An uncomfortable truth.*

The US has been rocked in recent weeks by student protests over the war between Hamas and Israel.  The striking thing about it for me is how much this has turned, in terms of public opinion.

Even my own opinion has changed, but in the other direction. When I was young, I had quite a bit of sympathy with the Palestinian cause.  My views on it developed when I was old enough to not have any really good recollection of the Palestinian terrorist activities of the 1970s.  The problem to me seemed clear enough.  Israel had been established on British occupied territory without the clear input of all of the residents of that territory, and since then war had precluded the Arab residents from having a voice.

I don't really hold that view anymore.

Unfortunately, much of the world seems to.

"Palestine", as a political entity, has not been free, in a self-governing sense, since sometime . . . well It's hard to say if it ever was.  The word itself refers to the Roman administrative province that was imposed on the Kingdom of Israel.  Romes grip weakened in the 600s, with a Persian invasion taking Jerusalem in 614 and the Muslims invading and conquering all of the Levant in 634-638.

Note those words. . .Levant and conquering.

That's what the Islamic invaders did, they invaded and conquered.  Islam was spread by the sword.

We'll also note that this was a long time ago.

In the Levant, which is what we're dealing with, there were multiple religious groups and Christianity and Judaism remained strong.  Much of what Islam conquered were Christian lands.  Islam did not spring up there from fertile soil, it was imposed, but the other religions remained.

By the 1090s the Muslim principalities of the Levant were themselves coming under attack from other Islamic forces, the net result, without getting into all of the details, were the Crusades.  In 1260, in an odd event, the Mongols briefly conquered the entire region before they retreated due to a succession crisis at home.  The Ottoman's conquered the entire region in 1516-1517 and ruled it, in an increasingly weak manner, until the British Mandate was imposed at the end of World War One.

At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, the Zionist movement sought to reclaim the region that had been Israel up until AD 70.  The Ottomans both facilitated and opposed the movement.  It was gaining strength by World War One and took on a life of its own.  By World War Two (this is the 80th anniversary of the Biltmore Conference) it was becoming a mass Jewish movement of sorts, as Jews around the world reacted to the horror of the Holocaust.  

At the same time, Levantines in the region became increasingly hostile to Jewish settlers, fearing what was to become.  This turned violent on at least one major occasion before World War Two, causing the British to have to put a Palestinian Revolution that lasted from 1936 to 1939.  That movement sought independence, but it did so in part as Levantines feared that the growing strength of Jewish settlement movements meant that they'd be displaced on their own territory.

When the British ducked out in 1948 the Arabs and Israelis went right to war with each other, resulting in the fleeing of 700,000 Levantine's from the region, half of pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine's Levantine population.  That population, now enormously increased, sets up the current situation. Some fled because fleeing fighting armies is the rational thing to do. Some fled as they feared being killed by Jewish militias.  Some fled as, after Israel established themselves, they were expelled.  

The overall problem is that 70 to 80 years ago is a long time.

In the past 70+ years, those tragically expelled should have been productively resettled.  Some were, of course, but many were not.  Instead, the results of the 1948 war were rejected across the Middle East, which in turn made it worse by repeated incompetent efforts to militarily reverse the situation. The West Bank, for example, was lost in the 1968 war.  Movements supporting the Levantine cause, moreover, have been attracted not only to violence, but to extremism.

At the present time, Hamas wants to expel Jews from the borders of what had been Mandatory Palestine, a region that has existed as a politically independent area for, well, ever.  Hamas would impose radical Islam on the region to the detriment of not only the Jews, but to Christians, who remain in the region, and even to other Muslims.

There is, unfortunately, no reason to believe that there's any Levantine entity any less radical than Hamas.

A two-state solution for the problem is absurd.  Part of the ongoing problem is that the Levantines have been kept in postage stamp sized settlements not only by the Israelis, but by the non-Levantine Arabs, who don't want to take them in.  An independent Levantine state based on the West Bank would be dirt poor, radical, and a menace to the region's political stability.

