U.S. Jerusalem Policy: “Shock Therapy” for Palestinians

The Fellowship  |  March 15, 2018

Speaking at a U.S. Senate event in Washington, D.C., Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said that the shift in U.S. policy toward Jerusalem – specifically, the U.S.’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – is “one of the first positive things that has been done to advance peace in decades”:

“The Palestinians try to deny any historical connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem,” he said. “Because to admit this connection is to admit that the Jewish people aren’t foreign colonialists in the Land of Israel; that Israel for the Jewish people is not India for the British, or Algeria for the French, or the Congo for the Belgians – but that this is the land of our ancestors.”

The minute the Palestinians recognize a Jewish connection to Jerusalem, he said, the whole edifice of Palestinian rejectionism would begin to collapse, because it would mean that the Jewish people are in Israel “not merely by might, but by right.”

“Dealing with this Palestinian rejectionism is critical if you are going to advance peace, and the rejectionism is strongest, and of course most absurd, when it comes to Jerusalem,” he said.