And What if They Only Moved the U.S. Embassy Eastward?

 

The current United States Embassy building was opened back in 1966 and is probably electronically challenged with dated wiring and deficient ability for upgrades and very likely would be replaced soon in order to implement a great amount, one might say groundbreaking, upgrades to its capabilities with modern meeting facilities, internal wiring to integrate greater networking and other modernizations and security upgrades bringing the United States Embassy into the twenty-first century. The United States Embassy is half a century old and was built with an outlook for future technology which probably included cathode ray tubes, not flat screens, old word-processing equipment and not computers and interconnectedness beyond the imagination fifty years ago. The building probably had been upgraded as far as it was capable and still leaves much to be desired. The embassy is currently located at 71 Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv, Israel. What if the United States built a new embassy under fifteen kilometers to 18 Shalom Shar’abi Street, Petah Tikva across the street from the School for Gardening and Planting and next to the Zharia Kohlani Garden which would provide for a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere and nice picturesque environment allowing for a new building with all the modern requirements an embassy could require. Did we mention that this move would be eastward placing the embassy almost fifteen kilometers closer to Jerusalem? As the current embassy is almost on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, any move would most likely place the embassy closer to Jerusalem. We understand that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas and the PLO would all prefer for the new United States Embassy be placed offshore on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea as that is also where they would like to locate Israel as well. This is highly unlikely to ever happen, so the United States Embassy, when modernized with a new building and location, it will very probably be east of its current location as central Tel Aviv does not have much, if any, open spaces of sufficient size to place a new embassy. Moving the embassy, even just to Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv, would move the building eastward and thus closer to Jerusalem, not to Jerusalem, but in that direction. I think we all know exactly how our Arab friends would react. They would claim that the United States was making the move towards Jerusalem as being recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and a move designed to indicate the United States opposition to dividing Jerusalem and allowing the Arab Palestinians to use East Jerusalem as their capital. The sharing of Jerusalem with Israel would result in denying Israelis access to the Old City, Temple Mount, Western Wall and also deny Christians access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the Temple Mount. Any claims made that these places would be shared would be just as honest as the Jordanian promises to do likewise, a promise they had and never did fulfill. If you do not believe the United States could use a new embassy, simply look at the old style, block architecture with its straight lines all parallel with a cement facial appearance which resembles a prison more than the embassy of a world power (see image below).

 

United States Embassy Tel Aviv, Israel

 

We all probably can almost hear the caterwauling and threatening coming from not just the Arab Palestinians but from across the Arab world and other nations under Islamic rule across all of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The main drift of their all but ridiculous complaints and difficulties would be that the simple fact that the United States was building an embassy in Israel (see our idea for the building below) would be construed as supporting the Israeli side of the Arab Israel Conflict and would have demands that the United States also build an embassy to the PA in Ramallah or Nablus or likely in East Jerusalem. Of course having an Arab Palestinian Embassy built in East Jerusalem would be viewed by the Arab and Muslim world of MENA as the proper recognition of their claims to the city. Placing a United States Embassy for Israel in Western Jerusalem would be critical and a display that abrogated the fairness for the United States to adjudicate any settlement and lead to demands that only the United Nations, the General Assembly in particular could be a fair adjudicator of the conflict. The fact that there would be such a different set of claims for embassies with an embassy to the PA in East Jerusalem being a wise and politically correct and approved move while an embassy to Israel in West Jerusalem would be a declaration of Israeli imperial claims to Jerusalem would bring on no feel of hypocrisy in the Arab world.

 

Imagined New Style for United States Embassy in Petah Tikva, Israel

 

The same is true of their call for any further decisions to be adjudicated by the United Nations General Assembly, the same body which has passed declarations that Zionism equals racism, has targeted Israel more than the next ten nations targeted combined, is all but ruled by the Arab and Muslim nations with their allies from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM a group of undeveloped and developing nations usually depicted as the Third World Nations usually with dictatorial governance and many virulently anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic in their official positions). Even many of the European Union nations in such cases of denunciations of Israel either join those condemning Israel or simply abstain with only rarely having them vote against such declarations. The only blocking for denunciations of Israel brought before the Security Council historically has been the United States with the few times anti-Israeli motions pass through the Security Council, such as the recent denunciation contained in UNSC Res. 2334, is when the United States abstains, as President Obama instructed Ambassador Powers to do in the recent passage of UNSC Res. 2334 declaring Israeli “settlements” as a major obstacle to peace and against International Law. We must point out that UNSC Res. 2334 and its claims run counter to the United Nations Charter Article 80 as well as numerous historic treaties including but not limited to the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Conference, League of Nations 1922 Mandate on Palestine, Treaty of Sèvres, Treaty of Lausanne and the Anglo American Treaty. Of course the one thing we did find out early from President Obama was that the history of events and any agreements made by the “colonial powers” including but not limited to Britain, France, Netherlands, Germany, the remainder of Europe, and especially the United States and Israel were meaningless and his position and mark he would try to leave for posterity would be the upending of everything these powers had ever accomplished and to favor all others and their claims over these nations he found to have such horrific histories of exploitation. President Obama appeared to have a special animosity and visceral hatred for Israel and particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu. Life goes on and perhaps things will return to a more balanced form of insanity going forward.