And that's not what so many of them want. They want the borders of Mandatory Palestine, with its current Jewish residents expelled from the region for from life.

And that's what student protesters are actually advocating in some circumstances.  Both the Atlantic and the Guardian have interviews with a narrow selection of them who are basically comfortable advocating that murderous solution.   Levantine protesters in the US seem pretty comfortable with it as well, or at least not uncomfortable with noting that those they are supporting by implication are murderous rapists.

One of the uncomfortable truths of history is that wrongs of the past can't be righted, really.  Nobody can go back to 70 and keep the Romans from expelling the Jews.  Nobody can go to all the numerous localities where they were thereafter oppressed and murdered and keep that from happening.  Germans today seem remorseful for what they did from 1932 to 1945, but that can't keep the horror from happening.  The British today would not take Palestine as a mandate, but they did, and that's done.  And the expulsions and fleeing of the Levantines in the late 40s has already occured.

Like so many other things that humans imagine, trying to restore a status quo ante, long after that status quo has fled, only results in new horrors.  The Jewish desire for a homeland was rational.  That they'd desire a portion of what had been Israel (modern Israel is smaller than Biblical Israel) was also rational,  It's already happened.   A solution for the plight of the Palestinian Levantines needs to be found, and frankly isn't all that difficult to work, but neither a two-state solution nor setting an army of rapist and murderous lose in Israel is a solution that's either workable or tolerable.

Nor is it rational or tolerable to put up with people protesting for it.**  Students form the protesting base in any country in part, quite frankly, as a large percentage of them are essentially idle while not knowing it.  As a student, I imagined what I'd do once I was out of school, with a job, and finally "free". It turned out that what I did was worked and took on the responsibilities of adult life.  Freedom, in a certain sense, isn't what Janis Joplin claimed it to be, that being "nothing else to lose", but it is, in another sense, "nothing else to do".

In the 1930s, when Spain was in a violent crisis, a tiny number of people went there and fought in its civil war.  I don't admire the foreign volunteers to Republican Spain, who misjudged their cause and blinded themselves to what it was really for, but at least they did more than gum up classes.  Students yelling bear, ultimately, no real burden for their efforts. They're not Freedom Riders or the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

And here, ironically, should they really have an impact, it'll be to bring to power in "Palestine" a group of murderous perverts, and to help bring to power in the US somebody whom they don't agree with on anything.

Footnotes

*Because I'm not a professional blogger, nor retired, I have a lot of posts, well over 100 in fact, that are in the hopper, some of which related to this.  I note that, as there's more coming, maybe, if I ever get around to it, on the crisis in the Middle East.

**Protesting against Israeli military overreach is something else entirely.  Israeli's are doing that.

This is a common feature, oddly, of protests.  It's perfectly rational, for example, to have been against bombing Hanoi during the Vietnam War, but that doesn't mean you need to appear on an anti-aircraft gun belonging to a communist army.  Here being opposed to Israel leveling Gaza is rational, pretending that Hamas is on the side of virtue is not.

Related threads:

The Palestinian Problem and its Wilsonian Solution.

Arabs, British League of Nations Mandates, Israel, Israeli Hamas War, It was because of World War One, It was because of World War Two, Kuwait, MIddle East, Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

"Scientists Show How Ancient Roman Women Looked"

Um, like average Roman women today?

Seriously, this is stupid.

St. Agnes of Rome

 A saint, in many ways, for our times.  Her feast day was yesterday.

Martyred on January 21, 304.

December 7, 43. The Assassination of Cicero.

 

On this day in 43, Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated under orders of Mark Anthony.  He submitted to his captors, and his last words were:

Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem. (I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.)

The Romans had expeditions that went all the way into what is now Nigeria.

And across the Sarah at that.

Simply amazing.

Thursday, July 22, 1943. Palermo falls to the Seventh Army. Greeks riot over Macedonia, US landings at Munda Point.

