President Trump is expected to announce today that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a controversial move that is sure to inflame the Muslim world and further alienate US allies. What purpose does such a move serve? Is there a silver lining?
President Trump is expected to announce today that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a controversial move that is sure to inflame the Muslim world and further alienate US allies. What purpose does such a move serve? Is there a silver lining?
President Trump is expected to announce today that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a controversial move that is sure to inflame the Muslim world and further alienate US allies. What purpose does such a move serve? Is there a silver lining?
Easy little subject about where people should put their capitals.
And obviously, I'm referring to the fact that in the news today, we hear, matter of fact, Trump is supposed to make a speech at 1 o'clock declaring his position that the United States will move their capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
And ordinarily, there's not much said about where the capitals are.
I mean, nobody really argues with a country where capitals are placed.
They just do it.
Why is it you think that this one is so controversial?
When did this trouble all start?
Well, it started a long time ago, actually.
But, you know, Jerusalem has always been a city of the three major monotheistic faiths, you know, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
And when Israel was created, it was determined that it would be an international city so that there would be no ownership by one entity.
But I guess the UN would be where it starts, isn't it?
You know, and that was back in 1947, and they created the state of Israel as well as the capital, and it was to be an international, or Jerusalem was to be an international city.
But then, I guess it would have been 92 in the election when Clinton was elected, he had made a promise very similar to the promise that President Trump made, that he would, you know, change the policy.
We would move the capital.
I don't know how we move the capital, but we would recognize Jerusalem as the capital and move our embassy from Tel Aviv, which was a big deal, and it was very popular with certain groups, but it was also controversial, too.
But Clinton followed through, you know, and the Congress went with him, and they passed the law in 1995, which essentially said the capital will be moved.
Our embassy will be moved to Jerusalem.
But even then, it was controversial, and they backed off, and then they put a loophole in there that it could be, if it isn't certified every six months, you know, they can be decertified and there'd be a six-month delay.
And they've been doing that ever since 1995.
But I went back and read a little bit about the controversy going on there because all the major magazines talked about it.
It was a big issue.
And there was a statement in foreign policy that talked about this.
I want to quote a little bit from that.
Foreign policy observed, hope was high that this momentum would lead to a lasting peace, and the Clinton administration argued that a premature focus on Jerusalem could undermine negotiations and complicate the chances for peace.
So they were working for peace.
They wanted to take the political position and they understood the danger, which is not a whole lot different today, but there are some who believe, at least Trump doesn't believe it's going to do harm and move in the right direction.
But then there was a little bit more politicking going on back then.
You can't imagine.
And this had to do with Bob Dole.
He was leader in the Senate, and he was going to run for the president in 96, I guess.
Yes, some that saw that the law, this is what was recorded in time.
This, quote, this is all about vote counting in the coming U.S. election, a Palestinian minister said, adding that he believed supporting the bill would help dull fundraising with Jewish groups in the 1996 presidential race.
And as the Time article later on said, noted, Dole had in fact opposed the bill until this year.
So I imagine that sounds political, you know, and so it's been there, but I'm sure there's some very sincere people who believe that they're doing the right thing and it has to be done.
And the one thing you can say is Clinton followed through and had something done.
They decided, well, we better be cautious, and that's why we had this loophole in there.
They didn't have to do it.
But the Congress, we can't argue with the Congress acting upon this.
But here they are again, really at the same position.
And Trump, I wished he'd do it more often, especially when he took a position that we liked.
He'd stick with it.
But he has stuck with this, and he's making this announcement.
But it looks like there's going to be some ramifications from this.
It's not perfect, smooth sailing the way I see it.
Well, the issue is the fact that East Jerusalem is recognized by the Palestinians as the capital of their future state.
And also that territory was taken by Israel in the 67 war.
So it technically is not Israeli territory.
So imagine naming somewhere as your capital that is not part of your country.
And that's certainly how not just the Palestinians, but essentially the rest of the world, aside from the U.S. now, sees this, which is you can't simply put your capital on someone else's territory.
And that's the real controversy.
It started in 1967.
As you point out, politics plays a role.
U.S. domestic politics plays a role in perpetuating the situation.
But now the issue of if Trump does say we are moving, what does it mean technically?
