RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Jerusalem-Affairs-A-tale-of-one-city-594668

BY KHALED ABU TOAMEH, BRADLEY LEVIN, DAVID DIMOLFETTA

Never in their wildest dreams did the Arab residents of Silwan imagine that US President Donald Trump would send his Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the US ambassador, to their neighborhood. 

When the pair arrived on Sunday and helped crack open an archaeological tunnel, the residents’ cynicism toward Israel and America only grew.
The Palestinian Authority and Silwan political activists responded with fiery rhetoric to the opening of the “Pilgrimage Road.” Silwan-born east Jerusalem activist Fakhri Abu Diab said the excavating already caused damage to several houses and a mosque nearby.
However, the situation in Silwan, located southeast of the Old City of Jerusalem, has been calm during the week. Flowers are in bloom, and the streets are full of Arab and Jewish schoolchildren returning home. Jews and Arabs seem to coexist, though they mostly avoid interacting with one another.

The strong condemnations by PA officials do not seem to have impressed the residents of Silwan, many of whom said they lost confidence in the Ramallah-based leaders a long time ago. Even claims by local activists that the archaeological excavations in the City of David have caused damage to at least 16 houses in Silwan have failed to instigate unrest in the neighborhood.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-day-in-the-life-of-the-surreal-Jewish-state-594643?fbclid=IwAR1rs2pg_7G-rG7YwREu4zZOBHD6ydaT82DI8MGuueXwxx3J2q3nxF-oexI

Hundreds of people arrived at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center on Tuesday evening to attend the US Embassy’s annual Independence Day celebration. 
 
That the giant 4th of July gala was held two days early was not unusual. Nor was the long list of VIPs from Israel and the United States – among them members of Congress and the Knesset – seen networking at the bar and buffet, or lining up at the McDonald’s and Ben & Jerry’s stands.
 
What made this year’s flag-studded event most notable was its location. As both US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed in their speeches to the cheering audience, it was the first time in history that the American Embassy bash was held in Jerusalem. 
 
The reason for the change of venue was significant. Until last year, when Friedman decided to move it to an air-conditioned locale in Tel Aviv, the party to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence had taken place in the garden of the US ambassador’s residence in Herzliya.
 
It was not the coastal town’s oppressive summer heat and humidity that led to the break with tradition, however. Rather, it was US President Donald Trump’s 2017 official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, and subsequent move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which enabled the welcome shift. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pilgrimage-road-and-palestinian-memory-11562264411

It was a striking sight: David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wielding a sledgehammer at an archaeological site in Jerusalem. But his presence there was about more than a unique photo-op. It began 15 years ago, when construction workers repairing a burst sewage pipe discovered an ancient staircase directly south of the Temple Mount. The steps closely matched stairs abutting the original ancient entryways of the temple complex. Archaeologists realized that the sets of stairs were linked. They had chanced upon a road leading to the temple. After years of excavations, members of the public soon will be able to walk the Pilgrimage Road.

Two thousand years ago Jews traversed this path as they came from around the world to visit the temple. Such pilgrims were obeying a biblical commandment. Deuteronomy obligated Israelites to stand in the presence of God three times a year: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Rabbinic texts abound with descriptions of the processions that occurred, and the road parallels these details in an exquisite way.

One large stone on the side of the thoroughfare, which seems to have no structural purpose, may be explained by an ancient Talmudic reference to a “stone of claims.” This was an ancient form of a “lost and found,” upon which one who had dropped an object amid the throngs of pilgrims would stand and shout to Jerusalem’s visitors. The stone reminds visitors that the entire site was once hidden and now uncovered, just as the city of Jerusalem was once lost to the Jewish people and is now returned.

The Temple Mount pilgrimage was meant to be a journey to a spiritual summit. Yet today if visitors come from the western part of the city they often descend when approaching the site. Now pilgrims will be able to ascend stairs as their predecessors once did. To walk in their footsteps is to understand what Jerusalem meant to them and why it remains a beacon to the Jewish world today.

But, this being the Middle East, everything is subject to controversy. The Pilgrimage Road is located on land in East Jerusalem that Palestinians claim for themselves. Mr. Friedman, who on Sunday participated in an event inaugurating the site, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel relinquishing this portion of Jerusalem “would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat criticized Mr. Friedman for his attendance and contended that the road is a “lie that has nothing to do with history.” Yet Mr. Erekat and many other Palestinian leaders have long denied what archaeologists and historians consider basic and uncontroversial facts, such as the existence of the Temple.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14488/palestinian-war-on-businessmen

By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid…. Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.

Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account…. They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.

Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the “suffering” of the Palestinians.

These leaders’ biggest fear is that economic prosperity might divert Palestinians’ attention from the fight against Israel. Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas seems afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.

The Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on Palestinian businessmen who participated in the recent US-led “Peace to Prosperity” economic conference in Bahrain signals strongly how Palestinian leaders act directly against the interests of their own people.

Even more worrying is the message that this crackdown sends to the Palestinian public: anyone who dares to work with US President Donald Trump’s administration will be denounced as a traitor and collaborator with the “enemies” of the Palestinians: the US and Israel.