• Tillerson: On Jerusalem, Trump Is Obeying the Will of the American People
  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday: "There's a 1995 law in the United States that requires the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to relocate our embassy....After many, many reaffirmations by our Senate, including as recently as this past summer - the vote, I think, was 90 to none with 10 abstentions - the President is simply carrying out the will of the American people....It is just an acknowledgment of what is the reality on the ground....So the reality is, as you wake up today after this announcement, there's nothing that's different other than the President has now implemented the 1995 law."
      "Having said that, he also reaffirmed our strong belief that the status quo of the holy sites must be maintained, which recognizes the rightful role of the various countries around those sites. He also affirmed our support for a two-state solution if that's what the parties believe they are ready to agree. And he also made a statement regarding the final status of Jerusalem is something that is left for the parties to negotiate....Every country has a right to decide what it wants to decide as to its embassy in Israel."  (U.S. State Department)
• U.S. Warns Palestinians Against Cancelling Upcoming Talks with Vice-President Pence
  The U.S. has warned Palestinians that it would be "counterproductive" to scrap talks between Vice-President Mike Pence and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned for later this month, after Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. A senior Palestinian official, Jibril Rajoub, earlier said Pence would not be welcome. (BBC News)
• Hamas: U.S. Decision on Jerusalem Is a Declaration of War
  Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said in Gaza City on Thursday that the U.S. decision on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a "declaration of war against Palestinians," and called for a new "Intifada," or uprising. "Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem, is ours," he said. (Al Jazeera)
• EU Vows Push to Make Jerusalem Capital for Palestinians Too - Robin Emmott
  EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini pledged on Thursday to reinvigorate diplomacy to ensure Palestinians have a capital in Jerusalem, after President Donald Trump recognized the city as Israel's capital. "We believe the only realistic solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is based on two states and with Jerusalem as the capital of both," she said. The EU believes it has a duty to make its voice heard as the Palestinians' biggest aid donor and Israel's top trade partner. (Reuters)
      See also Israel to EU: "Denying Truth Distances Peace" - Itamar Eichner
  The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded Thursday to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini's statement that President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital may "return us to dark days."
      "Insisting on denying Jerusalem is Israel's capital is disavowing an undisputable historical fact. Any denial of this simple truth distances peace by creating expectations detached from reality in Palestinians," the ministry said. "President Trump has taken a courageous, righteous step that increases the chances of peace by speaking the truth."  (Ynet News)

• Netanyahu: We Thank President Trump and the American Congress for Their Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's Capital
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday: "We were all moved to hear President Trump's historic statement, the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and this statement is, of course, based on ancient right. The Jewish People determined Jerusalem to be its capital 3,000 years ago. Here our forefathers walked. Here our kings ruled. Here our prophets preached. Here are our roots. This is, in effect, our identity card."
      "President Trump has inscribed himself in the annals of our capital for all time. His name will now be linked to the names of others in the context of the glorious history of Jerusalem and our people. I would like to thank him and the American Congress which, 22 years ago, provided a basis for the recognition until President Trump came and implemented this law."
      "We are already in contacts with other countries that will declare similar recognition and I have no doubt that the moment the American embassy moves to Jerusalem, and even before, many more embassies will move to Jerusalem. It's about time."  (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Trump Peace Team Believes It Can Ride Out Arab Anger - Michael Wilner
  White House officials told the Jerusalem Post that they believe their plan to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations can survive what they expect will be a temporary burst of anger across the Arab world. Administration officials said they take seriously Palestinian and Arab concerns and understand the reaction that has followed Trump's speech. But they hope their anger will pass, and expect Ramallah in particular will realize that the Palestinians' only chance of achieving sovereignty is with the help of Washington.
      They believe Arab world powers no longer prioritize the Palestinian issue in such a way that it will affect bilateral relations, and that their leverage over their Arab allies, seeking help pushing back against Iran, will keep their peace process on track. They also believe that Israel's presence in Jerusalem is right and just, regardless of how negotiations ultimately settle its final status. (Jerusalem Post)
• Amb. Friedman: Trump's Jerusalem Move Reflects Best Path for Peace - Sue Surkes
  President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel reflects the "best path for peace," and those demonstrating against it failed to listen properly to his speech, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Fox News on Thursday.
      Trump's aim had been to "foreclose the fantasy that somehow Jerusalem could be disconnected from the State of Israel," he said. "The president didn't want the Israelis to show up at the bargaining table and be forced to negotiate for something that they already had. What he did yesterday was to simply speak the truth, and to develop for the first time a foreign policy based upon reality rather than fantasy." Friedman insisted Trump's speech had put the president "on the right side of history."  (Times of Israel)
• President Rivlin: Our Arab Neighbors Have to Realize that We Are Here to Stay - Greer Fay Cashman
  President Reuven Rivlin, a seventh-generation Jerusalemite, told the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference on Wednesday that Jews and Arabs have been neighbors in Jerusalem for the past 200 years. "We are not condemned to live together, but are destined to live together," he reiterated. As soon as both sides realize this, he said, it will end the tragedy that has plagued Jews and Muslims for so long. "Our neighbors, our cousins, have to realize that we are here to stay. And we have to realize that for those born here, this is also their motherland."
      With regard to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Rivlin noted that all new ambassadors come to Jerusalem to present their credentials, meet with government ministers, and visit the Knesset. (Jerusalem Post)