He is supposedly signing another six-month waiver, which his predecessors have done since 95.
Is it a lot of talk?
Is it a lot of hot air?
Or is he going to literally start moving the embassy from Tel Aviv, which is the capital recognized by the rest of the world, to Jerusalem?
You know, as soon as he said he was going to move it, and then he says, I'm going to sign the waiver, I thought he's getting wiggle room.
And he still may be doing that.
He might be able to do that, but you can't tell.
But right now, the people who oppose this are certainly sounding off.
All the Arab countries are sounding off about how horrible this would be.
And we, our government, even the Trump government, recognizing that there's going to be greater danger to Americans, that they should be very cautious at the embassies, and they're beefing up security.
So it is recognized that it's rather dangerous, but I think it's actually too soon to say, yes, you can expect they'll start the trucks moving equipment here next month or two months.
And they've recognized that you don't do that just with turning a switch.
And so it's going to be a while, but I guess it won't be too long and that we'll know more.
Speech Could Be Important00:04:48
And of course, the speech that Trump will give today will be significant and actually reveal the tone.
But his speech, you know, just like how this all came about, there's always politics involved.
So he sometimes can have a tone that is different than what the policy would actually be.
So I think the speech today could be important.
It could be important.
And you know, some will claim, and I think there's probably some basis for this, that now the Trump administration, when you take this declaration, which literally nobody in the world except for Benjamin Yetanyahu and his people are happy about, when you take this into the same context of the Russia Gate, which really became Israel Gate, because what it turns out, Jared Kushner told Michael Flynn, you've got to try to get the UN Security Council,
you've got to pressure them to vote against this UN resolution condemning Israeli building on occupied territories because remember the Clintons or the Obamas were going to abstain for the first time, and so there's a danger of this condemnation passing.
So Kushner had Flynn get on the phone and try to pressure Russia and other countries to vote against it.
So this is two very, very public interventions on behalf of Israel.
It's going to give the impression to a lot of the rest of the Western world, or the rest of the world, certainly the Muslim world, that the U.S. is not an honest broker in the situation.
And, you know, this is a slight challenge to what you said, that nobody else is supporting the United States.
But I think in just what you said, there is an indication, some people claim that the Saudis are very much with the United States, you know, on this.
But the European Union are not on our side on this.
The European Union, you know, just like Syria and Iran, you know, they're not exactly with us on those positions.
Well, Boris Johnson is very, very pro-Israel.
You know, he's the UK foreign minister, very pro-Israel, always has been.
He spoke out against the move.
He says, you know, this is a destabilizing, this is a kind of a dangerous thing.
Don't jump into this.
So it's not just people who, you know, it's a lot of pro-Israel people.
They don't want to see the region explode again, which is possible.
We've already seen demonstrations among Palestinians.
Interestingly enough, here's someone that no one talks about, the Palestinian Christians.
They're going to be hurt by this move.
And I think, you know, a lot of American Christians are very, very one-sided toward Israel.
I think they forget that there are Palestinian Christians there.
They're going to be very unhappy about this as well.
You know, I've been challenged over the years because I don't take positions I'm pro-anti as much as pro-American, non-interventionists, and hope and work for peace.
But I think that my theory, I work on the theory that our policies, well-intended, very political, have a lot of angles to it.
And the intention, really, a sincere intention, is to help Israel protect Israel and this sort of thing.
But I've maintained that, you know, just endless foreign aid and the military systems and doing so much tends to backfire.
Take, for instance, the involvement that we've been involved in since 9-11 in the various wars.
They've been supported by Israel.
But has Israel won a whole lot from our involvement over there?
I mean, Saudi Arabia, they're closer to Saudi Arabia, and we're close to Saudi Arabia, and Trump has been consistently opposed to Iran.
But Iran is in a better position now than it has been in a long time.
And so I think that though it might be challenging to take a position which is more neutral and non-interventionist, that there could be an argument made that be careful about getting what you wish for because it might not be as helpful to Israel as they think.
And even these expressions and reservations over these last couple decades has to be because how fast can we go?
If we go too fast, maybe it will hurt us.
And I think they understand what I'm saying.
Well, we were kind of joking before the show.
