He Did It!

Was your response to the subject, Who did what?  If so, then I will answer with a question:  What rock have you been hiding under for the last week or so?

The Knesset, seat of Israel's parliamentary democracy, in Jerusalem

Of course, the who is President Trump.  And the what is, he officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital city, and is directing the State Department to begin the background work to move the US embassy in Israel to Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, since an embassy's rightful place is in its host nation's capital city.

The announcement was not unexpected; the Washington and Middle East Leak Machine has been hard at work ensuring that we would know the essence of the announcement long before it was made.  Still, since President Trump likes to keep people and other nations guessing, one can never be entirely certain until he announces in an official manner,  And announce in an official manner he did:  not a Tweet, but a forceful speech from the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters.

The speech was in Trump's  typical, somewhat-inarticulate yet from-the-heart style.  He made two main points:

1.  The recognition of, and moving the embassy to, Jerusalem is US law, passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1995, yet not acted upon by Clinton nor by his successors George W Bush and Barack Obama who used a loophole in the law which enables the sitting president to apply for successive waivers of six months to delay its implementation.  The three presidents kept claiming the waiver, on the basis that its implementation would inflame tensions and make it more difficult for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace agreement.  Yet that peace agreement has not been forthcoming, and Trump does not believe - and I think he's correct - that its implementation now will prejudice the chances of an agreement.  I think he believes - although he did not state as much in his speech today - that his order to implement the agreement might actually spur the Palestinians to return to the table since they're no longer going to get this 'free ride' from Washington.

2.  Every state on earth has the right to decide which city is its capital. (The Israelis decided this question in 1980, when the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law.)  And in no case - other than Israel - does the United States de-legitimize that state's decision.  Since Jerusalem has been Israel's capital in every way that that distinction matters, for almost 70 years, it is time for the US to recognize that fact and locate its embassy where it has best access to the various functions of the host nation government.

If there is opposition to this move among not only Arab and Islamic states but also several Western nations, that's okay.  It is not unanimously supported in Israel itself, where most of the opposition is pragmatic.  And if several senior officials of the Palestinian Authority - including Chairman Abu Mazen as well as Saed Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi - have threatened a new round of violent uprisings, that's regrettably okay - since the next round has always been a foregone conclusion, only its timing and the ostensible trigger being unknown.

Since Trump has waited the better part of a year after taking office to make this announcement, and does so only after considerable attempts to renew peace talks, it is clear that he has been making no progress with the Palestinians and therefore felt he had no choice but to fulfill this campaign promise he'd made.

It's interesting that a number of voices who cannot by a stretch be characterized as pro-Israel hawks - among them Tom Friedman of the New York Times and Judith Miller late of the Times and now a correspondent for Fox News - have long counselled that one cannot draw the Palestinians into negotiations by handing them un-earned concessions.  And yet, successive US presidents - not to mention Israeli leaders - have held to the principle that such unilateral concessions will result in a movement toward an agreement by the Palestinians.  Deep disagreement on this point made relations between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu problematic almost from the day Obama took office.  Clearly, with Netanyahu still in office and a new administration in Washington, this disagreement no longer exists.  Seeing the bold move made by Trump today is heartening.  Will it help the Peace Process?  We cannot know, but since the latter has been in a virtual deep freeze for years, there is probably little risk of exacerbating it.