• Video: It Is an American Right to Decide Where Its Embassy Will Be Located - Dore Gold
  Amb. Dore Gold told StandWithUs in San Diego this week: "I don't believe that the violence that is being threatened by various groups and organizations happens spontaneously. Violence occurs because someone is planning the violence....If the Palestinian side seeks violence against Israel, or violence against the United States, we should observe that and we should do everything in our power to neutralize it."
      "We have to be very firm that we reject the use of violence for what is an American right, to decide where its embassy will be located, and to decide that it will be located in the capital of Israel."
      Amb. Dore Gold, former director general of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli ambassador to the UN, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. (YouTube)
• U.S. President's Jerusalem Speech Shows that Time Is Not Working in the Palestinians' Favor - Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin
  The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the world's strongest superpower creates more opportunities than risks, and opens the door for new paradigms for the peace process. Trump's refusal to bow to the threats and blackmail, together with the message that the Palestinians do not have veto power, is a very important precedent for the future of the peace process. The speech illustrates to the Palestinians that time is not working in their favor.
      Trump's announcement did not eliminate the possibility for using the accepted framework for negotiations (two states subject to the agreement of the two sides, core issues to be decided by negotiations, no change in status quo of Temple Mount). The writer, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, heads the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. (Twitter)
• Jerusalem Is Already Israel's Capital. Trump Just Made it Official. - Jonathan Schanzer
  Trump's announcement that he will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is recognition of the indisputable fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. What's more, the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital was not really Trump's to make. It's already enshrined in a 1995 law that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
      Despite a cacophony of claims to the contrary, Trump's decision does not undermine Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim claims on the city. The move does not alter the longstanding U.S. view that the future status of the city is an issue that must be negotiated between the Palestinians and Israelis in bilateral negotiations. Trump stressed this in his speech. The writer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department, is senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (Fortune)
• Trump Recognizes that Humiliating Israel Didn't Bring Peace - Yoram Hazony
  For nearly seven decades, alone among the nations of the world, the State of Israel has endured an unusual humiliation: it has been denied the sovereign right to determine its own capital. For the better part of a century, the U.S. has led what is effectively an international boycott of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, keeping its embassy in Tel Aviv as part of a fiction that the status of Jerusalem remains undetermined.
      After Jerusalem was united under Israeli rule in 1967, rather than recognizing Israeli sovereignty, the international community decided to leave Jerusalem's status for "future negotiations." Yet now half a century has passed, and still there is nothing but Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem anywhere in sight.
      The dream of rebuilding Jerusalem, destroyed in Roman times, is the linchpin that holds Jewish faith and nationhood together. Israel will never agree for Jerusalem to be divided as Berlin was, with mutually hostile police forces on either side of a security barrier. Jerusalem was divided in this way from 1948 to 1967, and anyone who lived through that time of snipers on the city walls knows that such a scheme amounts to destroying Jerusalem, not rebuilding it.
      For 70 years, the U.S. and most other nations have declined to stand with the Jewish people on this, believing that peace would somehow be forthcoming if Israel were humiliated in this way. But this approach has not brought peace. It has only encouraged Israel's enemies. All over the world, Jews are saying shehehianu, the traditional blessing thanking God for letting us live to see this day. The writer is president of the Jerusalem-based Herzl Institute. (Wall Street Journal)
• Trump's Speech Recognizing Jerusalem: What It Says and What It Doesn't Say - Nadav Shragai
  President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital puts into deep-freeze plans for a division of the city. Until Trump's speech, the U.S. did not recognize either west or east Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump's speech did not distinguish between west and east. He referred to Jerusalem with all its parts as a single unit.
      However, there still is no easing of the major restrictions the U.S. has imposed on Israel regarding construction in Jewish neighborhoods within Jerusalem or in Greater Jerusalem. Moreover, diplomatic observers in Jerusalem are concerned that Trump will now request a "payment" for this historic step in the form of Israeli concessions connected to the ongoing talks.
      If Hamas succeeds to convince the Palestinian public that the American recognition of Jerusalem means that the "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," the masses will again take to the streets. But as long as Al-Aqsa is outside of the picture, the waves of protest will be lower. Israel's interest is to try to isolate Al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount from the current agitation and prevent actors such as Hamas, the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, Turkey, or Qatar from again setting the field ablaze.
      The writer, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center, is a journalist and commentator who has documented the dispute over Jerusalem for 30 years. His books include Jerusalem: Delusions of Division (2015) and The "Al-Aksa Is in Danger" Libel: The History of a Lie (2012). (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
