Witnessing History

Ever since Trump was elected one of the threads of conversation among supporters of Israel is will he or won't he move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Many voiced the opinion that it was just the price of admission to get the "Jewish" vote. Others viewed it through the prism of candidate Trump - he had no need to bribe any particular constituency. Looking back on the campaign, it was more thematic than specific. He talked about the principles and values of flyover America that got him elected. The shock and reaction still reverberate. The Democrats would rather die than cooperate. The Republicans would rather go down in flames than cooperate. Appointments and legislation are stuck in limbo. Leaks coming from government departments border on treason. Every thing is politicized. Anarchy seems to be just around the corner.

Every president since Gerald Ford has promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, where it belongs. It is scandalous that the capitol of a sovereign nation isn't recognized, especially by its nominal strongest ally. I don't know of any other country that is subjected to this kind of humiliation. Moving the embassy has been a law in the United States since 1995, and was reaffirmed six months ago by Congress almost unanimously (a miracle considering how fractured Congress is). So how is it that every president since 1995 (Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump) has been able to get away with not enforcing this law? By a little loophole called a waiver, that has to be signed every 6 months. Since 1995 the one thing every president has in common is their adherence to signing that waiver. In May, when Trump signed, the reaction was deja view all over again. This was compounded when he decided the pick up the gauntlet of solving the Israel-Palestine crisis. A lot of people were disappointed and figured that Trump, like all his predecessors, was just saying whatever he had to say to get elected.

There was a lot of speculation during the past week about a forthcoming announcement concerning the embassy relocation. Will he/won't he? Is it just more hype? Will he again cave to the received wisdom that any change in the status quo will cause the entire middle east to go up in flames?

On Wednesday Sid and I watched the speech that will go down in history. As I listened to the precise and carefully crafted speech, I thought back to November 29, 1947 and May 14, 1948. People were glued to their radios listening to the UN Partition Plan vote and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel. I thought about the blood and struggle that accompanied Israel's creation, and the wars that have been fought ever since. I thought about ramifications and repercussions, about doing and failing to do, about risks for peace and land for peace. As he's done since the day he announced his candidacy, Trump made it clear that he was breaking the mold (Let Trump Be Trump). In so many words he quoted Einstein's definition of insanity and said enough is enough, no more.

No, the sky won't fall. Security has been ramped up for the promised 3 days of rage that will come and go. But this is nothing new. There is terrorism every day here, but it's not reported outside of Israel. Last week alone an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death in Arad. A 70-year old was the target of a car ramming. He was only slightly wounded, but a bystander was severely injured. A group of kids on a hike was attacked by an Arab lynch mob. The 70-year old and the parents accompanying the hikers were armed and shot their assailants. More Arabs will be killed and wounded because of their self-inflicted violence than Israelis. This has been the case ever since the first of the Arab refusals. The fact has to be mentioned, over and over and over, that if the Arabs had accepted the UN Partition Plan, which gave THEM a state of their own, today they would be making plans to celebrate 70 years of statehood. They would have had everything they claim to want - independence, sovereignty, self-determination. And all that hysteria and hyperbole about blowing up the peace process and the two-state solution? There is no peace and there is no process. If there was any intention by the Arabs of working things out, their leadership would have called for quiet rather than violence. The goal was, is, and always will be to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They don't want a state, peace or prosperity. It's beyond me that people still don't get that.

And by the way, where was the outrage back in April when Russia recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capitol? Where were the demonstrations against the Czech Republic, which did the same? What about burning the flags of other countries, from Belgium to the Phillipines, that are looking at real estate in Jerusalem? Betcha didn't know that, right? Because it wasn't reported, because there was no rioting in the streets of Ramallah and Gaza, and because the press only reports what makes Israel and the US look bad.

No one should make assumptions about where this will lead. Personally I think the best possible scenario is the absence of violence and terror because there will never be peace until the Arabs decide that's what they really want. Golda Meir said there will be peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate ours. That was 45 years ago, and they are more willing than ever before to use their children as suicide bombers and human shields. A desire for peace has to come from the bottom up, because it certainly won't come from their leadership. In high school, when we studied about the 100 Years War, I couldn't understand how something could go on for that long. Now I do.

In spite of the hysteria, life continues as normal. We had a lovely couple of days at the Dead Sea, one of our favorite places in the world, and we celebrated another bar mitzvah - Moshe and Liat's son Yaniv. Last night we had dinner with Dori and her boyfriend Itzik in Tel Aviv. The big excitement was getting home. Our bus broke down about 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem. While boarding another bus that stopped to pick us up, someone told us if there were no seats left on this bus another would be coming in 5-10 minutes. We were more concerned with getting back to Jerusalem and didn't mind standing. But several people insisted on giving up their seats for us; there are advantages to being, ahem, older. When we got to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, the local bus to take us home was waiting and we hopped on. We didn't even get to the next stop and the bus hit a roadblock.  A police car had cordoned off the street and there was no place to turn around so we were stuck for about 20 minutes. We thought it might be more demonstrations by the ultra-orthodox fringe against having to register for the draft. But when they finally let traffic resume I saw the reason for the hold-up - the van from the bomb squad. False alarm, and a fact of everyday life here.

View from our hotel room with the Dead Sea and Moab Mountains of Jordan

Sid, relaxed after a massage

Shabbat shalom from Israel's capitol,

Peggy and Sid