(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Alan Baker - Jerusalem has been the official capital of the State of Israel and center of its government since 1950, the seat of Israel's President, Knesset, and Supreme Court. In 1967, Jordan rejected warnings from Israel and opened an aggressive war by bombarding Jerusalem. In response and in self-defense, Israel captured east Jerusalem. As such, Israel's status in eastern Jerusalem is entirely legitimate and lawful under the international law of armed conflict. Numerous politically-generated resolutions and declarations by the UN, attempting to revise and distort the long history of Jerusalem and to deny basic religious, legal and historic rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel in Jerusalem, have no legal standing and are not binding. They represent nothing more than the political viewpoints of those states that voted to adopt them. Acknowledging the fact that Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel and locating the embassy in Jerusalem are the sovereign prerogatives of the U.S. They would be an acknowledgment of a long-standing factual situation and rectification of a historic injustice. Statements by Arab leaders that recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital or locating the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will endanger the peace process and bring a wave of violence are unfortunate attempts to threaten a sovereign government and incite. Surrendering to such threats would be a dangerous precedent and a sign of weakness. The writer, a former legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.
2017-12-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive