by James J. Zogby
In just a matter of days, President-elect Donald Trump will have to decide on whether or not to make good on his promise to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As we approach Inauguration Day, liberal and conservative commentators, alike, have offered a number of ideas as to how he can proceed. Ranging from “too cute by half” to just plain dumb, they should all be rejected. More to the point, all of the proposals I have seen focus exclusively on Israeli concerns, ignoring or giving short shrift to Palestinian and broader Arab or Muslim concerns and sensitivities.
On the one side, there are proposals from hardliners who advise Trump to just go ahead and make the move. They argue that in fulfilling his campaign promise he will appease his base and gain international respect for being a strong and decisive leader. They dismiss Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim opinions, relying on the false assumptions that there is diminished concern across the Arab World for the Palestinian issue or making the racist case that Arabs respect strength and will ultimately become reconciled to a US move.
Then there are a number of “clever” proposals that assume that the “move” can be finessed in ways that will, in effect, fool both Israelis and Palestinians. One has the new US ambassador living and working in Jerusalem, while keeping the “official” US Embassy in Tel Aviv. Another suggests that the US can couple moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem with opening a US liaison office in Ramallah, while promising to study opening a Embassy for a future Palestinian state in East Jerusalem.
No one should be fooled. None of these proposals will work. Those who think that Arabs and Muslims will simply bow down before a Trumpian display of decisive strength are playing with fire. It’s true that the region is divided and distracted by the unraveling consequences of the “Arab Spring”, but messing with Jerusalem would be the catalyst for a focused and unified Arab and Muslim response. There would be massive unrest across the region and demands for a response. Should governments fail to act, it would be provide revolutionary Iran and extremist Sunni groups the opening they want to discredit those governments and further destabilize the region.
Palestine may have dropped off the radar for a time, but it remains “the open wound in the heart, that never heals.” Violating Jerusalem and unrest in the occupied Palestinian lands would rip the scab off that wound reminding Arabs of their vulnerability and their inability to control their history in the face of betrayal by the West. Ignore this passion and there will be consequences.
The same goes for the “cute” proposals. They will fool no one. Israeli hardliners will not accept a clever finesse. And should the US then push back by protesting that the “move” is real—the Arab side will be as infuriated as if it were real. The lesson is “don’t play with fire if you’re not ready to get burned.” Jerusalem is not to be messed with.
The problem with discussions about Jerusalem in the US is that the issue is largely viewed only through the Israeli/Jewish lens. The Israeli claim to the city and their historical narrative is the accepted framework through which the issue is understood. After the recent UN Security Council vote, US press reports quoted the Israeli outrage that the resolution was anti-Semitic because it acted as if East Jerusalem were occupied territory and not “Israel’s eternal capital.” This claim was presented repeatedly in the press and by Members of Congress without rebuttal.
For Palestinians and Arabs the issue of Jerusalem is complex, deeply personal, and completely ignored in the US. To be sure, the city is sacred. It is the third holiest site in Islam and it is home of the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Sepulcher.
But Jerusalem is also the home of hundreds of thousands of captive Palestinians who are economically strangled and denied fundamental human rights. What Israel calls East Jerusalem is actually a substantial swatch of land extending miles into the West Bank in which 22 Palestinian villages have been engulfed. Their lands have been confiscated to make way for Jewish only colonies (now euphemistically termed “neighborhoods”). These ancient Arab villages are now surrounded by Jewish-only settlements and are literally being choked to death.
More than this, it is important to recall that Jerusalem was also the heart of the West Bank. It was the metropole, housing major institutions that provided education, health care, cultural events, and social services for the entire Palestinian community. When Israel closed off Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank (and then built the wall further isolating the people from their hub) the consequences were devastating. Palestinians outside the Wall lost access to basic services and employment. Palestinians inside were also cut off, becoming increasingly impoverished. I have suggested that to understand the impact, imagine if the State of Maryland were to claim Washington and all the area with the Beltway as its own and then deny access to the city to millions of Virginians who had previously worked, shopped, or received services in Washington.
Because Palestinians have seen how Israel has dealt with Bethlehem and Hebron, they can see the same pattern playing out producing the same future for Jerusalem—a heavy-handed occupier, steadily dispossessing them of their land and rights, establishing “facts on the ground”, and ultimately taking full control and irreversibly transforming the city.
As a result, Palestinians are on edge. Moving the embassy or even pretending to do so would push them over—igniting a spark that would set the region aflame. My advice to the new administration—forget your promises and ignore both the “cute” and dumb proposals you have received and don’t mess with Jerusalem.
James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute.
Yeah Wrong, you don’t live in the real world. Did you think the rules of war have changed? The occupation is belligerent because the Arabs did not surrender. Wars never really end unless one side surrenders. Japan and Germany were both occupied but they surrendered and abandoned their prior goals, we were able to help them develop into proper nations. The Arabs never surrendered after 1948 and never signed a peace treaty except for Egypt and Jordan. The victor dictates the terms of surrender and then the victor can be gracious to the beaten people. Too many Arabs have refused to accept this simple reality.
If the Mexicans in the territories occupied by the USA in the 19th century refused to accept the change of events and launched insurgent actions for decades, the USA would have eventually killed them or forced them into Mexico.
Israel has given the Palestinians every chance but it is clear they don’t want to accept peace on terms acceptable to Israel so that means it must be settled by force. That is certainly what the Arabs think and thus their actions. You and your country would do the same as the Israelis so I am calling you a hypocrite.