• Recognizing the Obvious: Jerusalem Is Israel's Capital - Editorial
  Since Jerusalem actually is Israel's capital, and has been for seven decades, the Palestinians and the rest of the world are going to have to get over it eventually. The move shouldn't be controversial: Jewish ties to Jerusalem go back millennia. The holy city is the site of the First and Second Temples; it's been Jews' spiritual capital for millennia, even in times of exile.
      The Palestinians don't want to recognize those basic facts, but that denial is their problem, and one the rest of the world shouldn't keep enabling. If Palestinians can't find a better cement for their own national identity than hating Israel, Zionism and the Jews, then they're never going to build a state worth having - and they'll simply remain the eternally suffering pawns of outside powers. (New York Post)
• Trump Is Right - Israel's Capital Is Jerusalem - Kenneth Bandler
  Recognition of the city that Israel has always deemed its capital is long overdue. No other country in the world has been treated this way. Longstanding resistance to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital has encouraged many UN member states to regularly adopt resolutions that ignore historical facts and deny any Jewish link to Jerusalem.
      Tragically, Palestinian leaders continue to prefer confrontation over resuming negotiations to achieve an enduring comprehensive peace. U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an act of constructive diplomacy. The writer is the American Jewish Committee's director of media relations. (Fox News)
• Finally, a President Who Looks at Jerusalem Logically - Einat Wilf
  The U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is 68 years overdue. Jerusalem was established as the capital of Israel on December 13, 1949. At the time the U.S. was still attached to the idea, proposed in the UN partition resolution of 1947, that greater Jerusalem should be governed by the international community. This fiction never existed anywhere but on paper because the Arabs rejected the partition proposal and started a war to prevent it from being realized.
      So the U.S. chose a policy that held the status of Israel's capital hostage to a fiction that never had a chance of existing. Trump's declaration finally puts an end to this nonsensical policy. The writer, a senior fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute, is a former Knesset member. (Atlantic)
• Why the Jerusalem Announcement Won't Hurt America's Arab Alliances - Shadi Hamid
  Most Arab countries won't care much about Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which might seem counterintuitive. The announcement comes at a time when Arab regimes - particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt - find themselves more aligned than ever with Israel on regional priorities, sharing a near obsession with Iran as the source of the region's evils.
      In effect if not in intent, few are as indifferent to Muslim life as Arab countries are. It may be hard for Arabs to admit, but Israel has proven - in relative terms - more respectful of Muslim life than most Arab regimes. No one, then, should fall under the illusion that declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital will harm America's alliances with most, or even many, Arab nations (Jordan being a notable exception). The writer is a senior fellow at the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. (Atlantic)
• Trump Seizes Control over U.S. Israel Policy from the State Department - Caroline B. Glick
  By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Trump made clear that U.S. support for Israel is not conditioned on anything. Israel, the Jewish state, is supported by the U.S. because it deserves U.S. support as an allied democracy. Trump took control of U.S. foreign policy from a State Department that opposes his policies. He made reality, rather than the defiance of reality, the foundation of U.S. Middle East policy.
      He put U.S. allies and enemies on notice that he is calling the shots in U.S. foreign policy. And he took a large step toward restoring U.S. credibility as a superpower. (Jerusalem Post)
• Trump's Move Frees Palestinians to Focus on Peace, Not Jerusalem - Eli Lake
  Western sensitivity on Jerusalem has allowed Palestinian leaders to weaponize the issue. Palestinians are fed a steady stream of propaganda about the danger to Jerusalem. Even Abbas has given speeches warning about Jewish plans to alter al-Aqsa and Jerusalem. A policy of Jerusalem neutrality feeds the Palestinian illusion that with enough patience and rage, one day the Jews will be evicted from their eternal capital. (Bloomberg)
• Trump's Truth-Telling on Jerusalem - John Podhoretz
  Trump could have just signed the waiver of the law passed in 1995 compelling the executive branch to move America's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did it six months ago, just like his three immediate predecessors did every six months since 1996. Instead, he called the international community's seven-decade bluff and ended a delusion about the future that has prevented Palestinians from seeing the world and their own geopolitical situation clearly.
      The Palestinians continue to act as though they will get what they want through rejection and resistance and rage. The Palestinian refusal to accept Israel has been the greatest bar to peace. (New York Post)
• U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem and the Road to Peace - Gregg Roman
  The Palestinian rejection of partitioning the territory into Jewish and Arab states continues. The primary obstacle to ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the near-century of Palestinian rejectionism of the right of self-determination for the Jewish people.
      Years of concessions, of work to build the Palestinian Authority into something capable of handling the levers of power, have brought us no closer to peace. How can Israel make peace when the Palestinians don't want peace? Individual Palestinians surely want the conflict over. But as a nation, they still seem convinced that they have the choice to reject Israel and eradicate it. For peace to come, the Palestinians must decide that they have more to gain by giving up the conflict than by perpetuating it. The writer is director of the Middle East Forum. (The Hill)