 

The promise by President Trump to move the United States Embassy to Israel to Jerusalem would be a wonderful fulfillment of what the United States Congress promised over twenty years ago. Israel had officially annexed all of Jerusalem and granted the Arabs residing in East Jerusalem Israeli identification cards and resident alien status with an additional right for voting in Jerusalem City elections. There will likely be movement to make these Arabs full citizens as time passes. There will be no dividing of Jerusalem no matter what the rest of the world, the United Nations specifically included, believes or attempts to rule. Should the European Union, United Nations, United States or any other group of nations or organizations decide that they will divide Jerusalem and grant the PA to control the eastern parts which had been illegally occupied by Jordan, they had better be prepared to take those areas by military force because Israel will not be relinquishing any part of Jerusalem, period, end of story. Israel should be taking on a new approach which recognizes the new realities of having friends who are willing to enforce the aforementioned treaties and conferences above returning all of the promised land of Israel to Israeli rule. That would include everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In recognition that even some in Europe who are ascendant also support these promises and we wish them the best going forward and in the upcoming elections imminent in Europe, Israel should drop all efforts to evacuate Amona or any other of the so-called “settlements” which are actually Israeli cities, towns and communities. Many of these communities also have industrial and other economic entities, many of which employ a fair number of Arabs from the neighboring villages and these Arabs work side-by-side with the Jewish employees, receive the same salaries, and make more than other Arabs working anywhere under the PA rule. Whenever the BDS movement or other entities claim success in forcing these businesses to relocate to within the 1949 Armistice Line (named the Green Line), as they did with SodaStream, many Arabs lose extremely well-paying jobs and become unemployed. When these do-gooders have such a success they laud their great victory presumably to assist Arab Palestinians; meanwhile, when they forced SodaStream, through coercion to relocate, hundreds of Arabs lost their jobs being unable to make the transit to the new location. That was some assistance these Arabs received, losing the best paying jobs they could have hoped to find, but why should reality rain on these do-gooders’ parade. The same goes for the European Union Nations when they also pressure Israeli companies through boycotts either nationwide or location by location as many cities and even counties in Spain are targeting these enterprises, some are simply boycotting everything Israeli made. Well, most things Israeli made as they continue to import Israeli stents for use in heart surgeries, continue to use Israeli security software, cell phones using Israeli technologies, instant messengers using Israeli coding, Microsoft operating systems and applications such as Windows and Office, and numerous other wonders of the modern world. These boycotts refuse to actually make any real sacrifices, they just boycott mostly products they were not using in the first place, they just like to proclaim how anti-Israel they are. Israel need call the world’s bluff and simply take the lands which rightfully belong to Israel, allow the Arabs not aligned or contributing to terrorism to remain as legal resident aliens with voting rights in their local elections, grant them elections for the first time since Mahmoud Abbas was elected in 2005, and grant them freedom to rule their towns themselves and live free of the oppressive PA and its dictatorial regime and make a decent living free of the corrupt rule of Abbas robbing them at every turn. Israel would be granting these Arabs their futures back and eventually potentially to be Israeli citizens if they choose or even to move away and return to their families elsewhere in the Middle East or Europe and North America, something currently denied them as they are not allowed to sell their properties without Abbas and the PA taking their cut providing they do not claim they were selling to a Jew and steal their land and allow gangs to execute them.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

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

 

Are There Any Zionists in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet?

