Trump confirms US will recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel

[Dark Sorrow]

Donald Trump has defied overwhelming global opposition by recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but insisted that the highly controversial move would not derail his own administration’s bid to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a short speech delivered at the White House, Trump directed the state department to start making arrangements to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a process that officials say will take at least three years.

“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said. “While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

Trump said: “My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The president’s announcement provoked condemnation from US allies, and a furious reaction from Palestinian leaders and the Muslim world. Within minutes of Trump’s announcement, US embassies in Turkey, Jordan, Germany and Britain issued security alerts urging Americans to exercise caution.

The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet on Friday to discuss the move, after a request by eight countries on the 15-member body, including the UK, Italy and France.

Trump stressed that he was not stipulating how much of Jerusalem should be considered Israel’s capital. Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state, and Trump did not rule out a future division of the city.

“We are not taking a position of any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved,” the president said.

But the move marks a break with years of US precedent – and with general global opinion, which sees the fate of Jerusalem as a matter for comprehensive “final status” negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

British prime minister Theresa May said Trump’s announcement was “unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region”, and said the UK did not intend to follow suit. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, also condemned the move.

Israel’s government rushed to congratulate Trump for the speech, which the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described as an “important step toward peace”.

But the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that the US had effectively abdicated its role as a mediator in the region. The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said: “President Trump just destroyed any policy of a two-state solution.”

Saudi Arabia on Thursday criticised the decision, calling the move “unjustified and irresponsible”. The move was also condemned by Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon.

In a social club in the heart of Jerusalem’s Shuafat refugee camp, young Palestinian men grew increasingly angry as they watched the speech translated into Arabic on a Palestinian television channel.

“This is shit!” shouted a man called Abu Atya. “He’s just said Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. This speech is going to cause big trouble.”

Another man, Hamdi Dyab, grew incredulous and agitated as he watched the speech.

“He’s saying he’s going to move the embassy,” he said. “This is very dangerous speech. Things don’t look good. We are calling for a new intifada.”

Trump argued that continually delaying recognition and the embassy move by signing waivers, as his predecessors had done, had not brought peace any closer.

“After more than two decades of waivers, we are no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.”

Trump presented his decision as the recognition of “the obvious” and “the right thing to do”.

“Today, Jerusalem is the seat of the modern Israeli government. It is the home of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as the Israeli supreme court,” he said. “It is the location of the official residence of the prime minister and the president. It is the headquarters of many government ministries.”

The president suggested that the acknowledgement of Jerusalem’s role in the state of Israel would actually have a positive effect on negotiations.

“This is a long overdue step to advance the peace process and to work towards a lasting agreement,” Trump said, but he did not explain how it would help negotiations in the face of such an angry reaction from Palestinians and their supporters.

Some observers have suggested Trump’s announcement represented a political gift to his close ally Netanyahu, in the expectation of future concessions at the negotiating table – but it was unclear what Netanyahu would offer in return and why the US move was made in advance of substantive talks.

After announcing his order for the state department to start work on moving the US embassy, Trump sat down at a table in the White House diplomatic reception room and did something that seemingly had the opposite effect: signing another presidential waiver on the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which ordered the transfer of the diplomatic mission from Tel Aviv.

White House officials said there was no contradiction, and that the waiver signing was necessary to prevent a cut in state department funding stipulated by the act until the new embassy is actually opened. They said previous presidents had used the waiver to stop any progress on moving the embassy, while Trump was directing practical work to start.

In his speech, Trump said: “This will immediately begin the process of hiring architects, engineers, and planners, so that a new embassy, when completed, will be a magnificent tribute to peace.”

Vice-president Mike Pence stood behind Trump as he delivered his address, symbolising the support of Christian conservatives that Pence represents, but it was unclear how the move squared with the efforts of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his special representative on international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, to engineer a peace proposal with the support of the Israelis, Palestinians and regional powers like Saudi Arabia.

Peter Welch, a Democratic congressman who has organised briefings with Greenblatt on Capitol Hill, said he was mystified by Trump’s move, as the Kushner-Greenblatt initiative appeared to have been showing promise.

“I thought a trust-building process was underway that was having positive impacts,” Welch told the Guardian after the speech. “But the president woke up and with this provocative announcement threatens to undo everything his administration had been doing to build trust and make progress.

“The president has been going over there establishing good ties with the Sunni states, he obviously has close relationships with the Israeli government, he was making progress even with the sceptics in the Palestinian Authority, and with a single announcement he blows it all up.”

 

[Dark Sorrow]

Trump Recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital and Orders U.S. Embassy to Move

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing nearly seven decades of American foreign policy and setting in motion a plan to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to the fiercely contested Holy City.

“Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” Mr. Trump said from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. “This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.”

