Reasons for NOT Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem

 

This has been the most and greatest coverage we have seen since the Inauguration of President Trump when covering his promises and the possibility that he might falter. Every article has mentioned different choices predicting which promises the President Trump would renege upon. Many claimed he would never build the wall along the Mexican border. Some kind of cheated by claiming that he would merely use a fence or even cameras with computer monitoring for motion detection and alerting the Border Police instead of building a wall along the entire border. Some would claim that the terrain would prevent it being a wall along the entire border but these arguments were disingenuous as the wording of a “wall along the Mexico border” simply meant closing the border through the use of combined deterrents, walls, fences or monitoring through advances of technology in the most difficult terrain or least used crossing locations and simply closing the border using all means necessary and required. Others claimed he would be unable to deport all the illegal immigrants as promised. First off, that was not the promise. He promised to deport illegal immigrants with felony convictions and to work at finding an equitable solution in which deportation may be an integral part of the equation.

 

The one item which made virtually every article’s list was the promise to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Almost, well, honestly every article we read claimed that President Trump would not be capable of moving the embassy as the threats, dangers, political pressures or even that Trump would use moving the embassy to force the Israelis to make the next concession of dividing Jerusalem and returning to the 1949 Armistice Lines with very minor land swaps making a final peace deal. What the problem with the claim is that the Congress passage and the signing into law of the Jerusalem Act “recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty.” That makes an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty United States law and thus holds any President to standing either actively for the undivided capital of Israel as being all of Jerusalem or remaining silent, no matter how President Obama attempted to divide Jerusalem as he disregarded numerous laws including the United States Constitution. Even some Israeli media has come up with lists for why President Trump will not, or should not (Haaretz), move the embassy to Jerusalem claiming things so extreme as stated by Haaretz, “Relocating its embassy to Jerusalem would mean the U.S. taking a partisan stance on a central and sensitive issue, a source of controversy between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the international community.” That is a falsehood unless moving the embassy to western Jerusalem would be taking a position that western Jerusalem would remain part of Israel. Is Haaretz indicating that Israel should leave western Jerusalem and if that is the meaning, then what else should Israel surrender or does Haaretz stand with the most extreme position such as that expressed by Helen Thomas who stated on May 27, 2010, when asked whether she had any comments on Israel? “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she replied. “Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, it’s not Poland.” When further asked where they should go, she answered, “They should go home.” When asked where’s home, Thomas replied: “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”

 

 

The American Embassy could easily be moved to even the most western edge of Jerusalem and be as far as possible from any lands under dispute and still there would be whole hosts of people screaming that the United States is persecuting the Palestinian Arabs and determining to cheat them out of their homeland. This might at first glance appear as a ridiculous position to take as it could be so easily repudiated except that the Palestinian Arab claims include all of Jerusalem. The reality is the United States has already made a statement that is determined to cheat the Palestinian Arabs out of their homeland by leaving their embassy in Tel Aviv as the Arab claim is to all of Israel just as the students chant in campuses across the United States, Europe and beyond, “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.” The Palestinian Arabs are actually the entire Arab world’s crowbar and will be their implement by which they continue to wage their war to destroy all of Israel. The truth is the existence of a United States Embassy is an affront to the Palestinian Arab claims to their “rightful” country which would be built on the ruins of the Jewish State as anything less would be an aberrance to their stated demands and eventual goals. This is part of why Mahmoud Abbas, and Yasser Arafat before him, refused even offers which granted them with over 90% of Judea and Samaria along with all of Gaza and east Jerusalem as their capital when offered in 1999, 2000 and in 2008.

