Trump’s Jerusalem decision may extinguish hope in the Middle East

Let’s face it, Jerusalem is politically, diplomatically and religiously special. It is important to the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it is important to the political aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.  Generations of diplomats have kicked the issue of the status of Jerusalem into the long grass, deciding it to be so intractable it could only be dealt with at the very end of the peace process when all other problems were resolved.

In November 1947, the United Nations agreed to divide Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, and designated Jerusalem as ‘corpus separatum’, an internationally administered separate territory. That plan did not last long. While the Jews reluctantly accepted the loss of Jerusalem as part of sovereign Israel as the ‘price to pay’ for a state, the Arabs declined it and declared war. Israel’s war of independence led to their annexing West Jerusalem in December 1948 and declaring it its capital.