Patton's Seventh Army entered Palermo to an enormous celebration by the residents of the ancient city.  Two captured Italian generals, in turn, claimed to be happy about the event because "the Sicilians were not human beings but animals" ("i Siciliani non erano esseri umani ma animali").

Seventh Army staff aboard SS Monrovia, en route to Sicily, June/July 1943.

The Italian fascist government had held anti-Sicilian views due to Sicily's long peculiar history.  

The island has been inhabited since ancient times and was a destination for Italic and Phoenician colonists as far back as 1200 BC, who displaced the already existing Sicilian population.  Greek colonization commenced around 750 BC.  In antiquity, it was contested by the Greeks and Carthaginians, both of whom conquered it at different times.  The Romans conquered it and displaced the Carthaginians and declared that the island should be latinized, although its culture remained, at the time, Greek.  With the fall of the Roman Empire, it fell to invading Germanic tribes, with the Vandals taking Palermo in 440.  The Byzantine Empire then retook it, as the Eastern Roman Empire, and ruled it from the 550s to the 960s, during which time the Arabs began to attempt to take it.  From the 820s through the 960s, it slowly fell to Muslim invaders.

The Normans arrived starting in 1038, around thirty years prior to their invasion of England, and began to take it from the Arabs.  They formed a Norman kingdom that lasted until 1198, becoming part of the typical drama of European kingdoms at the time.  The Normans imported European settlers to the island, which went from being 1/3d Greek speaking and 2/3s Arabic speaking to being latinized once again.  It went back and forth to varying European households until 1860, when the Italians conquered it.  It became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

During the fascist period the island was subject to unwelcome attention in part because Italians have never really regarded Sicilians as Italians, given their multi-ethnic heritage, and part because the strong local character of the island was unwelcome. Also, unwelcome was the fairly strong local Communist Party and the Sicilian Mafia. The fascist nearly crushed the Mafia during their period in power.

A general strike was called in Athens over Bulgarian intentions to annex Macedonia, which resulted in a massive protest in the city over the same thing.

The protests were successful in that they postponed the Bulgarian plans to the point that they were never carried out.

The SS executed all of the remaining 2,500 inmates of the Tarnopol concentration camp.

US infantry during the battle.

The Battle of Munda Point began on New Georgia.  The object was the points' airfield, in what would become a hard fought campaign.

The U.S. Navy raided Kiska.

What's wrong with Russia? It was never part of Rome.

By Ssolbergj - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2992630

SPQR Senātus Populus que Rōmānus.Translated, the Senate and People of Rome.  The motto of the Roman Empire, whose legions marched under that banner in service of its Emperors.

"I will burn other people's villages with a cheerful smile."

"It ain’t a war crime if you had fun."

"Behind us, there is a house on fire. Well, let it burn. One more, one less."

Russian wall scribbling in liberated Ukrainian territory.

What's wrong with Russia?

People have been asking that question for years, maybe centuries.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. 

Winston Churchill

No, it's really not.

What it is, is something it isn't.  It was never part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was the most extensive expression of the Greco-Roman world and their culture.  The Greeks had commenced the work that Rome would end up finishing, or rather the Catholic Church would end up finishing, well prior to Rome's rise, however.  The great Greek philosophers came into being prior to even the expansion of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, infusing its culture with the outlook of the Western world.  Under Alexander the Greeks spread throughout the Mediterranean region, but the Romans picked it up, and the Greek world view, and massively expanded it.