 

So, why should President Trump move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem according to us here at Beyond the Cusp? Well, we could use our favorite reason when trying to win an argument as kids with our parents when life got between us and a promise to go somewhere fun, “But you promised,” but we know that does not wash when things are on this level. First, it would send a message that there really has been a change in Washington D.C. and that the change will very likely be permanent for all intents and purposes. The world’s train is racing towards oblivion and nobody is manning the breaks. The old steam engine is racing with its speed balls spinning full out threatening to blow off their spinners. Everything about the old globe is screaming, whistles blowing and rivets near popping and the boiler exploding and the Deadman’s switch rig disabled and there is nobody in the cabin. Well, there was nobody in the cabin. This was the picture of the world not long ago and hopefully things will be saved before we hit a sharp curve and it all goes off the tracks. Brexit was step one and President Trump is step two but nobody knows how many steps it will require for sanity to rescue the world. Will the needful steps be taken or will the next cataclysm strike before the world regains sanity. What are the necessary steps that will bring the world back within the bounds, who can tell? The world has been slowly gaining reckless speed slowly slipping out of control and towards untold violence. There are those forces which would welcome the untold violence. They loudly proclaim their love for violence and the death it brings. They claim to worship death and that this allows them power over all who worship life. Their claim is that death conquers life. Those who love life claim that death is the rest one receives after a full, long and hopefully well spent life. These are opposing views which cannot be reconciliated, one must prevail. The good news is that President Trump is aware of the challenge though he has spoken only about it through allegory and indirect references. Moving the United States Embassy would be a strong message when it is announced as a definitive and executable policy decision. Perhaps that is the future for the moving of the United States Embassy, a declaration that the United States and life will declare over death and those who believe it is primacy. Yes, perhaps the moving of the Embassy will be a greater declaration than what the debaters believe it will be. Perhaps there is a grander plan than we are aware, perhaps the plan is greater than men and from beyond our understanding. This may be a greater issue than a mere embassy and the city in which it sits. Jerusalem had been more than a city and perhaps this is more than a simple embassy. Lastly, if the reason not to move the embassy to Jerusalem is because it reportedly will inflame Muslim passions moving them to further animosity and in turn greater acts of violence, then there is no reason not to move the embassy as from all observations of the Middle East, especially Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Libya and both Sudan and South Sudan as well as the levels of terrorism in Europe, more so Western Europe and also in the United States, though there it has been reported as anything but terror, especially Islamic driven terror, the levels could not conceivably be any higher. Violence, thy name is Islam, has become a truism of our times and thus simply move the embassy as there is no possible additional levels other than war, and that will happen whether the embassy is moved or not. If we had our way and the United States had not already purchased the land, then we would call for the embassy not only to be moved to Jerusalem but to the Jewish sector of the Old City as well. After all, did not Trump promise that his Presidency would be a brave and bold rebeginning for America and her relations with her friends? Well then, let’s get it off on the right foot.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

From Israel for Your Information

 

Just as the world’s media downplayed or simply ignored not only the massive forest and other fires where many were proved to be arson, there are some other stories which might not have reached the rest of the world we thought you might desire hearing all about. We will start out with lighter fare and work our way through to wherever it leads us. One factoid which became known this week has supposedly struck some in the Arab world as distressful, that there has been a steady increase of Israeli Arabs joining the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Another was the breaking up of a terror cell of eight Hamas backed Arab residents from the Sur Baher and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. The cell was preparing to carry out shooting attacks in the Israeli Capital of Jerusalem and surrounding areas, including against an IDF base and targets on Mount Scopus, home to the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital. The cell had reconnoitered some of their targets and were about to attack the IDF base in North Jerusalem on Mount Scopus. The cell was apparently started by Hamas back in 2015 after many of its members were released from serving their sentences for previous “nationalistic” crimes, a euphemism for terrorist attacks. A statement released by Shin Bet reported, “The disruption of the [terror] network preventing a number of serious terror attacks in Jerusalem and its discovery again highlights the danger posed by terrorists with Israeli ID cards, who benefit from the freedom of movement and access to firearms, making it relatively easy for such individuals to carry out terror attacks.”

