By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Roy Moore released a statement in supporting President Donald Trump’s and Vice President Mike Pence’s efforts to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“The Nation of Israel has traditionally found a strong ally in the United States of America.” Moore said. “I am grateful that the Trump-Pence Administration is actively working to restore the trust that was betrayed during the Obama era and I applaud their efforts to move the Embassy as a signal of our continued friendship.”
Moore continued, “In the United States Senate, I will actively work to ensure that the Nation of Israel is strengthened to face all attacks from abroad and am committed to seeing the Embassy moved to Jerusalem post haste.”
Pence stated on Tuesday that “President Donald Trump is actively considering when and how to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
In 1967, the tiny country of Israel was attacked by the combined forces of their Arab neighbors after Egyptian forces mobilized on the border igniting an airway between Egypt and Israel. The hasty Arab attack was poorly coordinated and executed and the Soviet Union supplied equipment was woefully inferior to the U.S. supplied American military equipment. Israel launched a massive counter offensive and seized the Golan Heights from Syria, Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan including East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. The Israeli Air Force shot the combined Arab Air Forces out of the sky and the Arab governments were forced to agree to a humiliating peace or else their fleeing armies would have been cut to pieces by the Israeli unchallenged air dominance in the open desert.
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Syria’s Hafez al-Assad would lead a massive effort to avenge that 1967 defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That also ended in a complete military disaster.
The Arab governments never agreed to any treaty giving Israel the “Occupied Territories” including East Jerusalem; but Jordan and Egypt did eventually cede their claim to the Palestinians, many of whom had fled to the Arab controlled territories after their defeat in the 1949 war with Israel. Both Israel and the Palestinians agree that there should be a “two state solution”; but there the similarity ends. Sadat eventually did a separate peace deal with Israel, the Camp David Accords, during the Administration of President Jimmy Carter.
The Arab states, the Palestinians, and most of the international community believe that Israel should withdraw to those 1967 borders. Israel rejects that idea and favors some division of the Occupied Territories between the two nations. President Barack Obama did advocate the Palestinian position that Israel return to the 1967 borders. That idea not win over many friends in Israel.
Both sides claim ownership of Jerusalem (the biblical capital of the ancient nation of Israel). The Israeli Likud Party government of Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any surrender of all or most of East Jerusalem. Most of the international community, including the United States, have kept their embassies in the old capital of Tel Aviv. During the campaign, Donald Trump, promised to move the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv, a move that would annoy most of the Muslim world as the Prophet Muhammed claimed in the Koran to have had a dream about, making it arguably the third most holy city in the Islamic world behind Mecca and Medina. The Israelis allow the Arabs to maintain a Mosque on the site of the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temple. King Solomon’s temple had previously been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The “Second Temple” was built by Nehemiah in 515 and massively renovated and enlarged by King Herod the Great in 19 B.C, though all of the work did not conclude until 63 A.D. The temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire when the Jews revolted in 70 A.D.
Other Republican Presidents have talked about moving the embassy; but never actually did it. Will the Trump Administration be different?
Moore faces Clinton-era U.S. Attorney Doug Jones in the special election on Dec. 12.
