not attend an open house if they know the house was built on stolen land. Then why did they both bend backward to appease Israel by cementing Israeli occupation and sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem?