On December 6, President Trump made the announcement that the United States would be recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A little background:
When the British conquered Palestine in 1917 from the Ottoman Empire, they discovered a city that had been largely ignored.
It had, of course, been the destination of religious Jews, Muslims, and, to a much lesser extent, Christian pilgrims for centuries.
Jerusalem had begun to expand beyond the boundaries of the old walled city just two decades earlier. A brand-new city was beginning to emerge along the Mediterranean in the interim.
Tel Aviv, established just eight years earlier, quickly established itself as a symbol of the expanding Jewish population in Palestine.
Jerusalem was where the British established their administrative control over Palestine.
While the Zionist venture in Palestine quickly developed, with English help, Tel Aviv turned into the area of the majority of the public organizations and practically all of the modern and trade exercises — in any event, filling in as the home for noteworthy worldwide fairs.
The borders between the Jordan River and the sea had been divided into two states by the UN resolution of 1947, which called for the establishment of both a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine.
This was done in an effort to include the Jewish population in the Jewish state and the Arab population in the Arab state. In the resolution, the majority of the desert known as the Negev was given to the Jewish state.
Declaring Jerusalem as an international city solved the issue of what to do with the holy city. The UN Partition Plan was accepted by the Jews of Palestine, but not by the Arabs.
A civil war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine erupted between the UN partition resolution on November 29, 1947, and the final British withdrawal on May 15, 1948. The better-organized Jewish forces generally prevailed.
The Jews established the State of Israel when the British withdrew. The Arab states that were in the area invaded and promised to destroy the state before it could even be born.
The new state gained international legitimacy as soon as the Truman administration recognized it.
With the exception of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was captured by the Jordanian Legion, and the Jewish settlement bloc to the south of Jerusalem known as “Gush Etzion,” Israeli forces were largely successful on most fronts during the subsequent war.
An armistice agreement, not peace, marked the end of the war. Israel’s borders were not settled by that armistice. In point of fact, at the beginning of December 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the international trusteeship of Jerusalem.
Israel did not agree that the entire city should be controlled, but it did accept the idea that the holy sites should be under international supervision. Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel, stated:
“We made peace, security, and economic consolidation of Jerusalem our primary concern from the very beginning of our provisional government.
When Jerusalem was under siege, we were forced to establish the government’s headquarters in Hakiriya, close to Tel Aviv, despite the stress of war.
Jerusalem, the eternal capital, has always been and will always be Israel’s sole capital. As it was 3,000 years ago, we believe, and it will continue until the end of time.
Israel swiftly relocated its parliament to Jerusalem, which was divided.
The American embassy was established in Tel Aviv, and neither the United States nor the rest of the world ever officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the western portion of the city.
Israel reunified Jerusalem and granted Jews access to the Western Wall for the first time since 1948 when it took control of the Old City and the entire West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel, on the other hand, decided to let the Muslim Waqf, a religious council funded by Jordan, keep control of the Temple Mount, which is home to numerous large Muslim mosques.
A strange state of limbo persisted throughout this entire time. The vibrant cultural and economic centre of the country, Tel Aviv remained the location of the American and nearly all other foreign embassies.
At the same time, meeting with Israeli officials in their offices in Jerusalem was no problem for representatives and dignitaries from other countries.
When visiting Israel, American presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon, did not stay in Tel Aviv; rather, they travelled to Jerusalem, which Israel had chosen as its capital.
Indeed, even the late Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, met with Israeli Top state leader Menachem Start in Jerusalem, when he came to Israel. Additionally, where did Sadat address the Israeli populace? Sadat spoke from the Jerusalem Knesset’s podium.
The American government has refused to recognize any portion of Jerusalem as sovereign Israeli territory in spite of these milestones and events over decades.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which calls for the United States to relocate its Embassy to Jerusalem, was enacted by Congress in 1995.
However, there is a provision in the act that allows for the move to be postponed (in increments of six months) if US security interests decide that the decision is preferable.
Since 1995, this has been the case. Every President of the United States, Democrat or Republican, has decided that delaying the decision is best for the country’s security every six months.
