After months of stalling and waiting, President Trump finally officially recognized Jerusalem as the Eternal Capital of Israel. He further directed his cabinet and the State Department to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The transition will take time, but it's underway. Of course, the Palestinian terrorists and their liberal enablers are screaming and rioting in the streets over this move. But it's about time it happened. The United States' military victories in the Middle East against ISIS, plus the growing awareness of the violent nature of the Islamic political cult, have wakened the world to the high stakes in the region. For these reasons, I respect why President Trump issued the formal declaration now rather than in January or February.
We need to stand with Israel, and we need to ensure that the capital of the only stable liberal democracy in the Middle East is recognized as the mainstay of the Jewish State.
His critics in the press and among the Beltway intelligentsia blasted the move as short-sighted or political. Unbelievable. Even Democrats who wanted this move to happen are slamming the President for actually doing it.
To all the anti-Trump haters, this tweet says it all:
I fulfilled my campaign promise - others didn’t! pic.twitter.com/bYdaOHmPVJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2017
In 1995, Congress passed legislation, which President Bill Clinton signed, that would require the United States to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. One part of the law, however, permitted the President to issue a waiver in case of national security threats. Every president since has used that waiver to back away from their campaign promise. This time, however, President Trump allowed the waiver to lapse and he announced official recognition of Jerusalem as the official, eternal capital of the state of Israel.
Why didn't the other Presidents follow through on the promise? I can hazard a few guesses.
Bill Clinton was too busy trying to make history for himself by brokering the Oslo Accords. He wanted to be the peace-maker who achieved the lasting cessation of conflict in the Middle East and the final assurance of a two-state solution.
Didn't happen. In fact, in the year 2000, the Second Intifada erupted. Islamic extremists in the region had no interest in a two-state solution—and still don’t. The rogue, terrorist states within the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip do not want to live side-by-side with Jews, but would rather see them all pushed into the sea.
George W. Bush ended up as the NeoCon I had feared. I thought that he would have showed some muscle, some backbone. Then again, he was the same President who declared that he had to suspend the rules of the free market to save it—a brazen lie. He also danced around with globalist interests. Recognizing Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel would have jeopardized those global ambitions. The very existence of the Jewish State signals that there is a God, and that if there is to be a One World Government, it will rest on His shoulders, not on the shoulders of mortal men.
As for Barack Obama, he was hostile to Israel and did not want Jerusalem to be recognized as the eternal capital. From the outset of the Obama Administration, tensions rose considerably between Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama. Pictures of the two leaders showed them distant, refusing to look at each other. Reports indicated that Obama and his team had called Netanyahu a "chickensh--t".
During the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the delegates wanted to remove the plank from the national platform calling for recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel. The president officer, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, rejected the voice vote on the floor, most likely at the call of President Obama. He may have agreed with the progressive base on this issue, no doubt, but he couldn't afford the media fallout that would have boosted Romney’s election prospects.
The final blow against Israel came when Obama used tax dollars to swing the 2015 Israeli elections toward Netanyahu's opponent. Obama's meddling didn't have the impact he wanted. Netanyahu cruised to victory with a stronger mandate. His leadership was crucial to guiding the Jewish State through two more years of Obama's anti-Israeli, pro-Iranian backstabbing.
Now we have Donald Trump, who won the 2016 election in a populist, nationalist, conservative upset as part of a rising wave of anti-globalist pushback. His support from Evangelical Christians was essential to victory, no doubt. Trump's strong relationship with Jewish communities in New York and throughout the world assured Zionists everywhere, and Judeo-Christian proponents in general, that Trump would follow through on the promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US Embassy to the capital.
How else did Trump manage to avoid the US Embassy double-talk which had plagued his predecessors? President Trump is outside of the corrupted Establishment of both political parties. This is true leadership, which builds up the country and the party by paying attention to the needs and concerns of the voters, not the will and whim of K Street, the DC Potomac Two Step, and the corrupt, self-enriching swamp.
Trump had the backbone and the forethought to do what no other President had done. Yes, he makes deals, but any compromise which gets us closer to our goals and upends the interests of the opposition is a step worth taking. Jerusalem has served as the Capital of the Jewish State since 1967. There’s no reason for any country to stave off formally recognizing this historical and political fact today. And already, another country—the Czech Republic—has stepped up and issued a formal recognition, too. Now that’s what I call leadership!
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