One very minor implication of Liz Truss’ spectacular self-immolation in Downing Street is that we probably won’t be hearing about a possible relocation of the British Embassy to Jerusalem in the foreseeable future.
Not that there was any real prospect of the rash promise Truss tossed off during her campaign for leadership of the Conservative Party coming to fruition. Even if she repeated it again in her meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to Yair Lapid (who, in just over four months as Israel’s prime minister, will soon be on his third British premier). It was a promise she made partly to curry favor with pro-Israel party members, and partly to stick it to the civil servants – the professional diplomats of the Foreign Service whom she enjoyed goading.
But the mere possibility of such a move was enough for the Board of Deputies of British Jews to hold a stormy virtual meeting on Wednesday night where a number of deputies criticized the board’s president, Marie van der Zyl, for publicly supporting the move without any consultation.
If they had waited another day, they would have seen that it had all been a waste of their precious time.
There was a similar kerfuffle this week Down Under over the new left-wing Australian government’s announcement that it was reversing a decision taken by the previous prime minister, Scott Morrison, to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In fact, all the Labor government had done was remove a few lines from its Foreign Ministry website. The announcement only came when the media asked about it.
However, the mere symbolic gesture seemed to bother parts of Australia’s Jewish community to such a degree that Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote an extraordinary column for the Australian Jewish News in which she said that while Jerusalem is “the heart of Israel’s origins and its future,” its status “should be resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people.”
Wong went on to blame Morrison for having made the decision back in 2018 “out of cynicism” and only to win a by-election. As proof, she said, once the by-election was over, no concrete steps were taken to actually relocate the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
No doubt she’s right about the facts, but what she didn’t explain was why, if the decision was so meaningless, it was so important for her to reverse it.
The argument over the “status of Jerusalem” is one of the emptiest issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is entirely devoid of any true meaning and has nothing to do with the burning and very real issues of life in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel for one simple reason: countries decide for themselves where their capital is. Whether or not other countries recognize that is totally immaterial. Israel has exercised its control over western Jerusalem since 1948 and the entire city since 1967. Presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of the countries who don’t “recognize” it and keep their embassies in Tel Aviv still meet their counterparts in Jerusalem when they visit Israel. De facto, they are recognizing Israel’s capital, even if they maintain the artificial diplomatic nonrecognition.
Until very recently, Israel barely made a fuss about the matter. In fact, it was less about Jerusalem’s special status and much more about Israel’s rather unique status.
After Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, when it began to look as if he might become the first U.S. president to actually honor the perennial commitment by presidential candidates to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most senior advisers told me that “while in principle we are of course in favor, we have other priorities. And if the Americans moving their embassy to Jerusalem will jeopardize our coordination with Arab states – like the Saudis – against Iran, then there’s no rush as far as we’re concerned.”
Ultimately, Trump’s decision to move the embassy was not motivated by any major pressure from Israel. It was due largely to the urging of his ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and Republican megadonor and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, as well as senior figures in Trump’s evangelical Christian base. Netanyahu naturally celebrated it as a great victory for his diplomacy, but it was a present that fell into his lap, whether he wanted it or not.
The motivations of former Prime Minister Morrison and soon-to-be former Prime Minister Truss are likewise due to domestic political considerations. The “recognition of Jerusalem” is not an Israeli issue. After his meeting with Truss, Lapid put out a tweet commending her. But I can assure you that neither he nor his team spent any more time than necessary to compose his tweet on the matter.
The “diplomatic process” between Israel and the Palestinians was nonexistent before the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem. It remains so today, despite the fact that both Israel and the United States now have different governments. Beyond providing a few dozen jobs and quick profits for a bunch of real-estate developers, the embassy’s move has had zero influence on people actually living in Jerusalem, Israeli or Palestinian.
Unlike the new Australian government, President Joe Biden has wisely decided to leave things as they are, instead of wasting any of his administration’s precious time on empty gestures.
Jewish organizations, pro-Israel lobby groups, as well as those on the pro-Palestine side, would do well to follow Biden’s example. The “status” of Jerusalem and the location of embassies is not going to affect the real Jerusalem, a city of nearly a million residents. A third of those residents are Palestinians without full political rights or access to urban resources. Their plight has not been improved by most nations keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv or worsened by the presence of a U.S. embassy on the edge of Talpiot.
Another third of Jerusalem’s resident are ultra-Orthodox Jews, living in self-inflicted poverty in autonomous enclaves, their children abandoned to medieval-style schooling that denies them a modern education. The “status” of Jerusalem certainly doesn’t concern them.
The virtue signaling of politicians and diplomats in Washington, London and Canberra means nothing to those of us in the real city of Jerusalem.
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October 21, 2022 at 12:29PM
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Liz Truss Is Gone. Virtue Signaling on Jerusalem Should Follow - Israel News - Haaretz
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