T. Belman. Remember that in the lead up to the Madrid conference of 1991, PM Shamir was forced to agree that Jerusalem, which Israel had always said was non-negotiable, would be listed as a “final status issue”. This concession by him was forced on him by the US led by Pres G W Bush. Bush was able to do this because Israel desparately needed the US to guarantee a line of credit of $10 billion in order to finance Russian immigration made possible by the fall of the USSR.
But for that we wouldn’t be even discussing Jerusalem.
For years, American officials have avoided making official visits to the Western Wall, which the State Department considers ‘disputed territory’; after Trump’s decision, it seems that the situation has not changed
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit the Western Wall on Wednesday during his scheduled trip to Israel next week, but the visit is planned as a “private” one that is not officially part of his trip. Pence’s family and the rabbi of the Western Wall will accompany him to Judaism’s holiest site, located in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Over the years, most diplomats have avoided making official visits to the Western Wall because most of the international community considers it to be disputed territory not under Israeli sovereignty. The question was whether Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has changed this and would allow such a visit to be categorized as official.
For now, it does not seem that Israel will protest the decision. Pence’s entire trip, including the Western Wall visit, is a major achievement in its own right, so there is no reason to confront the Trump administration over the matter, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz on Friday.
Trump’s festive visit to the Western Wall during his May trip to Israel was also called a private event, and no Israeli officials accompanied him there.
About a week before Trump’s arrival in Israel this past spring, American diplomats at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem refused to discuss arrangements for the U.S. president’s planned visit to the Western Wall with Israeli officials. They claimed that the site is in the West Bank, which the Israeli government has no authority over.
The embarrassing diplomatic incident was first reported by Channel 2. The White House later disavowed the remarks, saying they do not reflect the U.S. position.
When officials from the Prime Minister’s Office asked Trump’s staff to allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accompany Trump on the Western Wall visit, they were refused and told it was of a private nature. When asked if they could send a photographer to the event, the Americans told them it was none of their business and not even Israeli territory but part of the West Bank, Channel 2 reported.
@ Bear Klein:
I don’t think that Trump made any distinction about West or East Jerusalem.
So it seems that he recognises the undivided City of Jerusalem in the same way that Israel does.
@ Bear Klein:
I take exception to your accusation. I DID NOT demean, nor was there any intention to do so even by implication. The plain reading of the post, with “no axe to grind”, shows just a comment and not a pejorative or cynical one. A statement of fact subject to argument or discussion, if one wants to be petty.
https://www.jmoreliving.com/2017/12/12/israel-palestinians-make-trumps-recognition-jerusalem/
https://www.jmoreliving.com/2017/12/12/israel-palestinians-make-trumps-recognition-jerusalem/
https://www.voanews.com/a/american-jews-support-trump-jerusalem-decision/4153051.html
@ Bear Klein:
He is American first and Loyal to Trump before any loyalty to Israel and the Jewish people. Court Jew is what they have historically been known as.
@ Bear Klein:
Israelis don’t understand nuance and are always suckers for the perennial snake oil salesmen…. Give it time and the polls will change here to mirror the American polls.
Bear Klein Said:
He left open what the borders of Jerusalem entail? No one even most Arabs are fighting over the Western part of Jerusalem as Israel capital It is historical Jerusalem that is in question . No mention of undivided Jerusalem ? It was a very amorphous declaration……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYS63Ko5FqU Trump’s christian base supports his declaration most American Jews not Because he didn’t have to make the declaration then why did he? It has no operational consequence and is not binding….. My belief is he made it to A-Shore up his base and B-collect a debt against Israel to be used when negotiations begin. Trump during the campaign blamed Israel for breakdown in past negotiations and promised to make the ultimate deal no president before him has succeeded in making. Much arrogance much Hubris from an arrogant megalomaniac……Not that I don’t support Trump when he is right but unlike you and most of the Trump cult followers I don’t trust him wrt Israel for him it’s the deal any deal as long as he can claim credit.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Skyrocketing-support-for-Trump-among-Israelis-518096
@ Bear Klein:
No fool like a cultist blind fool…. Symbolic it may have been but State Dept directives are not… There is no changes in light of the declaration. A site was chosen and purchased by the U.S years ago after the law was passed…. I am sure there are already ready plans in existence. America built the Empire State Building in a year so if they really wanted to make a statement 🙂 Re: Pence, Unless the PM or President goes with at least acting FM then it will not be an official visit in all that it symbolizes…. If it remains unofficial then we will know that the declaration is a con job total BS designed to get concessions if not agreement from Israel in forthcoming Saudi American Peace plan. Nothing is for free even symbolic declarations 😛
@ Edgar G.:
Yes, my question was rhetorical but the point I was making is that because Friedman is Jewish you should not dismiss or demean his visit to the Kotel as Only personal. This Jewish Ambassador from the USA is a real Zionist and friend of Israel, unlike some of the previous ones.
