Trump's Jerusalem Declaration: Did He Go Far Enough?

By Mike Shoesmith

Have you ever had the experience of frowning on one side of your mouth while simultaneously smiling on the other? This is the feeling I had while listening to President Donald Trump speak about his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and begin the process of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv. 

In the fourth paragraph of the President’s speech he quoted the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 stating: “In 1995, Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act urging the federal government to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize that that city, and so importantly, is Israel’s capital.”

While that all sounds very well and good, it actually falls short of the Act of 1995. The main difference adds up to one simple word: “Undivided.” As I listened to the speech I did not hear this word spoken by POTUS. And as I read the transcript there it was… not.

According to the Act:

(a) Statement of the Policy of the United States.—

(1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.

(2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and

(3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.

Jerusalem remains divided by compass dynamics: East and West. Wikipedia explains it as such:

East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem (Arabic: القدس الشرقية‎, Hebrew: מזרח ירושלים‎) is the sector of Jerusalem that was not part of Israeli-held West Jerusalem at the end of the 1948–1949 Arab–Israeli War. Israeli and Palestinian definitions of it differ;[1] the Palestinian official position is based on the 1949 Armistice Agreements, while the Israeli position is mainly based on the current municipality boundaries of Jerusalem, which resulted from a series of administrative enlargements decided by Israeli municipal authorities since the June 1967 Six-Day War. Despite its name, East Jerusalem includes neighborhoods to the north, east and south of the Old City, and in the wider definition of the term even on all these sides of West Jerusalem… ETC.

So the question remains, why did POTUS leave that word out of his declaration? Was it purposeful? It seems so to this reporter. One can hope in baby steps however. The President is no idiot. This may prove to be, as he said, a different approach to the “Peace and Security” process.