Jerusalem will become a driving nightmare next week while both United States Presidential security and Secret Service plus Israeli security for the Prime Minister and close to half the Knesset, Mayor of Jerusalem and a list of unknowns who deserve safety as well all gathering at the scene of the dedication and opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem, the capping off of President Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital City of Israel, even its eternal Capital. We have been informed through rumor and unofficial reports and semi-official reports that, as we stated yesterday, Donald Trump’s Daughter Ivanka and Husband Jared Kushner will be making an appearance at the grand opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem. This means, Presidential level security or higher will be in place. The Secret Service will be thoroughly, exhaustively efficient and competent in their security put in place and attention to detail in assessing threats. Their work will probably be set just that little bit higher level as this is Jerusalem. Then there is the Israeli security which will be in place to protect Donald Trump’s Daughter Ivanka and Husband Jared Kushner above and beyond that in place for the Israeli VIPs who will be attending plus possibly other important people. This will mean that certain roads, bus routes and other forms of travel will be diverted, in some cases for no reason which is obvious or understandable. Some of these obstructions will be familiar to Jerusalem natives who have experienced these inconveniences before but they will probably complain that this time they went too far. The only reality that matters is that nothing untoward occurs to those attending the opening, traveling to the opening, leaving the grand opening, or simply visiting Jerusalem will be very safe almost anywhere within the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor with an emphasis on Jerusalem and Ben Gurion International Airport. The safest place on Earth will be this area of Israel during the three days around the opening of the American Embassy coinciding with Israel’s 70th anniversary. The Embassy will initially be located in the Arnona neighborhood, in a modern building that now houses consular operations of U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem.
The reports that President Donald Trump is also potentially considering attending will make little difference to the level of required security. It likely will not even make any difference in the roads blocked and the detour routes and all the other security arrangements. Granted, should the President attend, and we really wish he would be there, as it would add much to the meaning of this dedication. He began this with his Jerusalem announcement and this would be the exclamation point which could only help. If the President is concerned about his attending making peace more difficult, not to worry, as long as Abbas and Hamas are in existence, then peace will not happen, as they do not desire peace, they desire all Israelis dead. President Trump should most definitely come to celebrate the fruits of his efforts. He signaled the importance and direction he intended for the emphasis of his foreign policy with the selection of his Ambassador to Israel, his choice of Ambassador to the United Nations and his establishment of a special group to affect his policies in the Middle East. This was further established with his statements about the unviability of the Iran Nuclear Agreement and his slowly sliding towards pulling out of the agreement and placing embargoes back on Iran, which President Donald Trump announced Tuesday where he called the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) an “embarrassment” that “should never have been reached.” The President added, “After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build nuclear capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond.” President Trump stated pointedly, “The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable.” This and his declaration recognizing that Jerusalem was exactly as King David declared, the eternal capital of the Jewish State. Some things simply are beyond man’s ability to alter, something all the previous Presidents thought their wavers prevented the truth; it did not. One thing which was definite, the Jerusalem Municipality welcomes transfer of United States Embassy.
The Palestinian Authority, PLO, Fatah and every other organization which has any relation to Mahmoud Abbas have all called for everyone officially attached to their organizations, parties, governing groups, terror organization or any other identity to boycott the establishment of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem. This, they believe, will ruin the reality of the establishing of the Embassy of the United States in Jerusalem. They all have a very high view of themselves and we ask what difference does their refusal make and who actually expected them to come and applaud the opening of the United States Embassy, especially in Jerusalem. Hamas has decided that they will breach the border fence between Gaza and Israel and storm Jerusalem foiling the attempt to establish the United States Embassy in Jerusalem. Hamas has sworn that this will be the finale to their Gaza month of riots and it will be a grand spectacle. Some people are risking the lives of the youths who unfortunately believe what they have been fed and even believe their efforts will prove invincible and they will overwhelm the Jews. They have been fed a regular diet about the cowardly Jew who cannot find the strength to stand up to their grandness of will and their Arab will which Allah uses to make them into the weapons of the new caliphate and thus impervious to the IDF soldiers. They have been told that their rushing an IDF position will so frighten the Jew soldiers that they will drop their weapons and flee in terror and then they can use those weapons to kill the fleeing soldiers. Many of them believe the entirety to be a lark, a game where they play the part of the indignant and insulted party and the Jews are not going to use force to prevent their efforts because, well, because that is what they are told to believe and all too often the IDF appears reluctant to use deadly force. This has reinforced this idea in their heads that the IDF is scared to actually shoot them. It is honestly a sad reality that the reluctance of the IDF to take lives needlessly and without overwhelming need might lead to them needing to shoot into a crowd of hundreds of youths who have been told by their Hamas leaders that their time to storm the fence and march on Jerusalem has finally come. These Hamas leaders will be right behind them all the way, about two or three miles behind them. Hopefully non-deadly force will be all that will be necessary to prevent the youth from reaching a point where deadly force is the only option left to the soldiers.
This brings us to the question of what happens if the worst-case scenario should come to pass. There are several such scenarios. The mass of youths breaching the Gaza fence is the most obvious and among the most dangerous. The best scenario with this would be water cannons and other nonlethal crowd control methods, even to include sound amplification methods, will be sufficient to prevent an extended breach. Should the Hamas effort include people shooting at the IDF from within the breaching crowd, that will leave no choice but to return fire and hopefully snipers can pick off only those with weapons and the IDF troops not be forced to fire into a crowd of apparently unarmed individuals simply because they are taking fire from somewhere within the group. This was a tactic used before in the Gaza Wars where Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters would grab a younger child and run from one position to another position holding the child to their torso using them as a bulletproof vest. This has been brought up at the United Nations by Ambassador Haley.
The other item which must be guarded against, and this is where preparations and intelligence serve as the best hopes, is to be ready to intercept and prevent any attack on the ceremonies by terrorists or other forces. Hamas has rockets which are capable of reaching Jerusalem and Hezballah and the IRGC have many missiles which could be used to target specific targets within Israel, anywhere within Israel including Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority does not have the rocket capability compared to Hamas and the Iranian backed Hezballah and IRGC, but it would not take much of a rocket to cause an international incident. Such an attack does not even need to be remotely accurate, simply anywhere within a number of blocks would be sufficient to shut down the ceremony unless serious orders were given to ignore the distraction, as the dedication cannot be prevented by such an act. Such a decision could only come from one of two people, President Trump or Secretary of Defense Mattis. There is only a chance that one of these gentlemen will be present to give such an order, and he is still undecided. There are other threats which will overshadow the preparations and potentially the ceremony itself. The preparations are the antidote to any interference with the ceremony, but that does not mean there might not be some surprises. We hope all will go smoothly and, to be honest, we have sufficient faith in the Israeli intelligence and IDF to feel confident that everything will go smooth as silk.
Beyond the Cusp