• March 28, 2024

Should President Trump care about UN backlash on plan to move Israel embassy to Jerusalem?

 

The US Congress passed a law in 1995 that described Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said it should not be divided, according to the Guardian.   Yet, successive Republican and Democratic presidents have used their foreign policy powers to maintain the US embassy in Tel Aviv and to back negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem. The White House has declared that they are now in the preliminary stages of talks to lock down Trump’s campaign Trump’s pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Should President Trump care if it sparks anger with the United Nations or the unfriendly hostile Arab nations?

Israel has waited for over twenty years for America to pay more than political dodgeball with its continuing pledge to give the law the dignity and enforcement it deserves.  Yet, each successive president has ignored the law and in the case of former president Barack Obama has aligned its anti-embassy move with the United Nations and other Islamic terrorist nations like Iran that are firmly against considering Jerusalem as Israel’s legal capital.

In fact, two days before Obama left office as president he warned the incoming Trump administration at his last conference to ditch President Trump’s intention to move U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.  He warned, “moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem could have ‘explosive’ results and said he was worried that the prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were waning, reported the Guardian.

The harsh reality is that Obama not only had a very strained relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he even sacrificed the Jewish state’s security by staying silent on a UN Security Council resolution that condemned Israel for the presence Jewish settlements in the West Bank.  While allowing Israel to be subject to possible harsh and even criminal International Law sanctions, he stated at the news conference, “When sudden unilateral moves are made that speak to some of the core issues and sensitivities of either side, that can be explosive.”

What is explosive is how innocent men, women and children in Israel have been relentlessly attacked, blown up and murdered over and over again by Hamas, Hezbollah and other radical Islamic groups including factions of ISIS for decades and yet the Israeli are considered warmongers, bullies and persecutors. Where was Obama’s outrage?  Where was the United Nation’s outrage or even the outrage of the mainstream media to seeing the shattered bodies of young Israeli children, mothers, fathers and soldiers?

Instead, unlike Obama made his defense of Israel clear, convincing and immovable.  Now as president his intention is to stand with the only democratic government in the Middle East that is America’s oldest ally in the region.

Incoming New York-based attorney David Friedman is Trump’s ambassador to Israel and he echoes the sentiment of his boss. Friedman enthusiastically embraces the moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and according to CNN has views that are even to the right of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Trump Middle East doctrine will not ebb and bend to the politics of the Muslim nations that at worst do nothing to support Israel in turning back Radical Islamic extremism and at worse work behind the scenes to bring about the elimination of the Jewish state. Securing Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel keeps America’s word to its Middle East ally, even if the nation is 22 years late in doing so.

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