Yeah Wrong, What “tribe” are you. You keep making derogatory remarks about “tribal” things. I don’t care if the Palestinians want to pretend they are a distinct people even if they are not. Not every group in the world that claims to be a distinct culture or people are entitled to their own country. These Arabs who call themselves Palestinians can live with their fellow Arabs (essentially identical) in Jordan which is also part of the “country” you claim was going to be created out of the Palestine Mandate. The Basques have many differences that justify their own identity as a distinct people and the Palestinians have none, but that’s okay, they can call themselves whatever they want. The Basques and the Kurds (who have a much stronger claim than the Palestinians) do not have countries of their own either, by the way.
JW: “Yeah Wrong, you don’t live in the real world. Did you think the rules of war have changed?”
Ignorance writ large.
Jeffrey, the rules of war changed after 1945 and the creation of the UN, precisely because the survivors crawled out from the rubble and said “Whoah! I think we went a little crazy there”.
But, please, do go on…..
JW: “The occupation is belligerent because the Arabs did not surrender. Wars never really end unless one side surrenders.”
How very Total War of you, Jeffrey. But you are quite incorrect.
You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of armed conflicts post-1945 that have ended with the total and unconditional surrender of one side to the other.
Most don’t, because the rules of International Humanitarian Law (i.e. the Laws Of War) has done away with the legal concepts of “declarations of war” and its book-end “articles of surrender”.
In the post-1945 there is only “armed conflict”, which begins when someone goes BANG! on somebody, and the armed conflict is deemed to have ended when both sides agree that the shooting stops (normally a “ceasefire”, sometimes with the fancier “armistice agreement”, but neither is a “surrender”).
Here, some examples:
The USA’s little escapade in Vietnam ended in 1973 with the Paris Peace Accords, but I don’t think you’ll find any American who will agree that the USA “surrendered” when they signed that document.
The Korean War ended in in 1953, but neither side “surrendered” to the other – they both signed an Armistice agreement, the terms of which still hold to this very day.
Neither Iran nor Iraq “surrendered” to the other, but their war most definitely came to an end in 1988 with…. gosh…. a ceasefire agreement.
Look, I could go on with many more examples, while I doubt very much that you can come up with more than one or two examples.
But the salient point is this: your mind is stuck in a world-view that no longer exists – a world of Total War and Capitulation – and does so in much the same way that Zionists are convinced that colonial expansionism is still kosher in a world where everyone else has relegated their colonial era to the history books.
Must be a tribal thing.
JW: “If the Mexicans in the territories occupied by the USA in the 19th century refused to accept the change of events and launched insurgent actions for decades, the USA would have eventually killed them or forced them into Mexico.”
Again, you are revealing a thoroughly outdated mindset, Jeffrey.
Nobody disputes that conquest and colonialism were practiced…. back in the Age of Empires and the Colonial Era.
But that’s the 19th century, and the world has now moved on into the 21st century.
Except for one tiny little place where the mindset is stuck in the past – where colonial expansionism is A-OK, where Conquest is still kosher…… well, it’s OK for one tribe.
They’re special, apparently…… and get to make up their own rules.
JW: “Yeah Wrong, What “tribe” are you.”
Australian, if you must know.
JW: “You keep making derogatory remarks about “tribal” things.”
Funny that.
JW: “I don’t care if the Palestinians want to pretend they are a distinct people even if they are not.”
Two points to make about that statement:
1) You used the word “the Palestinians” instead of “some Arabs”. You’re slipping, Jeffrey.
2) For someone who says he doesn’t care you do appear to be quite insistent in denying that there is any such thing as a Palestinian.
JW: “Not every group in the world that claims to be a distinct culture or people are entitled to their own country.”
But this group is entitled to exactly that, as every country on Earth except Israel now acknowledges.
And quite correct too, because the equation is very, very simple: the territory they live on belongs to no existing state, and they themselves are stateless.
QED: the fate of that stateless territory is for them to decide, and they have already decided that they want a state, which they call the state of Palestine.
Now, it would be different if Israel already had sovereignty over that territory.
Heck, it would even be different if Israel formally claimed that territory for itself.
But apart from Jerusalem Israel refuses to do either, and until it does then Israel’s actions amounts to nothing more than extortion e.g. we won’t end this occupation until you cede more territory to us.
JW: “These Arabs who call themselves Palestinians can live with their fellow Arabs (essentially identical) in Jordan which is also part of the “country” you claim was going to be created out of the Palestine Mandate.”
OK, I think it is pretty obvious that Jeffrey has never read the Mandate for Palestine otherwise he would be very well aware of Article 25.
JW: “The Basques have many differences that justify their own identity as a distinct people and the Palestinians have none, but that’s okay, they can call themselves whatever they want. The Basques and the Kurds (who have a much stronger claim than the Palestinians) do not have countries of their own either, by the way.”
But they do belong to a country, Jeffrey. They are NOT a stateless people.
The Basques are Spanish citizens, just as the Kurds in Syria are Syrians, the Kurds of Turkey are Turkish citizens, and the Kurds in Iraq are Iraqi citizens.
I would have far, far more sympathy for your argument if Israel was willing to grant Israeli citizenship to all the Palestinians that are under its authority i.e. everywhere between the Jordan River and the sea.
If Israel isn’t willing to grant them that citizenship then they are – by definition – “stateless”, and therefore they are perfectly entitled to declare their own state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (and did I mention that those territories belong to no existing state? I think I did….).
You want it both way, Jeffrey, and surprisingly enough both ways are advantageous to your tribe.
Must be a tribal thing….