 

In plain English the point was that the instigating tactics and inflaming of anti-Israel and anti-Semitism exists and has been growing amongst Israeli Arab, especially those who received citizenship when East Jerusalem was formally annexed and the residents granted Israeli identification cards. Many of these who have taken to terrorism were initially educated by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and never were honestly integrated into Israeli society and still dreamed of the destruction of the Jewish State. This was also a further warning of some of the problems which now exist after so many decades of Arab incitement throughout their society and particularly in their education indoctrination schools and camps. The silence from the world’s media on these two stories stem from the same inadequacy, or better put, were filtered from the news by the same principle, no news which backs the Israel or Jewish side of this conflict must be permitted. On the other hand, every time an Arab is harmed even through a verbal slighting, no matter what the reasoning this must be blown out of proportion and be used to show the racism in Israeli reporting by the European and leftist world media. The simple fact of breaking up a terrorist squad one would think could be a good news story but only if it takes place in Paris, Rome, Berlin, London or any other Western metropolis as preventing terror in these parts is part of the “War on Terror” while the same events in Israel is part of “other news” and not the slightest degree of equal importance. The media would have you believe that terrorism in Israel is separate and totally different and unrelated to terror outside of Israel. According to too many media news editors, Israeli terrorist attacks are deserved while all terror outside Israel is horrific and actually Israel’s fault in the first place and thus can be reported and even blamed upon Israel if even the most tenuous connection is possible.

 

This brings us to our last story before more opinion comes your way. The United Nations, that great arbiter of beneficial actions has decided to vote next week in the General Assembly to fund a blacklisting of Israeli and international companies operating in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and in Judea and Samaria. There will be no distinction as to whether these companies employ Palestinian Arabs or that by boycotting them they are acting in a hurtful manner as we can assure you that in virtually every company which had facilities outside the Green Line is employing both Israeli settlers and Palestinian Arabs. Why, you may ask, would the international community boycott or otherwise target Israeli companies who employ Palestinian Arabs with equal rights and salaries as Israeli citizens possibly causing these Palestinian Arabs who this is done to support their good paying jobs. The reason is as sick as it is disgusting. These Arabs, who work alongside Jewish workers, hold management and supervisory position in equal percentages as Jewish workers with some supervising Jewish workers, despite what you may have been told, are not helping the cause of proving Israel to be an Apartheid state which segregates against Arabs. All Palestinian Arabs must be dependent on Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, UNRWA, and be providing ample fodder for the terror mills. Israeli employed Palestinian Arabs make often half again higher wages that even the PA security forces are paid and this makes for bad news. These Palestinian Arabs are considered by the world media to be collaborators and that can only be an evil Zionist plot to employ these Palestinian Arabs and provide them jobs and equal treatment and what would happen should the world find this out. When SodaStream was boycotted and maligned sufficiently that they closed their Judea plant and this cost nearly a thousand Palestinian Arab jobs but this was heralded as a good thing as it presumably cost the Jew settlers their jobs, but it did not because they have Israeli Identification Cards and thus just had a farther distance to drive to work and kept their jobs. The Palestinian Arabs would need to receive special work permit identification cards which would also have required clearance from the PA as well as Israel and these papers were slow if ever coming at all thus all that was accomplished by the boycott of SodaStream was the loss of Palestinian Arabs’ jobs making for another group of PA Arabs that Israel would not permit to work. Now there is a story they did report but did so making it seem like SodaStream had simply fired their Arab workers at their Judea plant and never noting it was the media that hounded them in closing that plant.

 

Many of these to be blacklisted Israeli companies will either move their companies within Israel or simply go bust and close up all together. Palestinian Arabs will lose good jobs and Jews residing now near their work will need to take transportation or drive further to reach their work. This blacklisting makes for some added stress for the Jews working in Judea and Samaria for these companies but it denies the PA Arabs of jobs which serves the propaganda campaign against Israel. If PA Arabs must suffer so Israel will look bad, well then to help these PA Arabs we must first destroy their jobs and lives. They are destroying workplaces where Jew and Arab work together in peace and with mutual respect in the name of helping the Arabs who without this help would have nowhere to turn, but it is more like because of this help they lose it all and then have nowhere to turn. These lost jobs are then trumpeted in the media of a wickedly evil within Israeli society refusing to hire Arabs despite the reality that it was the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) Movement which stole the existing livelihood from these PA Arabs who they now lament lost their jobs. It is one of the worst cases of it works so let’s fix it which leads to destroying a better life for PA Arabs because the story line must read Israel denies PA Arabs the opportunity to work. How can these NGOs demonize Israel if Israeli companies are treating PA Arabs as equals in their factories in Judea and Samaria, those “settler” companies? That is a question the media refuses to admit to facilitating.

