In Contention

"There’s certainly a chance of it, absolutely. I’ve always liked the concept of doing it, I’ll tell you that."
"It’s a very big decision because every president for the last number of presidents, large number, they’ve come in and they were going to do it and and then all of a sudden they decide they don’t want to get involved."
"[The decision is] not easy. [It] has two sides to it." [But he is prepared to] studying it very long and hard [before making a decision]."
"I hate to do that because that’s not usually me. Usually, I do what’s right."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"I would like to clarify unequivocally that our view has always been, and continues to be, that the United States' embassy should be here in Jerusalem."
"Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it is appropriate that not only the American embassy will be here but that all embassies will move here and I believe that in due course most will come here, to Jerusalem."
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu

This photo comes from 1844 and was taken by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey. Smithsonian.com

The Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv is where most international diplomatic legates work out of, where the global community feels the Israeli capital should be located until such time as a compromise settlement is reached between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel, whose heritage since antiquity has been there where ancient Judeans lived, and where the ancient Temple of Solomon was built and rebuilt, but which the Palestinians, a recent Arab introduction to the land once named Palestine where Jews lived, have coopted as their own.

So much so, that although more than ample evidence exists in historical notations both sacred and secular in origin of Jerusalem's Jewish connection that the Palestinians have gone to extraordinary lengths to deny any connection of Judaic presence in Jerusalem, much less that the most sacred site in Judaic tradition and religious history is sited in east Jerusalem, where thousands of years later Islam, claiming the city as its own, built over the destroyed Temple, a deliberate extermination of history in a technique favoured by Islam.

"It's clear as the sun is clear that the Temple, which was demolished by the Romans [in its second iteration] is a Jewish temple."
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

"He [Guterres] neglected the UNESCO resolutions, which clearly said that the al-Aqsa Mosque is purely an Islamic heritage. [Guterres' remarks] are a violation to all human, diplomatic and legal rules and laws and a violation to his position as the secretary-general. He [Guterres] should apologize to the Palestinian people for his remarks", spluttered an enraged Adnan al-Huseini, Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, referring to the UNESCO October resolution setting aside Judaic connection to the Temple Mount.

And it is precisely this entitled attitude of re-writing history to suit the Palestinian narrative of exclusive ownership of a geography and its symbolism as a sacred site to a religion hugely predating that of Islam, that Israel must contend with. Where the international community has seen fit to empathize with distortions and lies preferring the public relations campaign waged by the Palestinian Authority identifying itself and Palestinians as suffering the indignities associated with being 'occupied' by a nation's military dedicated to self-defence.

A self-defence that more recent history has proven time and again is required and is perfectly legal under international law when a nation is constantly under siege, threatened and attacked by its neighbours, with deadly consequences. Moreover, a neighbour delighting in portraying itself as the wronged party, though incitement to violence and to 'resistance' to 'the occupation' is doublespeak for murderous attacks later lionized, the 'heroes' that kill honoured, their families financially supported by the PA through funds made available by international donors.

The contested east Jerusalem which the Palestinian Authority aspires to command as its capital, is only a portion of the Palestinians' aspirations of driving Israel from the ground it occupies to 'restore' to the Palestinians the entire land mass it claims for itself, denying any Judaic presence there at any time in history.

With a new administration now installed in the  United States, one where the current President had promised to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, during the election campaign, and in compliance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act which the U.S. Congress had passed into law in 1995 and which Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama chose to waiver as they are permitted by law to do every six months, in reflection of "national security interests", Israel is awaiting action.


That promise and the anticipation that it may yet occur, has seen the Palestinian Authority threaten consequences of violent dissent. And it is clear that should the transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem take place, there would be a violent reaction, impacting not only Israeli citizens and their government, but that of the United States itself. When the PA wants to have its way it resorts to violence, alternately to using diplomacy since discovering that works for them at the UN.

A flag flutters outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv August 4, 2013. (photo credit:REUTERS)