Weekend Feature


• Israeli Aid to Syrians: Warm Clothing, Heating Oil, and a Maternity Hospital - Ben Lynfield
  The IDF has facilitated the opening of a maternity hospital on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights - part of a significant expansion of Operation Good Neighbor, which provides Israeli assistance to war-ravaged Syrian villages near the Israeli border.
      Lt.-Col. E., commander of the operation, explained, "You can't stand from the side and see your neighbor dying and living in hard conditions and know that you can help them and not do so." The hospital opened two weeks ago in Bariqa in the Quneitra region. It is staffed entirely by Syrian doctors, while the incubators, beds, and ultrasound equipment come from Israel.
      The operation is expanding and reaching villages as far as 20 km. from the border in an area with 200,000 people. "We are...literally every day saving people's lives," Lt.-Col. E. said. In preparation for winter, the IDF has provided 30 tons of warm clothing and a mass supply of diesel fuel so villagers can heat their houses. IDF supplies of flour have brought the price of bread down by at least half in the assisted villages. Lt.-Col. E. said, "The flour is free, the diesel is free, the vehicle [for transportation] is free. They just have to pay for the worker in the bakery."  (Jerusalem Post)

Trump's Speech: A Seismic Event and a Historic Watershed - Melanie Phillips (Jerusalem Post)

• This is where blackmail and intimidation are faced down. This is where appeasement ends. President Trump's speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital has signaled that, for America, the century-long Arab attempt to destroy Israel's legitimacy - the essence of the Middle East conflict - has failed. The incendiary threats of vengeful violence should be taken seriously. But the Arabs need no excuse to try to murder Israelis.
• Appeasing those who threaten violence doesn't reduce it. It encourages it. The more concessions are offered, the more the Palestinians believe even greater violence will deliver them final victory. Britain, France and Germany have obligingly once again genuflected to the men of violence by disapproving of Trump's speech. If they had said they, too, would now recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the threat of violence would lose much of its point.
• The Arab war against Israel is not a conflict about the division of land. It is a war of extermination based on a refusal to accept that the Jews have any right to that land. And Jerusalem is central to that refusal. They deny the Jews any rights to Jerusalem at all. That's because they need to suppress what they can never admit: that Jerusalem was the capital of the Jews' ancient kingdom which preceded Islam and the Arab and Muslim conquest by many centuries.
• Trump was in error when he said Jerusalem was at the heart of three great religions. It is the Jews alone for whom Jerusalem is at the core of their religious faith. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran; Muslims pray toward Mecca, their holiest city.
• Far from the Israeli presence there being illegal, the Jews are the only people who are entitled to the city as a matter of international law, historical truth and natural justice. Which is why the refusal by Western countries to recognize the unique Jewish right to Jerusalem has been so malevolent.
• Those who say Trump's move makes peace less likely couldn't be more wrong. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital is the essential step without which peace can never be achieved.
  
  The writer is a columnist for The Times (UK).