 

The reality that the world is not being told about is that it has been the PA leadership which has refused to make any deal with Israel as they still adhere to the Khartoum Conference’s Three No’s which are, No Peace with Israel, No Negotiations with Israel, No Recognition of Israel. This was the agreement reached in an emergency session of the Arab League. It was his going against these agreements for which the Muslim Brotherhood, potentially but unproven assists from the Arab League or other Arab nations, arranged the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat after he Negotiated with Israel, made Peace with Israel and thus Recognized Israel. Anwar Sadat was a brave soul who knew he was tempting fate when he initiated talks with Israel meeting in Jerusalem with Menachem Begin. For reaching an agreement with Israel, Egypt was returned the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula with its small but profitable oil fields, its Sharm El Sheikh Resort community and with the destruction of twenty-plus Israeli settlement communities being removed and the Israelis taken back within Israel. That last bit is proof positive that the “settlements” are not an impediment for peace. If a true and real peace required their destruction, then such would become a definitive possibility, but the world does not want a peace or any settlement of the Palestinian Arab situation, the world wants it to fester and to become ever more dire with the Palestinian Arabs without jobs such that the destruction of Israel becomes the cry of the day. Mahmoud Abbas has flat stated that he will only accept a peace which destroys Israel as a Jewish State and is perfectly fine with an Israel ruled by Arabs. The fact that the Arabs he desired be moved to Israel include every Arab in any refugee camp including the camp in Jenin and the camp outside Nablus and even the camp attached to Gaza City. Yes, there are three massive refugee camps for Palestinian Arabs with their being held prisoners within lands under Palestinian Arab autonomy, complete rule when speaking of Gaza under Hamas. These Palestinian Arabs are guarded by Arab security forces and some even meet with family through the barbed wire topped fences. One need understand that these Arabs must be kept separate from their brethren because they are the political hammer and crowbar with which Israel is to be destroyed and as such they are only useful if they are kept as refugees in their own lands. And yes, the media, the Western governments, and the United Nations all know about these refugees left in these camps for the purpose solely of bringing about the destruction of Israel and they all agree that this is the end to be desired even if it leads to every Israeli Jew and Christian being slaughtered along with many Arab Muslims who are deemed to be traitors to the cause for being Israeli citizens and having a good life with all the benefits of being an Israel over being a Palestinian Arab inside the fences of Jenin, Nablus and Gaza City. Oh, and one last thing, there are no Arab refugee camps within Israel and Israel took in the same numbers if not more refugees of Jews forced to flee their homelands in Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa. None were placed in refugee camps and left to languish in misery just to make a political point, they were taken in as brothers and sisters as they are just as much family as the Ethiopian Jews who were airlifted to Israel when their homelands turned on them and they needed a new home. These are all realities you will never hear from the media hype of mean horrible Israelis victimizing Palestinian Arabs with genocidal rage and hatred.

 

Israel being the good guys is rarely covered and when it is it has often been Israelis rushing to some of the world’s worst disaster places to assist in helping in any way possible. Israel has civilian corps and military units which are trained to provide assistance, do search and rescue, set up and man a complete field hospital including OBGYN, delivery rooms and a nursery as well as fully capable operating rooms and clinics which can treat people where they live and are injured plus perform triage of a sort for the main field hospital. One of the best examples was Haiti after their devastating earthquake and the Philippines after a horrific typhoon. Israel was at Japan after the earthquake and tsunami which destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdown and destruction. Israel assisted in New Orleans after Katrina and in New York City and all its affected surrounding areas after Superstorm Sandy. Israel has assisted in Turkey, Nepal and just about every nation willing to accept Israeli help.