Indeed, the influence of the Greeks and the Romans was so extensive that a student of early Christianity can't help but be impressed by the extent to which Christ and his disciples lived in a Judea that had been heavily impacted by the Greeks. The version of the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament pretty clear is the Septuagint, the Greek version.  Most, maybe all, of the New Testament was originally written in Greek.  Thoughts expressed in the New Testament are such that there have been those who have speculated that they could not have been expressed in Hebrew, had Hebrew remained the language of the Israelites, and that therefore Divine Providence was at work.  Early Christian Church fathers applied Greek philosophy to their understanding of Theology.¹ 

The Romans built on what they obtained from the Greeks, and they built the concept of a multicultural empire.  Rome started off a city state monarchy but in the end, it was a multicultural empire in which anyone within it could become a Roman citizen under certain circumstances.  Its unifying features was a uniform legal code and two languages, Latin and Greek.  You could be a cultural German, but if you could learn Latin and adhere to Rome's legal code, you had a chance to be as Roman as an Italian born in Rome.

The Church, and there was only one, came in and added the concept that there was only one moral code for everyone in the world, and your status and culture didn't trump that.  It also came in with a strong ethos of support for the plight of the poor and the equality of everyone before God.  Real women's rights came in with the Church, and the end of slavery was made inevitable by it as well.  The supremacy in religious matters of the Roman pontiff pointed out that even the government was subject to the Natural Law, and that it didn't create it.

We are all Romans.

The influence of Rome spread well beyond the Empire, even during the Roman age, and that was through Christianity.  Rome made it all the way up to the Teutoburg, but not beyond that.  Christianity did, however.  It may have taken the Northern Crusades to bring the Poles in, but brave missionaries to bring in the Scandinavians, but they did.

In the East, the Baltic was part of the Greek world, and hence the Roman world.  St. Andrew the apostle travelled into what is the southern Ukraine, via the Black Sea, and preached at least in Scythia.  Some maintain that he saild the Dneiper and preached in Kyiv.

Ukraine was the subject of missionary work in the 800s.  St. Cyril and Methodius, brothers, passed through Ukraine during their missionary work.  Western Ukraine, which is where the Ukrainian Catholic Church has its presence today, was Christianized first.

St. Cyril and Methodius.

Under St. Vladimir The Great, a Kyivan king claimed by both the Ukrainians and the Russians, the Kyivan Rus were firmly brought into the Church.   But of note, Vladimir had been born a pagan and converted to the Church (again, there was only one) in 988 after traveling to the West and studying the non-pagan religions. He died in 1015 at age 57.

Now, 1015 is a very late date.  St. Andrew had been in the region in 55AD.  St. Cyril and Methodius in the late 800s.  But as late as 988 paganism still existed in the lands of the Rus.

And in 1054, the Great Schism commenced.

Now, the Rus did take to Christianity, of that there can be no doubt. But the Great Schism put their Church outside the Latin world to some degree.  Islam was already on the rise, and the Byzantine Empire would fall in 1453.  In 1448 the Russian Church obtained de facto independence, although in 1439 history nearly took a different course with Russian Orthodox representatives recognized Rome as the head of the Church at the Council of Florence. Sadly, their union was prevented from taking effect.

So basically, the Russians were on the edge of the world. The Great Schism, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and then the collapse of the Byzantine kept them there.  Ukraine had been part of the Greco-Roman world, and to some degree, it remains so, especially the further west in Ukraine you go.

And this matters.

Outside of the Moscow elite and a very small urban elite, Russia is one great big blue-collar country.

Fiona Hill

Russia definitely has a cultured development and the Russians are a great people. But they're a people where western concepts have never taken root, including the concept that power devolves from the people, and not the other way around. Even those who have attempted, and there have been many, to change that, have uniformly failed.

It's a culture that has developed great works of art and literature, while remaining insular and focused on itself.  Outside of Russia, everyone is some sort of odd stranger, and the Russians have, from time to time, imagined themselves as the archetype of Slavs.  The culture has a hard time not accepting that to some degree.

And it's a rough place to live in part because of this.  People die young, often due to conditions and alcoholism.  Male deaths outstrip women's by quite some margin.² Brutality and acceptance of horrible conditions exists where it has departed elsewhere.  Russia's military retains an ethos of cruelty that stems back to ancient times and manifests itself in horrific ancient behaviors. 

