UN vote on Jerusalem

US diplomacy has descended to schoolyard level: bullying, name-calling, now taking names for future retribution.

The Jewish character of Jerusalem did not begin with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Far from it.

Before there was a state of Israel, the Jews were in Jerusalem. Before there was an Ottoman Empire, Jews were in Jerusalem. Before the Romans ever came, Jerusalem was the city of the Jews. Before the Greeks came, Jerusalem was the city of the Jews.

It was the Romans, in fact, who forcibly removed each and every Jew who they had not slaughtered, and sent the remainder into exile. Even after being exiled, the Jewish people did not give up on Jerusalem. For two thousand years, each and every Jew has said in his or her prayers, thrice daily, "And may our eyes behold when You return with mercy to Jerusalem". For centuries, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the climax of the day was the blowing of the shofar at sundown, followed by the mass call "Next year in Jerusalem!" The Passover Seder is concluded in the same way.

And as soon as the Romans (and Byzantines after them) stopped kicking out the Jews, Jews began to return to Jerusalem. To mourn and to pray at the Western Wall, the remnant of our Temple that the Romans destroyed. To walk the streets that are our place on earth. When the Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem, the Jews were there. And when the Crusaders left, the Jews were still there. Oppressed, under foreign rule, but there. They endured taxation, discrimination, the occasional pogrom, you name it - but did not leave.

And so the Jewish people do not need UN validation over our claim to Jerusalem. It is a matter of historical fact, from time immemorial all the way to the present.

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With regard to more modern events:

The word "Palestine" became a thing after the First World War, after the erstwhile Ottoman Empire was partitioned between the British and the French. British Mandatory Palestine included the present-day countries of Israel and Jordan. After the East Bank of the Jordan River was lopped off and made a separate country (Transjordan, today Jordan), "Palestine" was reduced to present-day Israel. The Palestinian Arab state, in other words, exists already - it is called Jordan. No matter.

In the Partition Plan of Palestine of 1947 - or what was left of Palestine after Jordan was broken off - the remaining part was to be partitioned between a Jewish state and an Arab one. Jerusalem was supposed to be no one's, under international government. Although the land the Jews were to receive was minuscule and not even contiguous, the Jews accepted. The Arabs did not - Jews would not rule one inch of anything.

On the day after Israel declared independence, armies from 5 Arab states and 2 irregular armies invaded. There was no occupation, there were no settlements to object to. This was, pure and simple, a war to obliterate any Jewish state. The rallying cry was to "drive the Jews into the sea".

The fighting did not end in a truce, but an armistice. A major part of the Jordan River's west bank (today known as the West Bank) and East Jerusalem, came under Jordanian control. This included the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Old City had a continuous Jewish population for centuries, virtually unbroken since the destruction of the Second Temple and exile of the Jews from Israel by the Romans. This was ended when Jordan took control of the Old City. Virtually all synagogues there were destroyed, either razed or converted to horse stables. Access to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, was denied to Jews, moreover various facilities including a public toilet were placed there. This, in direct contravention to the armistice treaty. The ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was vandalized, with tombstones used for paving roads.

In the 1967 Six Day War, taken to save the state from obliteration by Nasser's army in Egypt and those in Jordan and Syria, Israel reclaimed the Old City. The photo of the first paratroopers arriving at the Wall, is one instantly recognizable even today by every Jew everywhere. The emotion on the soldiers' faces is felt, not seen.

During the nearly 20 years when Jews (or Christians, for that matter) from Israel could not access their holiest site, there was nary a peep about the situation in the international community. Nobody cared. That it was a violation of every agreement that had been concluded, bothered no one.

But as soon as the Jews took over, guaranteeing - and delivering - that anyone without exception could come to their holy places unmolested, and expelling nobody, unlike how all Jews had been expelled 19 years earlier?

Then the world started remembering about international law. Then, and since then, we suddenly hear demands that the city be internationalized. That it must be made an Muslim and Arab capital. Because Mecca, Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, Doha, Saan'a, Tripoli, Algiers, Khartoum, Dubai, Manama, Doha and Muscat, are not enough capitals in the Middle East. No, we must take an area roughly the size of New Jersey and carve out one more state - and make Jerusalem the capital, no less.

Meanwhile, UNESCO (the UN's cultural arm) passes a resolution pretending Jews never were in Jerusalem altogether, the Waqf excavates the Temple Mount in an attempt to remove traces of the Temples that stood centuries before Mohammed was born, the Palestinian Authority promotes propaganda of more of the same, etc etc etc.

UNESCO is by no means the only organization that has caused the letters "UN" to become a joke in Israel.

The General Assembly of the United Nations passed, in the years 2012-2015, ninety-seven resolutions criticizing an individual country. Of these 97, 86(!) were condemning Israel. Also in 2015, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, a body that may have its hands full in the Arab world (in Saudi Arabia, you may recall, it became legal for women to drive this year), passed a motion criticizing - I shit you not - Israel. For “the grave situation of Palestinian women.”

Is Israel, is the Jewish people, supposed to take this farce seriously?

No. The UN can get stuffed.

Thanks Ben.

Thank you Ben.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, on the UN:

United in Ignominy: The U.N.’s War on Israel

Quote from ben

Israel's ambassador to the UN, on the UN:

United in Ignominy: The U.N.’s War on Israel

Fortunately Argentina have had the good sense of Abstaining. In other times, we would vote with the majority. And the UN Israel ambassador is right. Christian´s persecution is ignored by the UN.

The U.S. Has responded in the way rich people do: you don't vote with me, I take away your money.

As a tactical decision, not sure the US decision was the wisest way to go about it. Maybe, maybe not.

But as a matter of right and wrong -

1. As above, is absolutely right. Hell, the US maintained an embassy in East Berlin, so did most countries, and that in spite of a very clear agreement on the part of all occupying powers that Berlin was not to be the capital of either Germany. The US made a decision of where to put its own embassy. Who do these people think they are, and why is this getting the absurdly outsized attention that it does? We know why, don't we?
2. It's actually more like "I stop giving you my money. Wanna explain why I still should?"