 

Top left Haiti Earthquake Top right Philippine Typhoon 2014
Bottom left Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant explodes
Bottom right remains of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant

 

Israel has a group of heart specialists who assist with special cases where children require specialized help. The group is known as Save A Child’s Heart (SACH) and will go to any length including flying children and parents to a third country or even a fourth in order to bring them to Israel to receive the medical care not available to them at home. SACH also trains pediatric heart doctors the world over, especially the developing world, sets them up with entire treatment facilities and thus spreads their good work to many more children the world over. For any wishing to enjoy a benefit symphony to benefit SACH being held Sunday, January 29, 2017, in the Los Angeles area, please find information and link at the very bottom of this article and please visit the SACH link above if you are at all curious of their entire range of assistances provided.

 

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

With Trump Comes Stark Reality

 

Already this last year of the Presidency of Barack Obama there has been a dozen terrorist attacks which have been verified as such. In one mere twelve hour stretch in September the American people found out it may not be safe to go shopping in a mall in Minnesota, go running a five kilometer not so fun run in New Jersey or walk window-shopping on the streets of New York City without risk of terrorism striking and potentially injuring or taking one’s most precious life. The United States has faced car bombings, remote detonated bombings, suicide bombings and shooting sprees where the attacker was only stopped when shot dead by an armed citizen or law enforcement officer. All of these terrorist styled attacks were first perfected against Israel where initially they received minimal notice by the Western World media as it was just Israel. Often any reporting on such terror attacks in Israel were covered in such a manner that it appeared as if the Israelis had shot the terrorist who then retaliated with his bombing, shooting or whatever attack as the title was often Palestinian shot by Israeli Defense Force or Palestinian Killed by Israeli Police or other misleading phrasing. As such attacks spread to Europe and across other Middle East and North African Arab nations where their Christian, Kurdish, Hindu or Buddhist minorities were often the targets with some attacks were Sunni-Shia violence and these made the reporting even in Israel more accurate. Now that attacks have spread to the United States the reporting has become stark noted by the insistence after each attack initially the authorities deny any possible tie to terrorism and warning against jumping to any conclusions that Muslims were at all involved in the attacks. Eventually the reality brakes through and the terrorist ties were obvious to the most casual of observers from the start and are finally admitted.

 

The lag time between attacks being perpetrated in Israel and their coming to the United States has thus far been measured in years if not decades granting Americans a reprieve from the more recent types of attacks used in Israel. Apparently this lag time has been shortened considerably with the terror attack at Ohio State University. The car ramming and following stabbing spree until shot by law enforcement officer November 28th brought that lag time down to the slimmest of measure as such are only the most recent of attacks even in Israel. This is not good news for Americans as there are no safe spaces from car rammings and stabbing attacks making everyone almost everywhere potentially under threat. The last couple of years in Israel had seen numerous car rammings which were all part of what was informally referred to as the Stabbing Intifada which has tailed off but not really completely come to an end. We all pray here in Israel, as you do in the United States, that this will be the only time you suffer from such an assault on your persons and communal safety; but we all know the unfortunate reality. Once a new form of terror attack is used it will continue until mitigating means are found for defeating such attacks. Here in Israel train stations and bus stops now have thick five centimeter diameter, cement filled posts a embedded deep into the pavement protecting the people from vehicle rammings. Stabbing attacks are only avoided through vigilance and a communal reaction making the attacker into the hunted as through mutual defense we are all safer.

 

Recently, though largely uncovered by Western media, Israel suffered yet another massive terror assault upon the entire nation through forest fires largely set by Arab arsonists. Neighboring nations, including Croatia, Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, Russia and Turkey, responded with firefighting manpower and equipment for which we are grateful. The United States sent its “Supertanker” which is the largest firefighting aircraft in the world. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a coalition of eight fire trucks and 40 firefighters which were used largely in Judea and Samaria as nowhere was immune from the horrors. In the single week during the final days before the rains came but whipped by the high winds accompanying seasonal weather changes Israel suffered one-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-three separate fires which consumed approximately thirty-two-thousand acres with most located in the Haifa region. In some cases fires were set and once the fire-stations responded fires were set at the station houses themselves. Despite over a hundred people suffered injuries there were no fatalities this season. Over five-hundred homes were completely destroyed while tens of thousands were evacuated at some points. As of last counting there have been over thirty arrests of arsonists all of whom have proven to be Arab terrorists. Apart from the horrific damage to the parks and some neighborhoods the next most distressing reality of this past arson season was the repeated lack of coverage in the Western media once again the reality of “it’s only Israel” coming through loud and clear. There were no Israeli lives lost and, just as important if not more so, no terrorist arsonists shot resisting arrest or in the act of setting fires. Had a single arsonist been shot or otherwise injured, the cries of using disproportional and unnecessary force would have echoed from Rome to San Francisco and from Athens to Chicago and all stops inbetween. Instead, with lack of recriminations to be aired against Israel, the wave of arson was met with deafening silence.

