Trump's Jerusalem: Neither East nor West

Submitted by Robert (United States), Dec 12, 2017 at 02:02

Dear Daniel Pipes,

First, I wish to commend you on your intellectual honesty,
by giving credit to President Trump ("hate to admit it" remark)
for his historic accomplishment of undoing Obama's damage to Israel at the UN
by failing to use the veto power.

However, I respectively wish to correct you on your observation that West Jerusalem was recognized.
In point of fact, as I recall, Trump made no distinction between East or West;
rather he simply left it for the parties, Israel and the Palestinians, to decide.
Furthermore, he explicitly denied deciding Final Status issues, such as Borders.
In other words, he left it an open question.
It was a very clever move, no doubt inspired by his famous Jewish real estate lawyer,
who contributed to funding "settlements."
Furthermore, even if you consider that the US EMBASSY will move to "West Jerusalem,"
that has no legal consequence as to deciding Jerusalem into East and West.
As you are aware, the UN itself legally does not even recognize West Jerusalem as Israel.
The UN's General Assembly 1947 Partition Plan
recommended the status of Jerusalem to be "Corpus Separatum.,"
translating that from the Latin to mean "Separate Body."
The Free City of Danzig may be taken as reference on that status.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
So in a brilliant single diplomatic stroke of genius
Trump did NOT divide Jerusalem between the parties,
and left it for Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate (or fight it out).

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