Michael Bloomberg’s Jerusalem

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Congratulations are in order to Mayor Bloomberg for his stance in respect of Jerusalem. The Bloomberg View issued on Tuesday an unsigned editorial headlined “Obama’s Betrayal of Israel at the U.N. Must Not Stand.” It’s an exceptionally clear dissection of the Obama abstention on the Security Council resolution declaring Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria illegitimate. It warns that the act will only make things worse, particularly by incenting the Palestinian Arabs to view the United Nations, rather than Israel, as their negotiating partner.

Mr. Bloomberg’s editorial ranks right up there with the Wall Street Journal’s Review & Outlook column in its use of logic to cut through the cant that we’ve heard from President Obama and Ambassador Power. His Honor reckons that the bipartisan uproar over the abstention at the United Nations “provides an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to rally around a more constructive policy.” He suggests they “should start by agreeing to President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

The former mayor of the city with the second largest Jewish population in the world notes that the movement of our embassy to the capital of Israel is a step “envisioned but never taken by presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.” It would provide what Mr. Bloomberg calls “a powerful reaffirmation to Israel” of America’s “enduring commitment.” That strikes us as about as straightforward as one can get, and what a remarkable change of tune in respect of Mr. Trump coming from a leader who has heretofore been a harsh critic of the President-elect.

At the Democratic National Convention at Philadelphia, Mr. Bloomberg heaped scorn not only on Mr. Trump but his character and his business achievements and his qualifications to be president. All in the service of a woman who, in Hillary Clinton, had endorsed — and even helped conceive — the Iran appeasement and who chose, in Senator Kaine, a vice presidential candidate who’d led the mini-boycott of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s third address to a joint meeting of Congress. Yet when the chips are down, he’s swung behind Mr. Trump on this central issue.

It strikes us as a moment to mark in the Battle of Jerusalem. The State Department’s approach has been to reserve Jerusalem as a so-called “final status” question. This has always struck us as precisely backwards. Agreement to Israel’s possession of its sacred, undivided, fully incorporated, eternal, God-given capital deserves to be resolved first, for it’s hard to imagine a settlement without it. Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem would be a first step in that direction, and it’s wonderful to see Mr. Bloomberg stepping into the van on this head.


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