 

The recent car ramming and stabbing attack does pose as a warning shot before the bow on the streets of America as it signaled a closing in the delay time between introduction of a newer terror wave in Israel and its application in the United States. We have already witnessed the use of ramming in Europe with the van being driven through a Nantes, France crowded market injuring almost a dozen and killing one victim plus the absolutely horrific Nice, France assault where a van filled with grenades and weapons was driven through a crowded 14th of July Bastille Day celebration killing eighty-four people, which included several children. The short delay from the wide use in Israel of car and vehicle rammings and stabbing attacks to their use across Europe and then to the United States bodes a troubling future for all three. Other places across Europe and Canada suffering ramming terror attacks have been but not limited to Glasgow International Airport attack in Scotland; Dijon, France; plus another attack with the Saint Jean sur Richelieu attack which occurred in Quebec, Canada on October 20, 2014. Now with the Ohio State University attack the United States has suffered its second vehicle ramming, the other being the SUV attack at the University of North Carolina. Then there were the greatest and most horrific rammings of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, Pentagon and the foiled attack which was brought down by the heroes of that day, the passengers on Flight 93 southeast of Pittsburgh.

 

Nice, France Van Terror Attack Carnage

 

The fear now should be from arson attacks, especially those set upwind a relatively short distance from built-up areas such as apartment complexes, business parks and housing developments. Also vulnerable would be deserted areas within some of America’s cities where a fire could be sparked that would then threaten downtown areas where urban renewal borders deserted areas yet to be rejuvenated. There should be some research performed to determine if previous fires may have been started as a form of terrorist attack as such arson attacks often target not only forest and scrublands but also target close-by developed regions. Israel has faced these firestorm attacks twice yearly, the spring winds and the fall winds which provide the necessary impetus for the use of directional winds to fan flames towards their real target, people. One can only pray that through vigilance and the formal fire-watch systems in place in the United States Park Systems stems any arson and other fires before they can rise and threaten people’s lives and property. Sufficient damage occurs already and needs little boost from intentional arson fires set with damage of people and structures as their actual target. Then there were the recent fires in Tennessee which are still being investigated by authorities.

 

But with the coming of the new administration of President Trump there will be a new attitude towards terrorist attacks and how they are treated by the FBI, Justice Department and other enforcement agencies within the government. No longer will the initial reports be that there is absolutely no indication that what appears to have been a terrorist attack actually is a terror attack. Rather any caution shown will still recognize that terror is always a potential cause and if it looks like terror, feels like terror and sounds like terror, then there will be the recognized likelihood that terror was a possibility. Under President Trump there is not to be the candy-coating of reality and the American people will be trusted with being given truth, often unvarnished truth as they will finally be seen and treated as grown-ups who can handle the truth. There will be no condescending hierarchy who claim that the American people cannot handle the truth and that only they, the elite have the capability to handle the truth and thus they claim they stand on the wall deciding what you deserve to know and what you must be protected against. We will have to wait and see which Americans are capable of handling the unvarnished, unsoftened, straight truth and which Americans will be demanding safe-spaces placed and trigger warnings with their newscasts. With a more open and honest evaluation of reality and the inclusion of the American people in the decision process by having an open debate, the United States will likely return taking their place as a leader of the free world. It will likely make most Americans pleased to be treated as the adults they presumably are, and we pray we have not misjudged our friends across the waves. It will be wonderful to have an ally back.

 

Beyond the Cusp