The timing of Trump’s visit coincides with the commemoration of 50 years of Israeli rule over East Jerusalem, and the dissonance between Israel and the almost all of the rest of the world has been deafening. While official Israel is celebrating 50 years of “reunification”, even Israel’s closest allies see the event as another benchmark in the 50 years of occupation – the longest occupation in modern history. [...]
There are two national collectives in Jerusalem, one endowed with political rights and the other permanently disenfranchised and disempowered. In 1967, Israel annexed the land, but not the population. Palestinian East Jerusalemites are not citizens of Israel, nor may they vote in national elections. You will be told they were offered citizenship, or entitled to receive it. False. They may apply, and we may say no. They don’t apply – and we generally say no. [...]
And this is not the only spat that Israel has elected to initiate with its friends over Jerusalem. On May 3, UNESCO approved yet another Jerusalem resolution. While the text resolution remains an inflammatory and polemical manifesto, Israel went on the attack over things that simply did not appear in the resolution. “It denies the Jewish ties to Jerusalem” – no, it does not. On the two occasions when religious ties were cited, those of Jews, Christians and Muslims were mentioned. “It denies Israeli sovereignty, and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel” – the issue of sovereignty and the status of capital simply doesn’t appear in the text. “It calls East Jerusalem ‘occupied’” – true, but Israeli is virtually the only one that doesn’t.
Feigning rage over things attributed to the resolution (but that don’t appear in it), Israel conducted a well-choreographed campaign. Culture Minister Miri Regev called to close the UNESCO offices in Jerusalem – even though no such offices exist. Israel castigated Germany for its behind the scenes role in the framing of the resolution (instead of thanking them for having promoted the removal of its most toxic elements). The Swedish Ambassador was summoned for a reprimand for voting in favor of the resolution (so did Russia and China, who were not reprimanded – authoritarian regimes apparently get a pass).
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