Bear Klein Said:
Israel does not need American intervention to get cooperation between Israel and Gulf States incl Saudi Arabia…. Missing from your optimism is the fact that Qatar is very close to Iran and is along with the Saudis the greatest purveyor and financier of Sunni Islamic Terror against Israel and the West …. There is not much we can get from those markets they don’t need us and we are doing well enough without them. Lastly who Trusts Arabs???? Maybe you do??? 😉
@ yamit82:
The recognition covers the symbolic part. So Trump will move the embassy his way and it will take time. Anyone ever involved of moving a business knows it takes time and planning (this I have done several times). Moving an Embassy in a foreign country is also very complicated. Staffing for new city, picking a site, getting funding, picking an architect and then engineers and builders.
Pence visit to Kotel, we will see next Month what happens. I have heard from some good sources that actually Israeli officials were going to go with him. So there is conflicting info out their about this.
Bear Klein Said:
He said it but there is no change in anti Israel policy or recognition by the State Dept and while honey to the ears of many Jews it’s just that until proclamations are translated to actual policy on the ground so far no apparent change…. Trump could have symbolically made a building or the American consulate an embassy by putting up a sign American Embassy even though no official business would be conducted…. Pence coming to Israel will visit the wall as a private citizen without Israeli official presence accompanying him same as with Trump’s visit… This speaks volumes as to where the Americans stand and looks like the Jews once again have been conned by a MEGA con man.
ArnoldHarris Said:
It is a stupid unworkable plan…. From what i have seen and read about Zahran it appears he is a slick con artist.
If You want Iran Hezbollah, ISIS Or Hamas on our Eastern Border then go for such a plan….. Stupid Jews Brought a defeated and near bankrupt Arafat and PLO from Tunis to Gaza and west bank and how did that turn out? Belman’s plan will be worse by a factor of 1000’s.
Breaking with decades of US policy, Trump also said on December 6 that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
US President Donald Trump made this comment in his National Security Strategy speech on Monday: “For generations the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been understood as the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region,” he said, and added, “Today, the threats from radical jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats,” Trump concluded.
Trumps team is trying facilitate Israel and the Gulf States peaceful cooperation and co-existence.
US vetoes UN resolution against Trump’s Jerusalem decision
U.S. envoy Nikki Haley calls Security Council challenge of Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem “an insult” that will not be forgotten
Trump basically has given Israel a veto on the two state solution. All this is the opposite of Obama who is an enemy of Israel.
@ Edgar G.:
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar, I’m the last man in the world whom you could rightfully claim to hew to the idiocies of political correctness, the thoughts of which all but curdle my blood.
Having written the above, I nevertheless must report that may wife and I have given birth to four children, and from one of them, two bright and charming grandchildren, one of whom is studying in the Montessori school program for which we and our daughter have been preparing her for some years.
Over these years, it has become quite clear to me that child-raising is in fact a task that is avoidable by neither parent.
By the way. Whenever possible because of schedules or our grandchildren and their busy specialist nurse mother, we have them with us on Friday evening for a more or less authentic Jewish Shabat. They now comprehend the prayers for the onset of Shabat, the candle-lighting, the wine, the hand-washing, the breaking of one of two identical bread loaves, etc.
