{"id":54010,"date":"2017-12-07T07:26:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T07:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=54010"},"modified":"2017-12-07T07:26:24","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T07:26:24","slug":"for-trump-jerusalem-is-an-extension-of-a-global-culture-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/for-trump-jerusalem-is-an-extension-of-a-global-culture-war.html","title":{"rendered":"For Trump, Jerusalem is an extension of a global culture war"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Trump, Jerusalem is an extension of a global culture war<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

For Trump, Jerusalem is an extension of a global culture war:- The uproar in the wake of President Trump’s speech on Jerusalem was as widespread as it was predictable. During a brief speech in the White House \u2014 with a Christmas tree and a mute Vice President Pence as the backdrop \u2014 Trump announced his decision to formally recognize the holy city as Israel’s capital, as well as a plan to eventually move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we explained yesterday, Trump did so in the face of almost-unanimous opposition from the international community. For the second time in two weeks, he received a stern rebuke from the British prime minister; Pope Francis expressed his \u201cdeep concern\u201d over any move that disrupts the \u201cstatus quo\u201d of the city; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the whole thing was a \u201cred line\u201d for Muslims and threatened to cut diplomatic ties with Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Figures as diverse as the French president, the Saudi king and the Iranian supreme leader reproached Trump for taking a decision that all believe imperils the prospects for a two-state solution. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose political career has hinged on being the main Arab interlocutor in the U.S.-backed peace process, said Trump’s speech marked \u201ca declaration of withdrawal\u201d by the United States from its role as a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only world leader who seemed pleased was exactly the one you would have guessed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu said it was \u201ca historic day. … Jerusalem has been the focus of our hopes, our dreams, our prayers for three millennia. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.\u201d The city’s authorities beamed a joint image of the Israeli and U.S. flags on the Old City’s ramparts.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his remarks, the president hailed Jerusalem as \u201cthe capital the Jewish people established in ancient times\u201d and said it was time to take \u201ca new approach\u201d to a conflict that has no resolution in sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

The irony here is that, no matter the claims to age-old right that accompany the debate over Jerusalem, the current dispute is profoundly modern. An earlier generation of secular Zionists was disinterested in the holy city, an abode of myriad sects and zealots, and focused on building Tel Aviv and other modern visions of the new Israeli state. But that changed over decades of war.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Arab-Jewish conflict escalated into a nationalistic conflict, with Jerusalem at its center,\u201d said Yehoshua Ben-Arieh of Hebrew University to the New York Times. \u201cJerusalem was a city holy to three religions, but the moment that, in the land of Israel, two nations grew \u2014 the Jewish people and the local Arab people \u2014 both embraced Jerusalem. More than Jerusalem needed them, they needed Jerusalem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter the age of the claim, however, it seems that Trump will allow only Israel to make it. At no point in his speech did he acknowledge majority-Arab East Jerusalem, which Israeli troops occupied in 1967 and which Palestinians view as the seat of their future state. And while he did not disavow American support for the two-state solution, Trump offered nothing like full-throated backing, saying he would support any solution \u201cif agreed to by both sides.\u201d Ultimately, many experts concluded, the speech gave the right-wing Israeli government something it has long sought \u2014 and offered Palestinians nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the many concerns that surround the sudden change in long-standing U.S. policy \u2014 not the least of which is a potential surge of violence \u2014 there’s a glaring question: Why do this now? Trump, ever keen to be a disrupter, argued that the methods of the past need to be jettisoned to achieve a lasting peace deal, though it’s hard to see how this particular defenestration will help. Some observers suggest instead that Trump was creating a distraction from his encroaching domestic controversies.<\/span><\/p>\n

But perhaps the simplest explanation is an ideological one: Trump’s delivery on his campaign promise was greeted with glee by the right-wing pro-Israel lobby in Washington \u2014 but even more so by powerful American evangelicals, who see Israel’s supremacy over the holy city as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Numbering in the tens of millions, they are a significant constituency. In July, Netanyahu told an audience in Washington that \u201cwe have no greater friends than Christian supporters of Israel\u201d \u2014 in part an implicit recognition of declining support among American Jews for his government’s policies. And while it may be easy to be cynical about Trump’s claims to religiosity, the same can’t be said for Pence, a darling of the evangelical movement. His presence during Trump’s speech was a clear nod to evangelical sentiment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike Judaism, Christianity believes that the Messiah will one day sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem,\u201d wrote American evangelical activist Laurie Cardozo-Moore in Israeli daily Haaretz. \u201cIt is one more step in reversing the policies of the four previous administrations before [Trump]. The Judeo-Christian United States of America can once again say, ‘Israel \u2014 We\u2019ve got your back’!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The invocation of the \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d United States happens to be a consistent theme for Trump. \u201cWe don\u2019t worship government, we worship God,\u201d Trump declared in a speech in October. Grousing about a phantom \u201cwar on Christmas,\u201d he later added: \u201cWe are stopping all our attacks on Judeo-Christian values.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the term has an even deeper potency for Trump. The president built his platform on a loaded tribalism that explicitly rejects any belief in \u201cuniversal values\u201d and, at various stages, is articulated in soaring defenses of blood-and-soil nationalism and Western identity. For Trump, harping on \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d values is less about actual religious belief and more about his own brand of divisive politics, which has seen him repeatedly demonize Islam and Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is surely aware of how sensitive the question of Jerusalem’s status is; his decision to press ahead with the recognition and relocation suggests he may be inviting the chaos that may follow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReligious conflicts, like racial and ethnic ones, are critical to Trump\u2019s appeal. He needs Mexican-Americans to rape and murder white girls. He needs African-American athletes to ‘disrespect the flag.’ And he needs Muslims to explode bombs and burn American flags,\u201d the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart wrote. \u201cThe more threatening non-white, non-Christians appear, both at home and abroad, the more his supporters rely on him to keep the barbarians down and out. If Trump has to invent these dangers, he will. In the case of Jerusalem, however, he can go further: He can help create them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/worldviews\/wp\/2017\/12\/07\/for-trump-jerusalem-is-an-extension-of-a-global-culture-war\/?utm_term=.cafa01c289c8<\/span><\/p>\n

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