And hence, there's really no mystery.  

Russia wasn't part of the Greco-Roman world.

Ukraine, however, was.

Footnotes.

1. There's a common myth that Islam preserved the works of the Greek philosophers, and Christians got them from them.

In reality, Islam got the texts of the Greek philosophers from Chaldean Christians, who had preserved them.  Latin Christians did get them from Islamic Arabs, but it is important to note that Islamic Arabs got them from Chaldean Christians.  

As it happened, Hellenized Islamist theologians were later dismissed and regarded as heretical in Islam.

2.  As an odd expression of this, it's often frequently noted that younger Russian women are disproportionately beautiful, before age and conditions change this at a rate not experienced in the West.   It's been seriously suggested that this is due to natural selection, as the population of women always exceeds that of men, thereby giving physically attractive women a heightened competitive genetic advantage.

Donkeys

Donkeys transformed human history as essential beasts of burden for long-distance movement, especially across semi-arid and upland environments. They remain insufficiently studied despite globally expanding and providing key support to low- to middle-income communities. To elucidate their domestication history, we constructed a comprehensive genome panel of 207 modern and 31 ancient donkeys, as well as 15 wild equids. We found a strong phylogeographic structure in modern donkeys that supports a single domestication in Africa ~5000 BCE, followed by further expansions in this continent and Eurasia and ultimately returning to Africa. We uncover a previously unknown genetic lineage in the Levant ~200 BCE, which contributed increasing ancestry toward Asia. Donkey management involved inbreeding and the production of giant bloodlines at a time when mules were essential to the Roman economy and military.

Abstract, The genomic history and global expansion of domestic donkeys.

Dreams of Past Glory

Last week I published an item here that showed a new map for Greece, published in 1920, which depicted the portions of Anatolia it believed it had separated from Turkey.  Cultural Greeks did live in those places, but they went far beyond those areas where Greeks were the majority.

And Greek troops went far beyond those places.

Italians took a set of islands off Anatolia as well.

Italy had already taken territory from the Ottomans by that time. More specifically, they'd taken Libya in 1912 as a result of the Italo-Turkish War.  Italians, in the form of Romans, had governed Libya at one time, but hadn't since the collapse of the Roman Empire.*  If a person wished to be more generous, Greco Roman culture hadn't governed there since the Byzantine Empire had been pushed out in 647, although at least one Christian city remained as late as the 1400s at the absolute latest.

Basically, both powers were asserting claims to territory they hadn't actually governed since 1453.

Yesterday we looked at the French conquest of Syria.  The French had been very influential in Syria. . . up until the 1190s.  At least that claim was there, however, which it really wasn't for Algeria which the French started colonizing in 1830.

What the heck, however.


*Italian immigrants would ultimately make up 20% of the Libyan population.

The Past as Hope for the Present and Future

Earlier this past week I posted this item on the Feast Day of St. Monica of Hippo.

Today is the Feast of Saint Monica of Hippo.

She was a Catholic Berber, married to a Roman Pagan, in North Africa. Devout throughout her life, she struggled with a dissolute difficult husband who none the less held her in respect.  Mother to three sons and a daughter, one of the sons was Augustine, who himself lived a life that caused her endless distress.

She followed him to Rome when he left for their, pursing a career in the law.  He converted to Christianity there, prior to her death at age 55. After her death, he would take holy orders, and rise to become St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church.

That's the second item I've posted here on an event that occurred in the 380s.  This will be the third.  St. Monica died in 387.

The first item was this one:

Vae victis

Woe to the Vanquished

Brennus

Brennus statement, made as a Gallic conqueror, is true in more sense than one, not as a brazen command upon the defeated, but as an existential fact.

Of course, in keeping with the nature of fate, which we've had some quotes on recently, while Brennus sacked Roman and generally acted like a bady, his troops came down with the trots in the city and the Romans ended up tossing him and followers out rather effectively somewhat later.  That may say about as much on this topic as the quote itself.