My wife Stefanija, who can handle — in addition to her native Croatisn language, can handle Serbian and its Cyrillic alphabet, Russian, Latin, some Norwegian and its Icelandic variants, and she can read and understand and write some of he ancient Sanskrit of the far northern reaches of India more than 3000 years ago.
Thus, fore-parents.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ Bear Klein:
Show your evidence?
@ Bear Klein:
The Palis can get away with anything because America and the International community allows them. Why is America still funding those crooks? In essence America is funding terrorists whose aim and mission in life is to kill Jews.. Trump has maintained even increased those payments. America is funding and arming the Lebanese army aka as Hezbollah appendage. American soldiers fought alongside Hezbollah fighting ISIS. America made a pact with the Russians ceding Syria to the Iranians, Trump promised to tear up Iranian Nuke agreement…. still waiting 😛 Selling the Saudis and gulf states over $$$150 billion in arms with no significant offsetting supply to Israel has increased the quantitative separation between Israel and the Arab states.
@ ArnoldHarris:
I must apologise for butting in here but I just saw something in your post which intrigued me. I mean your term “fore-parents”… The well-known and only term I’ve ever seen used in a similar context is “fore-fathers”. Did you deliberately switch the normal term because of “political correctness”….?? Until now, I’ve always regarded you as a shooting-from-the-hip, straight talker., and agreed with almost everything you’ve said.
Not that I disagree with your surprising change, I’m just asking because I’m curious about it. You know……Curious George style.
@ Bear Klein:
Stop asking silly questions. What am I supposed to answer….nothing -as it was rhetorical-. and meant the same thing -nothing. What you’re saying then is that once a Jew becomes an American official, he can no longer take pride in having a Jewish honour conferred on him………….? This is the same silly question as you asked me but in reverse. So we’re both silly, but you started it, I’m blameless…….maybe…maybe not.
Isn’t this year the “Chinese Year Of The Silly Question”….? …Or is that next year…?
@ ArnoldHarris:
He says he first proposed this in a speech in 1972.
They must go. 209-10. Full text, free pdf
https://archive.org/stream/TheyMustGoMeirKahane/They%20Must%20Go%20Meir%20Kahane_djvu.txt
@ ArnoldHarris:
Actually, he advocated compensated emigration for non-violent Arabs. See: “They Must Go.” HIs detailed plan, written in the 70s was absolutely brilliant and workable. He was opposed to all of the land concessions after the Six Day War and I agree.
But, to emulate the Muslims (and early Israelites) in violence against non-combatants would be suicidal. Israel has staved off disaster more than a few times thanks to hidden friends in high places in the enemy camp.
Given the political and legal situation in Israel, I believe the Zahran/Belman plan is the most workable if the U.S. President can be persuaded.
@ ArnoldHarris:
SZ,
If we jettisoned the real Tora millenia ago, then I can make a substantial argument that this generation of Jews abandon every last scrap of meaningless liberal Judaism and get back for our present and future use all that was spelled out for our fore-parents the real rules that govern the lives of tribes, nations and states.
I can clearly see now that these real rules of Tora were exactly what the great Rav Meir Kahane — may his name live forever in the book of the Jewish nation — gave his live to try teaching the rest of us.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ ArnoldHarris:
Don’t have to poke far if you read the whole thing in sequence. That’s probably why nobody does. We jettisoned all of that millenia ago but you can really see the parts that appealed to Mohammed and his followers to this day.
See: Deuteronomy 20, lines 10-19
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+20
Deuteronomy 25, lines 17-19
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+25
numbers 31
http://biblehub.com/niv/numbers/31.htm
Joshua 6, lines 24-25
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%205:13-6:27
Psalm 137, lines 8-9
http://biblehub.com/niv/psalms/137.htm
Judges 1
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+1&version=NET
for starters
I don’t care about recognition of anybody’s borders or in which cities the various governments and their foreign offices choose to plant their embassies. All that I regard as meaningless crap. I am interested solely in the power of the Jewish nation and the Jewish state.
What I refer to here is raw, undiluted Stalinism as applied to Jewish national affairs. That terrible but great leader was the one figure of the 20th century whom I always have admired.