 

The shock after Naftali Bennett boldly proclaimed that the Jewish Home Party he heads was going to go forward with the proposed annexation of Maaleh Adumim, a city of 40,000 residents just east of Jerusalem, unless Prime Minister gave him personal assurances and a detailed plan for the annexation of Judea and Samaria and security progress going forward; was that he once again fell for merely making a plea to Bibi to stroke him with kind words and warm promises which will freeze to death in the hard realities of world politics and expediency. If Minister of the Knesset Bennett received such a plan, could he at least inform the members of his party of such a plan or is the plan so secret that the Prime Minister made him promise not to say a word or even hint at the grand and wondrous plan which he must have had laid out for him as the Security Cabinet voted unanimously to delay discussion on any law annexing Maaleh Adumim. Not a single dissenting vote was cast and the agreement was to push any further discussion until some point after Prime Minister meets with President Trump some time in February. That is February allowing a month of opportunity to pass by and these opportunities will never be regained. I actually know people in the Jewish Home Party and when I asked them what they knew it turned out they knew exactly what I know or less. None had heard of any grand plan to annex any part of Judea and Samaria. Everyone from any political party and my fellow Zionists and the members of the two Synagogues I attend daily all have not heard of any grand plan and many had heard that Bibi was still stuck with pushing the Two State Solution.

 

Their impressions were that Bibi was so invested and so many of his advisors are afraid that if they attempt to annex any part of Judea and Samaria that Mahmoud Abbas might pack up and drop the entire mess into our hands while Hamas and Islamic Jihad, aided by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), attempt to also take control of Judea and Samaria. The best of their knowledge was that despite the massive shift and change in Washington D.C., the political elite in Israel still are fearful that they will be barred from visiting European nations or traveling places for vacation should they take definitive steps to annex any part of Judea and Samaria. They fear that they will no longer be able to shop in Paris, party along the French and Italian Riviera, attend conferences of inter-religious relations in Rome, ride the world’s tallest ferris wheel in London while visiting with the Queen, be able to ski the Swiss Alps, attend those elite cocktail and wine parties along rive gauche, those penthouse shindigs in Hollywood and Los Angeles and San Fran as well as the all-important New York, be able to talk before the General Assembly each fall at the opening ceremonies, be thrown out of the United Nations along with all the other organizations or simply no longer be amongst the beautiful people of our elitist world full of snobbish, secretive anti-Semites who deny Israel the rights granted under International Law because the Jews should not have their own nations as they are supposed to serve their betters around the globe and be thrown from the nation blamed for any ills absolving the leadership or any responsibility. The fact that Jews defend their own lands allowing them to act as if they are the equals of other nations thus making their own laws and running their own society actually offends these elites. They are the pretty people who have friends who are Jewish thus cannot be anti-Semites. They do not mention that their Jewish friends are polite Jews who know their place and act as they are expected and would never support Israel annexing Judea and Samaria. These good Jews do not support the Netanyahu government as he is so reactionary, right wing, conservative and possibly Zionist. They will lower themselves to allow some of these Israeli politicians and the elite of Israel society to visit and attend their parties as long as Israel behaves as they believe it should. Are these the people who are now influencing Israeli political decisions along with those loving Europeans who are joining BDS Movement one after the other but still will allow those certain Israelis to enter their country to visit as long as they behave properly and not do anything too offensive such as annex any parts of Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem. Somebody forgot to tell them that Israel already annexed East Jerusalem, so that bridge was crossed and will not be uncrossed despite European and other efforts to undo the annexation and award East Jerusalem to the Arab Palestinian terrorists despite knowing what will result. One can only believe that it is their desire to remove the Jews from their holy sites and make large areas of Jerusalem back into war zones. This reasoning also explains the UNESCO ruling that the Temple Mount and Kotel are Islamic with no history or relevance to Judaism or Christianity. It is the entirety of Judeo-Christian ethos and history which is under assault by the Western secular socialist elites who are embarrassed with their roots and historic past and are willing to tear down Western civilization and side with the barbarians promoting the most base cruelties which pervade Islamo-Facist Extremism.

 

Eretz Yisroel the Israel Solution to Problems is One State Solution with Citizenship for Anybody Who Desires Living in Peace with Equal Rights Responsibilities and Worshiping as One Pleases

 

What is disheartening about this Security Cabinet vote is it once again has proven the this “most right wing government in Israeli history,” as John Kerry and President Obama often referred to the Netanyahu headed coalitions as was a favorite description used by the mainstream media, has once again proven that it is the most craven government with the backbone of a jellyfish and just as toxic with its stinging rebuke of the very Zionism they claim to uphold. Rather than actually represent the religious Zionists which they are often accused of doing, this government led by Netanyahu has again stabbed the religious Zionists in their heart and their back by claiming the time is not right for any definitive actions such as annexing even the smallest of areas as it will inflame the world. Look around at the cities and areas across Europe rushing to boycott Israeli goods and perhaps you will realize the world is already inflamed with Israel even existing, they cannot be made any more inflamed and there is actually nothing to lose. As long as we are to be hated and the world will attempt to destroy us when we show weakness and fear, why not try boldness and firm reliance on our rights to the lands Hashem promised us, the Promised Lands, remember them? If we are going to go down in flames while being accused of being imperialist colonizers, can we at least act like one? These are our lands by every agreement made since we conquered these lands before London and Paris were more than small towns with dirt streets.