Students of history may recall both, but recalling St. Monica is much more likely.  And what they may also recall is that her famous son wrote The City of God to make, in part, the point that earthly cities, and order, would rise and fall, but the City of God would not and was the Christians only true home.

A student of history would also know, of course, that Rome and the world overcame those horrible days when people like Brennus sacked a civilized city with rapine delight.  But in the 380s it probably didn't look like that was likely to most people.

Which, by extension, would suggest that the depths society falls into at any age likewise need not cause long term despair.  The City of God is as relevant as ever.

Today is the Feast of Saint Monica of Hippo.

She was a Catholic Berber, married to a Roman Pagan, in North Africa. Devout throughout her life, she struggled with a dissolute difficult husband who none the less held her in respect.  Mother to three sons and a daughter, one of the sons was Augustine, who himself lived a life that caused her endless distress.

She followed him to Rome when he left for their, pursing a career in the law.  He converted to Christianity there, prior to her death at age 55. After her death, he would take holy orders, and rise to become St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church.

Friday Farming: Marcus Cato on Farming

It is true that to obtain money by trade is sometimes more profitable, were it not so hazardous; and likewise money-lending, if it were as honorable. Our ancestors held this view and embodied it in their laws, which required that the thief be mulcted double and the usurer fourfold; how much less desirable a citizen they considered the usurer than the thief, one may judge from this. And when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: "good husbandman, good farmer"; one so praised was thought to have received the greatest commendation. The trader I consider to be an energetic man, and one bent on making money; but, as I said above, it is a dangerous career and one subject to disaster. On the other hand, it is from the farming class that the bravest men and the sturdiest soldiers come, their calling is most highly respected, their livelihood is most assured and is looked on with the least hostility, and those who are engaged in that pursuit are least inclined to be disaffected.

Marcus Cato, De Agri Cultura

.

Vae victis

Woe to the Vanquished

Brennus

Brennus statement, made as a Gallic conqueror, is true in more sense than one, not as a brazen command upon the defeated, but as an existential fact.

Of course, in keeping with the nature of fate, which we've had some quotes on recently, while Brennus sacked Roman and generally acted like a bady, his troops came down with the trots in the city and the Romans ended up tossing him and followers out rather effectively somewhat later.  That may say about as much on this topic as the quote itself.

Jerusalem

 Jerusalem, 1915

We've recently run a couple of articles from 1917 that featured the city of Jerusalem.

Which turn out to be quite timely, as it were, as President Trump recently indicated that the American Embassy to Israel will be moved to Jerusalem, thereby fulfilling a campaign promise of his.

This has resulted in a lot of confusing news coverage, including the suggestion taht President Trump has unilaterally decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capitol, which is quite incorrect.

Let's take a look at this mess a little more carefully to see where we're really at, if we can figure that out.

Israel itself has regarded Jerusalem as its capitol since its modern founding.

But you can't start there. And that's the entire problem.

Jerusalem is a really ancient city. The area was inhabited at least as far back as 7,000 years ago.  It comes into importance, however, in a significant way, as the City of David, from which the significant rulers of Israel in antiquity ruled.  We're not going to go into that much, but it was obviously a holy city to ancient Israel.  It was also one of the seats of the earliest Apostolic Bishops at the time dawn of the Christian Age, with  St. James, son of Alphaeus, being the first Catholic Bishop of the city (before I get some uninformed dispute on this, research it.  There's no doubt, he was the first Bishop of the Church in the City).  So, by the 1st Century, the city was not only a political capitol of the region but also a massively important religious site, none of which is news to anyone reading this.

During the period of Roman occupation the city was destroyed, specifically in the year 70. According to the Jewish historian Josephus the city "was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation".  If that's correct, it was sufficiently reoccupied to be destroyed at least twice more during the period of Roman occupation.  Of interest, the temple was destroyed in the 70 event which is one of the ways which the various books of the New Testament can be dated, as the event can be looked at in terms of whether it remained a prediction, or a historical event, at the time that the writing was authored.  If it remained a prediction, the writing can be assumed to predate the year 70, and therefore come within forty years of the Crucifixion.

Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 the Romans rebuilt the city and in fact renamed it Aelia Capitolina.  They actually prohibited Jews from entering the city upon pain of death, except for a single day each year.  During the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, who of course had converted to Catholicism, this was relaxed and Jewish Christians were allowed back into the city.  Burials from the 4th Century through the 5th show that the town was Catholic during this period.  During the 5th Century the town passed back and forth between Byzantine rule and Persian rule.

In 638 the city was conquered by Umar ibn al-Khattab who was a lieutenant of Muhammad.  The city, in fact, became a holy city to Islam as well as Muslims claim that Muhammad ascended into Heaven after a miraculous nighttime journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.  Interestingly, Muslims at first prayed facing the direction of Jerusalem. a custom almost certainly picked up from Christians and Jews, as early Christians prayed facing Jerusalem as did Jews in the diaspora.* Muslims were instructed to face Mecca some thirteen years later.  Following the initial Islamic conquest Jews were allowed back into the city for the first time since 132, thereby creating a notable historic irony that initially Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem were on good terms and the restoration of a Jewish presence in the city came about due to Islamic military success.

Following the conquering of the city by Islamic Arab armies the city began to decline in importance.  It had in this period a Christian, Jewish and Muslim population.  Indeed, the region of Palestine was heavily Christian and the Islamic kingdoms in the region made little effort to impact that in any fashion until the ascension of the Turks as a primary force of Islamic expansion.  As the Turks began to replace the Arabs in these regards, in the East, a change began to occur, in the East and the West wherein Islamic rulers became increasingly intolerant of other faiths.  In 1099 Christians were expelled from the city by the Islamic rulers of the region, an example of the conduct which gave rise to Christian military expeditions into the region which are now termed "The Crusades".  Given no such name at the time, they were originally an effort to protect Christian pilgrims in the region.  In 1099 Western Christian armies arrived and took Jerusalem, resulting in a major change in political direction and one of the great overblown myths of history.  Even though the sum total of all the dead from the Crusades does not equal a single day of heavy casualties during World War Two, the period custom of grossly over-exaggerating deaths gave rise to the famous claims of vast Crusader slaughter (blood up to the knees of horses) which are wildly exaggerated, which is not to say that loss of civilian life did not occur.

 Representation of the Crusader victory at Jerusalem in 1099.

This resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a misunderstood "Crusader Kingdom" which in fact represented the reestablishment of Christian rule to a largely Christian countryside, but with the introduction of European nobility.  As odd as that was, it largely worked and the existing Arab Catholic population worked well with the introduced Catholic nobility.

Struggle for the control of the city, and hence the kingdom, went back and forth between Christians and Muslims until 1244 when the city was conquered by the Tartars who slaughtered the Christians and drove out the Jews.  In 1247 they were in turn driven out by Islamic forces.  As of 1267, one notable figure found that the city, which had once numbered 200,000 inhabitants, was down to 2,000, of which only two families were Jewish and only 300 people were Christian.  The then minor city was mostly Muslim.

In 1517 the Ottoman Turks gained control of the city.  As I don't want to get into a long history of the Ottoman Empire, I'll only note that they ruled the city from 1517 until December 9, 1917, when the British entered it, as we noted here the other day.  During that period of time the population of the city recovered and it became one that had a majority Muslim population, but also an appreciable Jewish and Christian population. Christians were mostly represented by Catholic Arabs, which make up 20% of the Palestinian population even today, and Orthodox Christians that came in during the Ottoman period.  Armenian Christians actually started coming in during the 300s.

 Field Marshall Allenby approaching the Joffa Gate.