The president cast his decision as a break with decades of failed policy on Jerusalem, which the United States, along with virtually every other nation in the world, has declined to recognize as the capital since Israel’s founding in 1948. That policy, he said, brought us “no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.”

“It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result,” Mr. Trump declared.

Recognizing Jerusalem, he added, was “a long overdue step to advance the peace process.”

Mr. Trump’s remarks were the most closely scrutinized of his presidency on the Middle East, where he has vowed to broker the “ultimate deal” between Israelis and Palestinians but has yet to find a breakthrough to end the conflict. He said he remained committed to brokering an agreement “that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians.”

U.S. Embassy Relocation
President Trump said he would begin preparations to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Standing next to Mr. Tillerson, the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, made clear that Europe saw the president’s decision as a threat to peace in the Middle East.

“We believe that any action that would undermine these efforts must absolutely be avoided,” she said. “A way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as a future capital of both states.”

Just hours before Mr. Trump made his announcement, Mr. Tillerson said that peace in the Middle East was still possible.

Mr. Tillerson, during a news conference at NATO headquarters in the heart of Europe, expressed reassurances about the expected consequences of the decision.

“The president’s very committed to the Middle East peace process,” Mr. Tillerson said.

Mr. Tillerson has been largely shut out of the usual back-and-forth between Israelis and Palestinians that many secretaries of state spent much of their tenures conducting. Instead, Mr. Trump entrusted that task to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

At least one former Obama administration official also weighed in with sharp criticism. John O. Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said in a statement that Mr. Trump’s action was “reckless” and would “damage U.S. interests in the Middle East for years to come and will make the region more volatile.”

Administration officials said they expected the blowback from the Palestinians and others, but they asserted that the move would accelerate, not hinder, the peace process.

Mr. Trump’s promise to move the embassy appealed to evangelical voters and pro-Israel American Jews, including Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate. By delivering on that promise, Mr. Trump’s aides said, he was enhancing his credibility as a peacemaker.

The announcement, officials said, was recognition of current and historic reality. West Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s government, and recognizing it as such would remove ambiguity from the American position, they said.

Jerusalem is one of the world’s most fiercely contested swaths of real estate, with each side disputing the other’s claims. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, and most of the world considers it occupied territory. Jerusalem’s Old City has the third-holiest mosque in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism, making the city’s status a sensitive issue for Muslims and Jews alike. Jerusalem is also sacred ground to Christians.

In addition to declining to take a position on the ultimate shape of Jerusalem, Mr. Trump called for the status quo on a disputed area of the Old City, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, which has been a flash point for tensions.

Mr. Kushner and Jason D. Greenblatt, the president’s special envoy, have been working for months to prepare for a negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians. Though they have little to show for the effort publicly, they say they have made progress behind the scenes.

Those efforts, Middle East experts said, would be jeopardized by Wednesday’s announcement. But Mr. Kushner and Mr. Greenblatt, the president’s special envoy, supported the president’s move, officials said.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

Donald Trump declares Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: Read full speech here
US President Donald Trump in a speech on Wednesday declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Read full text of Trump’s speech here

Washington: Here is the full text of US President Donald Trump’s Wednesday speech on Jerusalem, in which he recognized the disputed city as Israel’s capital:

When I came into office, I promised to look at the world’s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking. We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past. Old challenges demand new approaches.

My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

In 1995, Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the federal government to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize that city—and so importantly—is Israel’s capital. This act passed Congress by an overwhelming bipartisan majority and was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.

Yet, for over 20 years, every previous American president has exercised the law’s waiver, refusing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem or to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.

Presidents issued these waivers under the belief that delaying the recognition of Jerusalem would advance the cause of peace.

Some say they lacked courage, but they made their best judgments based on facts as they understood them at the time.

Nevertheless, the record is in.

After more than two decades of waivers, we are no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.

Therefore, I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.

I’ve judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

This is a long overdue step to advance the peace process and to work towards a lasting agreement.

Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this as a fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace.

It was 70 years ago that the United States, under President Truman, recognized the State of Israel. Ever since then, Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem—the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times.

Today, Jerusalem is the seat of the modern Israeli government. It is the home of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as the Israeli Supreme Court. It is the location of the official residence of the Prime Minister and the President. It is the headquarters of many government ministries.

For decades, visiting American presidents, secretaries of state, and military leaders have met their Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem, as I did on my trip to Israel earlier this year.

Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world.

Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs.

Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

However, through all of these years, presidents representing the United States have declined to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In fact, we have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital at all.

But today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.

That is why, consistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

This will immediately begin the process of hiring architects, engineers, and planners, so that a new embassy, when completed, will be a magnificent tribute to peace.

In making these announcements, I also want to make one point very clear: This decision is not intended, in any way, to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement.

We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians.

We are not taking a position of any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved.

