When President Trump announced the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there, most world leaders condemned the plan as an obstacle to peace. The chorus rang loud that putting an embassy in Jerusalem would derail the progress that has been made in the last few decades. Now that Turkish President Erdogan has decided to open an embassy in East Jerusalem and recognize it as the capital of Palestine, the world responded as expected.
Crickets.
It’s not that most of the world is against an embassy in Jerusalem or anyone acknowledging it as the capital. They just don’t want an embassy to Israel there, nor do they want it recognized as Jerusalem’s capital. The anti-Israel world (which is made up of a vast majority of world leaders, a good portion of the non-Jewish people, a surprisingly large number of Jews, and pretty much every Muslim) knows only one way to peace: a two-state solution.
The world wants to take a country the size of New Jersey with the only Jewish majority in the world and split it up with people, many of whom have vowed to destroy Israel itself. That’s why they’re okay with Erdogan making his fuss over all this. Let’s take a brief look at what Erdogan is doing, then I’ll leave my final thoughts on the matter.
Further Reading
Turkey’s Erdogan: Muslim nations to go to UN over Jerusalem
Turkey’s president says Muslim nations will ask the United Nations for an “annulment” of President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the initiative would start at the U.N. Security Council and if it’s “vetoed there, we will work within the U.N. General Assembly for the annulment of this unjust and lawless decision.”
Opinion: Erdogan′s boring taunts in the fight over Jerusalem
He’s back: the rapscallion, the bully, the lout, the eternal political campaigner Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish president was at his old game as soon as the conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) kicked off in Istanbul. He called Israel a “terrorist and occupier state,” and invited “every country” to “recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the occupied state of Palestine.”
Turkey’s President Erdogan says he will open an embassy in East Jerusalem
Turkey will open an embassy in East Jerusalem, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, days after leading calls at a summit of Muslim leaders for the world to recognise it as the capital of Palestine.
“God willing, the day is close when officially, with God’s permission, we will open our embassy there,” he said in a speech, while maintaining his fierce criticism of the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Final Thoughts
These moves have very little to do with Jerusalem. They have everything to do with Erdogan’s ambition to be the leader of the Muslim world. He wants to build a coalition behind him to be the “great uniter” of a diverse people spread around the globe who are often at odds with one another. He wants to rebuild the Ottoman Empire. The scary part is that it might work.
