CMEP Bulletin: The World Reacts to Jerusalem Recognition
Trump Plan to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem Angers Middle East Christians [The Washington Post]
The Washington Post reports, “‘Our oppressors have decided to deprive us from the joy of Christmas,’ Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the former archbishop and Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, told the crowd in the town of Beit Sahour in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. ‘Mr. Trump told us clearly Jerusalem is not yours.’ The Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy there has provoked widespread opposition among Christians across the Middle East. … Palestinian Christians complain that Christian evangelicals’ support of Israel doesn’t take into consideration the rights and needs of Christians in the homeland of their religion. ‘This is where it all started,’ said the Rev. Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem. ‘The Bible originated in Palestine, not in the Bible Belt, but people in the Bible Belt read the Bible in a way that really makes our lives difficult.’”
I Was Wrong About Jerusalem. What Have I Learned? [Israel Policy Forum]
Israel Policy Forum’s Policy Director Michael J. Koplow writes, “I anticipated violence to break out immediately and for the change in American policy to doom any chances of a successful peace initiative in the short term and possibly kill off Palestinian engagement entirely in the long term. … I stand behind the long term policy analysis completely. … [I]t is undeniable that the protests over Trump’s announcement have been muted. Perhaps this is because Palestinians are not driven to action by Jerusalem the same way they are by the Temple Mount specifically, perhaps it is because Trump said that recognition of Jerusalem as capital was not a comment on specific borders or sovereignty, or perhaps it is because the Palestinian leadership’s focus on Jerusalem is not shared by ordinary Palestinians. … After watching the failures of the Arab Spring and wars in Gaza in 2009, 2012, and 2014, Palestinians’ appetite for protest and conflict that leads nowhere appears negligible. Much like the second intifada has had a lasting impact on the way Israelis view politics and security issues, I suspect that the Arab Spring is going to have a similarly lasting effect on Arab populations.”
US Tax Dollars Must Not Be Used to Detain Palestinian Children [The Nation]
Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) writes, “Israel is allowed to spend as much as $800 million a year with little transparency, accountability, or oversight by US officials. Some of this money almost certainly flows to Israel’s abusive military detention of Palestinian children. This detention system must end—and, until it does, Congress must prohibit Israel from using American taxpayer dollars to support it. … Wherever children are being abused, mistreated, or degraded, responsible adults—and especially elected leaders—have a duty to speak out and work to seek justice. It is even more important to have that frank conversation when the offending country is an ally, as is the case with Israel. There is simply no reason for a country that prides itself on being a democracy to use its powerful military to target and systematically abuse children under their control.”
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