President Trump did not unilaterally make this decision, but actually responded to a law passed during the Clinton administration that has been delayed in its implementation on a semi-annual basis since the time it was passed. President Trump finally stopped the proverbial kicking-of-the-can-down-the-road and decided to not defer action when the most recent six month review came up yet again.
Of course the response from most of the Muslim world and other hateful anti-Semitic nations was immediate and vociferous. U. N. representatives of the 57 mostly Muslim-majority members slammed Trump's decision and called on all countries to respond by recognizing east Jerusalem as the “capital of the State of Palestine.”
The corrupt and anti-Israel United Nations drafted a resolution that, without explicitly naming the U.S. or President Trump, expressed "deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem" and said such decisions "have no legal effect, are null and void, and must be rescinded."
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley's lone vote against the resolution scuttled the measure which gained support from all 14 other current Security Council members. Ambassador Haley called the resolution an "insult" and said it "won't be forgotten." Haley further characterized the failed resolution as "one more example of the United Nations doing more harm than good in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Haley then went on and pointed out the fact that the U.S. has given more than $5 billion in aid to the Palestinians since 1994, which is significantly more than the combined contributions from all other nations on the Security Council. Despite this fact, the Palestinian Authority enriches itself while many of its people live in poverty, all the while they denounce Israel and America.
Regardless, the resolution came on the heels of an emergency summit of Muslim nations two weeks ago in Turkey. There, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared, "Jerusalem has been, and will remain forever, the capital of the State of Palestine." He further proclaimed that this “ancient Palestinian capital” of Jerusalem was not of the Jews, as history and archaeology attest, but of the Palestinian people. "We have been there in this location for thousands of years," Abbas claimed, linking Palestinians, who are Arabs, to the ancient Canaanites. That's a claim for which there is no evidence.
But Abbas was just getting started, as he further declared,
"[Jerusalem] is a Palestinian Arab Muslim Christian city, the eternal capital of the state of Palestine. There can be no Palestinian state without the city of Jerusalem as its capital and there will be no peace in the region and in the world without it."In a full vote of U.N. members of 128 to 9, with 35 abstentions (including Canada and Mexico) the U.N. passed a resolution that declared President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "null and void" accordingly. Of course this has no impact on Israel’s choice of its capital or the United States of America as recognizing it as such. It is simply another meaningless resolution by an impotent and corrupt organization that desperately needs to be reformatted, if not totally scrapped.
President Trump and Ambassador Haley said they were taking note of which friends and allies voted against the U.S. with its declaration and intimated that future U.S. foreign aid might be impacted accordingly.
As for the U.S. taxpayer funding of the Palestinian Authority, I have long been of the opinion that not a single dime should be spent to that end until they fully renounce and work to end terrorism against Israel. Finally, the United States is one step closer to actually doing so, as on December 5, the House of Representatives finally passed the Taylor Force Act. It is a bill that calls for defunding the Palestinian Authority until they end their “pay to slay” policy.
The bill, which has also been passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, now awaits the full Senate to take up the bill for a vote. The Taylor Force Act will compel the Palestinian Authority to face the consequences of its violence or end this abhorrent practice immediately. If the bill is enacted, they will have to revoke any law, decree, or document authorizing a compensation scheme for prisoners "that uses the sentence or period of incarceration to determine the level of compensation paid."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has steadfastly rejected all calls to stop funding terror,
"I don't intend to cease payment for families of prisoner martyrs, even if it costs me my seat," he vowed. "I will continue to pay them until my last day."Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO), the bill's sponsor, issued this statement following the previous vote out of the House committee:
"I am very encouraged that my bill, the Taylor Force Act, has passed with bipartisan support in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This is an important first step in stopping U.S. tax dollars from funding Palestinian Terrorism. The Palestinian Authority must be held accountable for glorifying terrorism by paying terrorists and naming streets in Ramallah after Palestinians who murder Jews.
The Palestinian Authority devotes almost half of its foreign ‘aid’ to rewarding acts of terror against Israelis and innocent bystanders, including American war hero Taylor Force. It is outrageous that our government would, for so long, turn a blind eye to actions that violate international law and fan the flames of hatred, terrorism, and murder.”With the United States officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, we have been warned that this will incite further violence. It is ironic that some Leftists and indeed Muslim factions in the Middle East have acknowledged that they will resort to violence as a tactic when they do not get their way on issues when it comes to the Israel/Palestinian debate. “Do as we demand, or we will act with further terrorism” seems to be the standard operating procedure for the Palestinian Authority.
The fact that the Palestinian Authority does not truly want peace, but rather a full and complete capitulation and dismantling of the state of Israel suggests to me that there was no reason for the U.S. to not move forward in acknowledgement of the truth of Israel’s capital. Further, as the PA has refused to negotiate in good faith towards peace, we should remove all further funding from them accordingly, and I suspect we will start to do so shortly with the upcoming passage of the Taylor Force Act.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and the 95th anniversary of the League of Nations mandate, both of which established legal title of the land to the Jewish people. Even more importantly, the status of Jerusalem has been determined by God, and his decree is not subject to human opinion.