We wondered if maybe Netanyahu was feeling the same way that, you know, this is, you know, thanks, guys, but this might be a bridge too far.
Of course, he's very vocally in favor of it, but it might be a bit too much, too much of what he was wishing for.
And there's been quite a few countries come out against this, and this is a touchy situation, but we were sort of postulating: well, what could the ultimate results be, and could it in any way benefit the United States?
Bridge Too Far00:04:50
Well, when we asked that question, can it really benefit our national defense, you know, and national security and our budget?
No, not really.
But, and you mentioned that in your first statement, the United States is losing credibility, you know, if they in many of their policies and maybe in this step.
Well, maybe we'll lose enough credibility that we'll start.
Well, maybe there is another option.
Maybe we should be less interventionist.
Maybe we shouldn't be telling everybody what to do.
Maybe we shouldn't be the decider on exactly where the capital of Israel should be.
And in that case, we could look at it on the other side that if we were less dogmatic and less the bully policemen of the world, I don't think that's all that bad.
You know, we should be honest with the audience.
What we did before the show was we played a little game when we were talking about the show and we said, okay, you name what you think the silver lining is and I'll name what I think.
And you say, you go first.
I said, no, you go first.
And so you went first and you said that.
That's exactly what I had written down.
So we were thinking the same thing.
If this means that the U.S., you know, because we may have lost credibility as an honest broker, if this means that we will have to pull out of the process, stop pushing bullying each side around, then that will be a positive thing.
But the other things, though, to consider, and the other thing we haven't talked about actually that we should a little bit, is Turkey, is Erdogan and Turkey, because this could be a big deal.
And this is a real gamble.
Because is he just full of hot air?
King Abdullah of Jordan as well, are they just full of hot air saying, if you do this, we may break relations with Israel.
This is going to ignite a fire.
We don't know where the end is.
Are they just talking?
Are they going to follow through?
Is Turkey really going to follow through, break ties with Israel, and get very unfriendly to the U.S.?
This is a gamble, too, and it could inflame a larger war.
And I think that this isn't the first time we talked about the significance of Turkey, especially dealing with Syria.
But the statement was made a fire with no end in sight.
And that's a pretty bold statement to say this could go a long time.
And a fire is a fire of violence, I believe.
So Turkey is really in the middle of all this geographically and politically.
They're part of NATO, and yet at the same time, they're our allies.
At the same time, there's a struggle on these particular issues.
But I don't think that if there was a vote by the various countries and everybody had a vote, what would happen?
It'd be interesting.
Do you think everybody's going to go to the UN and have a vote on this now?
Since the UN helped create this problem, I wonder how they would vote now.
I don't think there'd be many votes on our side of this, you think?
Not on the U.S. side.
You know, this is another example.
It sort of reminds me in a way of the Iran nuclear certification.
The U.S. has decided to go it alone, not caring what the rest of the world does.
And in some cases, that's the right thing to do.
But this is another example where that is the case.
But I would say, really, my final thoughts are: I wonder what's in it for us.
As you say, we're not pro- or anti-other countries.
We're pro-U.S.
What is in it for the U.S. to do this?
And I wonder, other than our little silver lining, which is shared by non-interventionists, I wonder what about the U.S. security?
What about our security around the world?
If you really do something, if you're going to poke 1.2 billion Muslims around the rest of the world in the eye and see if they poke back, that really concerns me.
You talk about 9-11, you talk about terrorist attacks.
You know, I think it's dangerous to pour gasoline on the fire.
I can't help but thinking this is what they're doing.
Yes, and I think those are realistic concerns.
Most empires come down because of internal problems, conflict internally, failure of their economic system, flat-out bankruptcy.
And I think that's what we're approaching.
I don't think there's any reason to fear an invasion or a bombing of this country.
But I do fear the loss of liberties at this country with the atmosphere that exists.
And I believe that the financial situation is deteriorating and it's much worse than people admit.
But when you look at what Washington is doing trying to pass a tax package and spending package, you realize that they're at stalemate.
So I do believe this is a major crisis coming up and this is a part of it.
And the empire is going to be dealt with one way or the other.
We believe that getting rid of the empire would be much better for our national security than expanding it and financing it when we have no money.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.