Did he kill massive numbers of Soviet citizens in the process of building up Sovietskaya vlast? My response always has been that the only outcomes that mattered were, first, to create one of the world’s largest industrial economies within 12 brief years; and second, that he mobilized his huge empire into the power house that caused the vaunted Reichfuehrer Hitler to commit suicide along with his wife, and even his dog, whom he used to test the effectiveness of the suicide poison pills that had been manufactured for his use. As a result of all that, the permanent borders of Germany have been shrunken back to what their nation had possessed 13 centuries ago, in the reign of Charlemagne.
That’s real power, and real power is concisely what I want for our Jewish nation.
We can only achieve that status by building up the strictly-Jewish population of the Jewish state, maintaining a 2 percent annual population expansion which will double that population every 36 years.
That’s step one in building up Jewish national power. Step two is to purposely use the warlike hostility of the Arabs as an excuse to expand the national borders of Israel in all directions. Is all that ethical conduct? Certainly not for private citizens in dealings with one another. But nations and states, if they are to survive and thrive, must have no such scruples whatsoever.
In any case, if I poke around in Tora deeply enough, I’m certain I can find evidence of HaShem ordering our ancestors to do all of the above, and with clear conscience. As for Jewish liberalism, go your own way, suckers. Becuse history has no use for whatever you imagined you were living for.
By the way. I never was a communist, or even a socialist. Because I found such notions as useless as I think Stalin quickly came to realize.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ yamit82:
In observing the USA government there are people especially in the State Dept. who do not automatically do what Trump wants without being to be forced to do so (e.g. passport issue).
I think Trump is backing Israel.
The Pals have climbed so high on the tree and directly against the USA they are making it easier for Israel to resist anything Trump might of asked of Israel.
Jews born in Jerusalem still have their passports stamped as Jerusalem sans Israel… ego there is no change in American policy and Jews have been conned again by MEGA Con Man DJT….. Israel will be asked or demanded of by Trump to agree to and make concessions in payment for empty declaration of American recognition of Jerusalem…… NEVER BELIEVE AMERICANS AND THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH IN THE AMERICAN LEXICON.
@ Edgar G.:
So since Friedman is a Jew he is no longer an American official? Did he say he was acting privately? Do you have specific info?
What matters now is Bin Salman plan of action for the 60% of < 30 y/o Saudis.! According to some sources he is ok with Abu Did for the Pal.
“Festina lente” my friend Noa.
@ Bear Klein:
It means nothing except that he got to light a menorah at the Wall. He is a Jew and that’s a big honour for him. Pence’s visit to the Kotel was supposed to have been OFFICIAL, announced from the White \house last week. THAT would have been important. He is a Vice -President, it would be official, and he isn’t a Jew.
@ david melech:
The Pence have disappeared from the coin lexicon, they are now only worth farthings.-like Pence’s promise that the Wall visit would be a official one.
If the Western Wall is not under Israeli sovereignty, why does anyone need to ask for permission to have a photographer accompany guests to visit? it doesn’t make sense and the only answer you can expect is the one received. It is much better and easier to ask forgiveness if that ever becomes necessary.
And just by the way, were the guests accompanied by their own army for protection?
his visit to ISRAEL is an official u s a v p. his visit to the TEMPLE MOUNT is private, should his visit to the Lav be official or private?
@ Edgar G.:
By these “official” private visits, the US is handing the Anti-Semites a victory showing that even America is afraid of the combined influence of the Jew Haters..
This must be causing stomach twisting and anguish in Israel and amongst committed Jews all around the world. I know it does to me.
What’s all this nonsense. Just a week ago or less the News media made a point of saying that this visit of Pence to the Wall would be an OFFICIAL visit. I think it’s about time that Israel started to kick softly a little against all the pro announcements which are later quietly withdrawn, like this one. I should not disturb relations, which the Americans have committed themselves to, so many times and in so many extravagant expressions, that they would be fore-sworn if they now denied it, or turned cool.
US Ambassador Friedman in a very public display lit Hanukah Candles at the Kotel and gave a little speech in Hebrew.
but then pence is not visiting any muzzie nor Christian site, what faith is pence? maybe he would wear a kipper and go upstairs the TEMPLE MOUNT.