What am I missing - when someone claims that moving the embassy will ruin the peace process [hard not to laugh at that] and lead [it’s always implied justifiably] to violent protests, I don’t understand why the simple response isn’t: do you support a two state solution? Well, yes, of course. Putting settlements as a whole aside for the moment, do you believe that Israel will insist on at the absolute very least retaining sovereignty over West Jerusalem, however you may choose to define it, given some putative final status two state agreement? Yes, I would expect that. And therefore it follows that Israeli control of West Jerusalem is the the baseline, the irreducible starting point of any future negotiations towards a two state solution? Yes, that follows. And do you think it fair that Israel insist on that as the absolute very least they can accept? Yes, hard to argue that’s not fair. Then how exactly would moving the embassy to West Jerusalem change anything regarding the two state solution you claim to endorse? Well, uhmmn… the Palestinians wouldn’t like it. Given what you’ve said, that dislike would be based on an irrational denial of reality - what good can possibly come from encouraging the Palestinians to engage in irrational denials of reality? Ahhh… look, it’s understood that any final status regarding Jerusalem must be established by negotiations. But you’ve already said Israeli control of West Jerusalem is the baseline beyond which nothing can go - in other words, Israeli control of West Jerusalem is non-negotiable… there’s nothing to negotiate... assuming of course one truly believes in a two state solution. Yes, but… but...
What am I missing here? Every time I hear people like Kerry talk about the embassy move what appear to me to be the obvious rebuttal questions are never asked - what am I missing? I gotta be getting something wrong here because it just flat out makes no sense.
[well, the argument would be made that, yes, Israeli control of West Jerusalem is a given per 1967 - but by moving the embassy America would be saying or at the very least implying, in keeping with the thinking of the Israeli right and indeed the Jerusalem law of 1980, that all of Jerusalem is Israel’s indivisible capital. And that’s probably a fair point - the only way you could mitigate the appeal of that point is if you acknowledge that a future Palestinian state would perforce therefore have a ‘right’ to staking its capital in East Jerusalem - and you’d have to also spell out that the Temple Mount and area around it would be designated a separate entity administered by some third party. Don’t believe anybody on the right would agree to something like that - they wouldn’t want to rule out complete control of Jerusalem at some future point, even though any ‘viable’ two state solution could not allow for something like that - and therefore moving the embassy would in essence amount to giving the nod to Jerusalem as Israel's Indivisible capital. So that would appear to be the thing I’m getting wrong.
Still, if one doesn’t believe the Palestinians have any intention of negotiating towards a two state solution that Israel could accept as tolerable - and I certainly believe that to be the case - then what do you do? The status quo is not acceptable - but if the Palestinians believe the status quo slowly but surely serves their agenda, which I think it does given the profound stupidity of the West, then what do you do if you’re Israel? Annexing Area C I think is not a good option - continued settlement building with certain limitations I have no problem with and according to polls neither do most israelis - but eventually that just becomes a slow motion annexing of Area C. To me you have to dramatically change the math - if I’m Trump I say to Netanyahu ‘I'll move the embassy to West Jerusalem but you have to agree that such a move entitles the Palestinians to establish their future capital in East Jerusalem and also agree that the Temple Mount and immediate adjoining lands will be designated a separate, neutral territory administered by a third party that guarantees the rights to religious practice there by the three pertinent religions’. The Israeli right would get something it wants very much, the American embassy in Jerusalem, and lose something it wants very much, an indivisible Jewish capital. And the Palestinians? What the Palestinians would get is notification that they no longer have a friend in the White House and so they better stop with the bull shit and commit to serious negotiations - otherwise annexation of Area C will become the inevitable Israeli reply.
There, I’ve solved it. Let peace ring out. Ha.
The only other option I see is move the embassy without an agreement to reciprocity by Israel - all hell will break loose - the Palestinians will lose that battle - and the math will have been dramatically changed. Like I said, the status quo is not to Israel’s advantage it seems to me - something has to change and the change I think has to be dramatically impactful.
But why would the Israeli right agree to this reciprocity deal re Jerusalem? Because they’ve empowered Trump, they’ve labeled him the President they've been waiting for - if he offers them something that seems reasonable, how can they say no without seriously compromising themselves? I don’t think they can. I get the whole Jerusalem is ours narrative, 2000 years of abuse and persecution, we won it back in a war and we’re not giving it up - I’m very sympathetic to that narrative. But reality gets a vote - you cannot say you believe in a two state solution while clinging to the notion of a unified Jerusalem as your capital - it’s one or the other - if Trump demonstrates he’s really willing to get tough with the Palestinians and push the envelope, how can the Israeli right not play ball?]