Dateline Jerusalem — I am so proud to be an American and an Israeli. This week has been a time of miracles for Israel.
Less than a week before Chanukah, the Festival of Miracles, Jerusalem finally was declared the capital of the modern State of Israel.
Mazal tov!
Jerusalem has been the undivided eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people for over 3,000 years.
Although a bi-partisan U.S. Congress enacted the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which provided for relocation of the Embassy to Jerusalem, not one president complied with the law.
The 22-year delay did nothing to promote peace in the region. To the contrary, it encouraged the Palestinians to make more outrageous demands.
Thank you, President Trump, for having the courage to stand up for what is legally and morally correct.
“Israel is a sovereign nation with the right, like every other sovereign nation, to determine its own capital,” he said.
All branches of the Israeli government are in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the Supreme Court, and the residences of the prime minister and president of Israel.
It is appropriate that President Trump made his announcement less than a week before Chanukah.
As in ancient times when some Jews chose to appease their Greek-Syrian oppressors and assimilate into a secular anti-religious Hellenistic lifestyle rather than fight for their freedoms, there are Jews today touting appeasement because the Palestinians have threatened violence.
What else is new?
Like the miracles of Chanukah, it is a miracle that Israel’s opposition parties and some of President Trump’s greatest foes have joined in praising President Trump for this momentous announcement.
Perhaps there will be peace after all.
For years the slogan “land for peace” has been nothing other than appeasement to a people who have no intention of making peace.
Despite attempts by left-wing Israeli politicians to appease the Palestinians by complying with most of their demands such as land transfers, unilateral prisoner exchanges, and sometimes perilous security risks, “most” is not enough.
Palestinians want it all or they resort to violence. Appeasement only encourages further oppression and violence. A perfect example was when England’s Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler, and that led to World War II.
Seventy years ago when President Truman was warned not to recognize Israel, there were Arab threats of violence.
But he stood for Israel. Despite t violence, like the miracles of Chanukah, the State of Israel survived the wars. Israel will survive this, too.
Hamas claimed the other day that recognition of Jerusalem would lead to an escalation of the “Jerusalem intifada.” That in itself is an admission that there is an intifada in existence already.
Abbas’s Fatah recently signed a reconciliation agreement with Hamas.
Other than violence, what can be expected from a Palestinian culture that glorifies terrorists, pays terrorists and their families to commit terror, teaches their children hatred and violence in schools, summer camps, on TV, in books and magazines, and incites their people to kill and maim Israeli children sleeping in their beds?
Every year at the end of our Passover seder and at the end of the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, Jews throughout the world say, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
It is absurd when Palestinians and the U.N. claim Jews have no connection to Jerusalem.
Israel’s President Rivlin is a seventh generation Jerusalemite. Happy Chanukah.
L’hitraot. Shachar