The United States remains deeply committed to helping facilitate a peace agreement that is acceptable to both sides. I intend to do everything in my power to help forge such an agreement.

Without question, Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in those talks. The United States would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides.

In the meantime, I call on all parties to maintain the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites, including the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif.

Above all, our greatest hope is for peace, the universal yearning in every human soul. With today’s action, I reaffirm my administration’s longstanding commitment to a future of peace and security for the region.

There will, of course, be disagreement and dissent regarding this announcement. But we are confident that ultimately, as we work through these disagreements, we will arrive at a peace and a place far greater in understanding and cooperation.

This sacred city should call forth the best in humanity, lifting our sights to what it is possible; not pulling us back and down to the old fights that have become so totally predictable.

Peace is never beyond the grasp of those willing to reach.

So today, we call for calm, for moderation, and for the voices of tolerance to prevail over the purveyors of hate. Our children should inherit our love, not our conflicts.

I repeat the message I delivered at the historic and extraordinary summit in Saudi Arabia earlier this year: The Middle East is a region rich with culture, spirit, and history. Its people are brilliant, proud, and diverse, vibrant and strong.

But the incredible future awaiting this region is held at bay by bloodshed, ignorance, and terror.

Vice President Pence will travel to the region in the coming days to reaffirm our commitment to work with partners throughout the Middle East to defeat radicalism that threatens the hopes and dreams of future generations.

It is time for the many who desire peace to expel the extremists from their midst. It is time for all civilized nations, and people, to respond to disagreement with reasoned debate—not violence.

And it is time for young and moderate voices all across the Middle East to claim for themselves a bright and beautiful future.

So today, let us rededicate ourselves to a path of mutual understanding and respect. Let us rethink old assumptions and open our hearts and minds to possible and possibilities.

And finally, I ask the leaders of the region—political and religious; Israeli and Palestinian; Jewish and Christian and Muslim—to join us in the noble quest for lasting peace.

Thank you. God bless you. God bless Israel. God bless the Palestinians. And God bless the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

President Trump Recognized Jerusalem as Capital of Israel. It May Hurt the Peace Process

(WASHINGTON) — Defying dire, worldwide warnings, President Donald Trump on Wednesday broke with decades of U.S. and international policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Despite urgent appeals from Arab and European leaders and the risk of anti-American protests and violence, Trump declared that he was ending an approach that for decades has failed to advance the prospects for peace. He also for the first time personally endorsed the concept of a “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians, provided both sides agree to it.

“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” he said in a White House address, calling it “overdue” and in the best interests of the United States. He said recognition acknowledged the “obvious” that Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s government despite the disputed status that is one of the key elements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This is nothing more or less than the recognition of reality,” he said.

Trump also directed that the State Department begin the process of moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as required by U.S. law. Officials said, however, that the move will take years to complete.

Trump maintained that his decision would not compromise the city’s geographic and political borders, which will still be determined by Israel and the Palestinians.

Ahead of Trump’s speech, Arab and Muslim leaders spoke about the potential for violence. In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian protesters burned American and Israeli flags. They also waved Palestinian flags and banners proclaiming Jerusalem as their “eternal capital,” language that Israelis similarly use for their nation.

Even America’s closest allies in Europe questioned the wisdom of Trump’s radical departure from the past U.S. position, which was studiously neutral over the sovereignty of the city.

Jerusalem includes the holiest ground in Judaism. It’s also home to Islam’s third-holiest shrine and major Christian sites, and any perceived harm to Muslim claims to the city has triggered protests in the past, in the Holy Land and beyond.

America’s consulate in Jerusalem has ordered U.S. personnel and their families to avoid visiting Jerusalem’s Old City or the West Bank, and urged American citizens in general to avoid places with increased police or military presence.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

Question remain when will GoI relocate its embassy and if yes then by when???

 

[Suryavanshi]

Question remain when will GoI relocate its embassy and if yes then by when???

Probably as soon as Ram Mandir is built

 

[Otmshank7]

This is a horrible and most likely dangerous political decision but

All the best to Israelis.

Muslims have a habit of conquering other cultures' sacred sites. Morally I think it's appropriate that a religion that compromises less than 1 percent of humanity has political control of their most sacred site... hopefully they gain demographic control as well

 

[Tibarn]

Good move by Trump in foreign policy for once I think. I have been disappointed overall in terms of foreign policy thus far with his presidency, but this is a good move.

The "European Allies" can f**k themselves questioning this , bunch of cucks run those joke countries nowadays.

 

[Otmshank7]

Israel for jews

India for Hindus

West for Christians

Iran for Zoroastrian

And,

Arabia for Islam.

I have no problem with people of different demographics assimilating peacefully like NRIS and PIOS do in the west but when it's violent and systematically coercive like Islam has been to Jews then I see progress in decisions like this as righting injustices.