 

If we are to be hated, let it be for the right reason, let it be for religious by following Torah and inhabiting the lands, let it be for being Zionists and developing the lands, let it be that we stand proud and claim we are home to stay and are not the sniveling cowards hiding from every mean-spirited word or accusation. As trying to acquiesce to every demand and making every sacrifice demanded of us has led us to this juncture where we face looming isolation with our industries boycotted and demands for our extinction following one after the other, how about throwing out the playbook that we have been using for the past twenty or thirty years and try a different playbook. Here is an idea, let us use Torah as our guide on how to make friends and influence people. It tells us to walk boldly and confident in our lands and to guard the gifts that Hashem gave us with all our might. We are told to be proud and lead the world by example and not to hunker down until the time is right, the time will never be more right than it is right now. This is the right time. The new United States Administration, their new President, Donald Trump, and everything that they have done and shown has been a green light for Israel to end the sabotage which was laid upon our necks with the intended result to be the death of our state and the subjugation or murder of every Jews living in the world. What does our esteemed leadership think would happen to every Jew in Europe if there were no Israel today? If your picture is of a wonderful blooming of Jewish society accepted throughout Europe and the world if only we had never demanded and taken back our ancestral homeland, then you are sorely mistaken. If not for Israel the Europeans would be torn between forcing us from one town to the next always in a panic with a packed suitcase always by the door or simply herding us again to finish what was started by the Inquisitions, the Purifications and the Reformations all of which cast the Jew as the bane of society and a contaminant to be exterminated as vermin. That option no longer exists because at the first hint of such the Jews would flee to Israel and simply make Israel stronger. That is why their target is Israel; they cannot exterminate the Jews as long as they have a place of safe refuge. Do not perform this evil for those who would cast us into pits and bury us alive just to hear the muffled screams fade into silence and then rejoice. Annex all of Judea and Samaria now, cast the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and every last terror related individual from within our shores and begin to give the Arabs who have been victims of the terror masters we allow to curse their daily lives a chance to experience life and not death. Let our being a light unto the nations start by being the beacon we must be for our own people. Act now and we are willing to bet that the nations of the world will sit up and take notice and will condemn us and make every threat available to them because they will be filled with fear and will attempt to push us back into that shrinking border they have envisioned for our eventual elimination. Once they realize they have lost that fight, then they will start to find some way of existing with the eventuality that Israel, her people and their leadership mean to remain a full member and equal amongst states in this world and that we are no longer those Jews who flee when a car backfired or a truck hits a large pothole because we are fearful of any loud noise. We must make the loud noise if we are to remain a viable and respected member amongst the nations. Read Torah and the rest of our Bible and it becomes obvious, the only times we were allowed to reside here in peace was when we were strong and the nations feared to anger us. When we were weak of will they conquered and enslaved and even attempted to exterminate us. Choose life. Choose strength. Choose to be the true saviors of Eretz Yisroel and make the full map of Israel that pictured above, anything less is a capitulation to anti-Semitism and agreement with the argument that Israel is a false state with no rights to exist. Either we have the rights to every millimeter of land west of the Jordan River or we have no right to any of the lands west of the Jordan River, there is no compromise. Acquiescing to allow another division of our lands is tantamount to agreeing that any claim to any lands are subject to the acceptance by our enemies and we are so afraid of our enemies who are so many and so strong that we will cower and take whatever morsel we are permitted by those enemies. Believe us when we inform you that our enemies do not plan on allowing us any land whatsoever. If we are to have any lands here in our ancestral homelands, then we will have to stand up for ourselves and proudly proclaim, “Am Yisroel Chai,” and with that ringing in our ears as well as those of our enemies, we must then proceed to claim what is rightfully ours. Weakness is how Jordanian-occupied Jewish lands became Arab lands for a new Arab State simply because when we offered to return the occupied lands to Jordan we signaled we were not interested in reclaiming our own land and that by inference we would not stand and defend any of our land, make us and the world realize that was then and this is now and now we are claiming every inch of our holy and precious lands and the world can go spit in the ocean if this unsettles them.

 

Beyond the Cusp