"A Fire With No End In Sight"

"I call on everyone to act logically, respect the agreements they signed and behave reasonably, avoid risking world peace for domestic politics or other reasons,"
"Declaring Jerusalem a capital is disregarding history and the truths in the region, it is a big injustice/cruelty, shortsightedness, foolishness/madness, it is plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight." 
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag

"The Palestinians will walk away until it’s in their interests to come back — which is probably in a month."
"First, he [President Trump] should say rioters are never going to have veto power on American foreign policy. The threat that there will be violence cannot control what an American president decides."
"Second, Trump should say that his decision that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel does not foreclose any particular outcome in peace negotiations."
"Whatever else Jerusalem may be some day, the capital of a Palestinian state for example, it will always be the capital of Israel, so I think he should argue the merits. This decision closes no door."
"The Saudi foreign minister is not about to fly to Jerusalem and speak to the Knesset anyway, so I don’t think much is lost. Again, these governments will do what it is in their interests, the Gulf states are interested in working with Israel on military and intelligence matters, and the same is true of Egypt, especially when it comes to the situation in Sinai."
"There will be speeches, there will be demonstrations, but then they will do what they need to do. Several presidents in a row promised the same thing, and were then dissuaded by threats of violence, and arguments from the State Department about how the Arab world would react."
"State will always make those arguments [for caution]. I think this president has finally said that the rioters don’t get a veto."
Elliot Abrams, former U.S. diplomat, foreign policy expert, former deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech, Dec. 6, 2017, during a diplomatic conference organized by daily Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post focused on Israel's security and economic ties with countries globally, in Jerusalem. Getty

"This is a historic day. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years. It’s been the capital of Israel for nearly 70 years. It was here that our temples stood, our kings ruled, our prophets preached."
"Jerusalem has been the focus of our hopes, our dreams, our prayers for three millennia. From every corner of the earth, our people yearned to return to Jerusalem, to touch its golden stones, to walk its hallowed streets. So it’s rare to be able to speak of new and genuine milestones in the glorious history of this city."
"Yet today’s pronouncement by President Trump is such an occasion. We’re profoundly grateful for the president for his courageous and just decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to prepare for the opening of the U.S. embassy here. This decision reflects the president’s commitment to an ancient but enduring truth, to fulfilling his promises and to advancing peace."
"The president’s decision is an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn’t include Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. I call on all countries that seek peace to join the United States in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move their embassies here."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Associated Press    Palestinians demonstrating their fond regard for U.S. President Donald Trump

That tiny, minuscule sliver of land in the Middle East, surrounded by the hostile nations of Arab and Muslim populations, enraged at the prospect of a Jewish State in their midst reasserting their historical heritage place in the region, restoring to themselves their ancient capital of Jerusalem contested over thousands of years, and finally recognized by the United States as the first in the world order of nations to 'do the right thing' and accept the reality of the presence of Israel, of its right to claim what is theirs.

Turkey, apoplectic with white-hot rage over this recognition has called an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Has the United Nations Security Council ever sat in judgement of Turkey's incursion into Greek Cyprus, claiming the island for Turkey? Or solemnly deplored that Turkey refuses to acknowledge its genocidal massacre of Armenians? Let alone brought Turkey to account for its persecution of the vast Kurdish population, languishing to achieve world recognition that its thirty million people be recognized a nation with their timeless historical geography restored as a whole?

The international community has allowed itself to fall victim to the fantasy that Palestinians, mostly Egyptian and Jordanian Arabs who conveniently appropriated the title of Palestinians from the local ancient Jewish population it had always described, are the rightful inheritors of historically geographical Jewish areas of the Middle East from which the Jews were driven into exile elsewhere in the Middle East and across the globe twice, in antiquity. Jerusalem, the eternal, undivided capital of Israel has fallen victim to claims by the Arab and Muslim world that it is theirs to dispose of.

Again, appropriation by the Palestinians that the city, the ancient city of Biblical David and Solomon is theirs by inheritance. All the ancient Biblical-era shrines to the prophets of Judea have been appropriated by the Palestinians, declaring them to be their heritage shrines. Archaeological evidence of ancient Judean presence on the land has been summarily set aside as irrelevant as the United Nations and UNESCO acclaim Jewish traditions, ancestral lands and symbols and Judaism's sacred shrines as Palestinian in origin.

Universally, the United States and its president have been cautioned, warned, criticized, that to proceed with his intention to declare recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, albeit stepping aside the issue of East Jerusalem, would be tantamount to burying the prospect of peace and an agreement to mutually, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, recognize one another and commit to separate states living alongside one another. This is another myth conveyed to the outside world, that the Palestinians would be prepared to set aside their violent rancour and abide by a peace agreement.

Their constant incitements to violence among Palestinians, their promises that the land they claim Israel has taken from the rightful ownership of the Palestinians would be returned to Palestinian rule and Israel destroyed, alongside their culture of martyrdom and violence should have long since sufficed to demonstrate just how sincere they are about arriving at a peace agreement with Israel. One such agreement after another has been rejected by the Palestinians, more than amply proving that they are not and will never be prepared to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish State.

Claiming, now that President Trump has officially spoken on behalf of the United States, to declare recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, that he has destroyed the peace process is an exercise in blatant and typically manipulative hypocrisy; the Palestinians have themselves long since destroyed the peace process. It continues to exist as a phantom, never to be exercised much less brought to fruition. But as a handy excuse, it has its uses.

Shame on those who stand on the sidelines and continue to express their unwillingness to recognize the reality of Jerusalem as Israel's capital; from UN Secretary-General Guterres, to France's Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis, and Jean-Claude Juncker of the EU and Canada's Trudeau. Much honour to the Czech Republic which has announced its intention to be the second nation in the world to recognize the reality of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

A capital where the world religions who have their sacred presence there will be assured of complete access and neutrality under the aegis of Israel, unlike the situation that prevailed when Jordan illegally annexed to itself the guardianship of East Jerusalem, refusing to allow Jews to enter its precincts, forcibly ejecting Jews from their homes there where they had lived for thousands of years before the creation of Islam, and where under Jordanian rule Judaism's most sacred sites became off limits to Jews.