So How's That Workin' Out For Ya?

Palestinian Protest near Bethlehem, Thursday, 7 December 2017

In my post last week, I praised President Trump for taking the momentous step of declaring the United States' recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and signing the order for the State Department to begin the groundwork for moving our embassy there.  And of course, if you're following the issue, you know that our Palestinian neighbors have spent the past few days showing their displeasure in their favorite manner - with violent demonstrations and attacks on Jews.  And you also likely know that there have been violent attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in various places in the world:  in particular, against the main synagogue in Stockholm, Sweden and a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  So, you could be forgiven if you'd like to ask me the question that is the title of this post.  And I'm happy to answer that question.

But first, let me give you some personal background - state my bonafides, I guess.  I have a son serving in the Israeli army, in the Tank Corps.  He's not in 'the Territories' - Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank if you prefer - right now.  He has under his belt two deployments there:  one in the Tulkarem area, and one in Gush Etzion.  Right now, he's on early warning watch in a bunker complex facing Kuneitra, Syria - in the Golan Heights.  Because he's a combat medic, this deployment has a large humanitarian element - providing medical aid to refugees and anti-government fighters fleeing oppression by Syrian President Assad's troops.  His next deployment is slated for the Gaza border.  I'm really proud of him for his service.  Although he's not in the Territories this week, he saw plenty of action when he was.  So, as the concerned parent of an IDF soldier - not to mention as someone living in Southern Israel within easy range of Hamas' vast inventory of inexpensive rockets - I'm not being cavalier about the violence.  (It happens that there have been several rocket warnings here in Ashqelon since last Wednesday.  It's just part of life here.) 

I would have been happy to tell President Trump, had I had the means, to not bother with the recognition and moving the embassy if it would have kept him, and other Israelis, safe from thuggery and terror.  But - and you can see where this is going - Trump's yielding to concerns about renewed violence and not taking the step he did last week, would not have made Israel, or Jews around the world, one iota safer over the long run.  The thuggery and terror of the Palestinians and elements in the the greater Arab/Islamic world have been close to continuous over the 69 years of the life of the Israeli state, and for many decades beforehand.  In other words, the violence isn't because of Jerusalem, or the lack of a Palestinian state, or the Jewish 'settlements' in the West Bank, or anything President Trump has said or done.  If Abu Mazen's threat, of a new Intifada because of this most recent event, come true, then last week's event would be nothing more than the ostensible trigger.  Trump or not, it was going to come - more likely sooner than later.  Every time the Palestinians don't get their way on something, they threaten a new round of violence.  And they almost always follow through on those threats.  They truly mean what they say, at least as regards violence against Israel.

And Hamas?  Supposedly, Al Fatah (the faction of Abu Mazen anf the late Yassir Arafat) and Hamas have come to some kind of accommodation in the Gaza Strip.  Ismail Haniyeh - the leader of Hamas - hasn't been sounding too different from Abu Mazen.  And Hamas isn't engaging in empty words either; just today, the IDF destroyed yet another Hamas-built terror tunnel stretching under the Gaza Strip border into Southern Israel.  That tunnel, whose purpose would have been to insert guerrilla squads into Israel to kidnap IDF soldiers and force them into Gaza to use as bargaining chips for Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails, was not built after Trump's press conference on Wednesday last week.  Sooo...

Even after a few days of very unfortunate violence in Israel and the Jewish world, 'triggered' by President Trump's brave recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and reiteration of his promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv, I'm still a fan.