It was into this situation that the British stepped in 1917. Here, the British have to be admired in some ways for attempting not to play favorites.  But events would conspire against them.  With the introduction of a European power into the region, and one with a sense of fair play and equity, it was inevitably the case that the horrors of late 19th Century and early 20th Century Europe and Eurasia would begin to have an influence.  Faced with oppression everywhere, Palestine, and the United States, increasingly became the destination for immigration for Eastern European and Eurasian Jews, which the British could little anticipate or address.  Zionism, a political movement that sought to restore Palestine as a Jewish homeland, influenced the migration which was ongoing in any event.  As this occurred, the Jewish population began to rise, as it also did in Palestine in general.  A reversal of the early history of the city in which Jewish residents of Palestine were allied with Islamic Arabs occurred as the latter increasingly viewed the former as a political threat. World War Two, with its horrors, dramatically increased Jewish immigration and aspirations as the Jews themselves came to believe that they were not safe in particular in Europe, and not in general without a state.  The British, faced with irreconcilable aspirations on the part of its Jewish Palestinian charges, and its Arab Islamic ones, simply chose to leave, probably the best and only option under the circumstances.

The partition of Palestine, resulting in Israel on one hand and the Jordanian West Bank on the other, divided the city.  Israel, for its part, declared Jerusalem its capitol right from the onset, which had the practical impact of declaring a city that was in two different nations, Jordan and Israel, to be the capitol.  No nation could really acquiesce to that without playing favorites between one country, and religion, and the other, so nobody was bold enough to take sides in the matter, and no wonder.

Events would be forced in 1967 when Israel captured the city in the Six Day War.  That had the impact of unifying the city, but not happily.  For that matter, Israel occupied the entire West Bank and treated it for some time as its own.  Ultimately, however, Israel recognized the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, which incorporates that territory as part of its own, but which gives the Authority administrative control of the West Bank.  The Authority regards West Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, while stating that East Jerusalem shall be its capital.

Enter the United States Congress and the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which provides:

JERUSALEM EMBASSY ACT OF 1995

Public Law 104-45 104th Congress

An Act To provide for the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Each sovereign nation, under international law and custom, may designate its own capital.

(2) Since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State of Israel.
(3) The city of Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's President, Parliament, and Supreme Court,and the site of numerous government ministries and social and cultural institutions

(4) The city of Jerusalem is the spiritual center of Judaism, and is also considered a holy city by the members of other religious faiths.

(5) From 1948-1967, Jerusalem was a divided city and Israeli citizens of all faiths as well as Jewish citizens of all states were denied access to holy sites in the area controlled by Jordan.

(6) In 1967, the city of Jerusalem was reunited during the conflict known as the Six Day War.

(7) Since 1967, Jerusalem has been a united city administered by Israel, and persons of all religious faiths have been guaranteed full access to holy sites within the city.

(8) This year marks the 28th consecutive year that Jerusalem has been administered as a unified city in which the rights of all faiths have been respected and protected.

(9) In 1990, the Congress unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, which declares that the Congress ``strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected''.

(10) In 1992, the United States Senate and House of Representatives unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 113 of the One Hundred Second Congress to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, and reaffirming congressional sentiment that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.

(11) The September 13, 1993, Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements lays out a timetable for the resolution of ``final status'' issues, including Jerusalem.

(12) The Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area was signed May 4, 1994, beginning the five-year transitional period laid out in the Declaration of Principles.

(13) In March of 1995, 93 members of the United States Senate signed a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher encouraging ``planning to begin now'' for relocation of the United States Embassy to the city of Jerusalem.

(14) In June of 1993, 257 members of the United States House of Representatives signed a letter to the Secretary of State Warren Christopher stating that the relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem ``should take place no later than . . . 1999''.

(15) The United States maintains its embassy in the functioning capital of every country except in the case of our democratic friend and strategic ally, the State of Israel.

(16) The United States conducts official meetings and other business in the city of Jerusalem in de facto recognition of its status as the capital of Israel.

(17) In 1996, the State of Israel will celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem since King David's entry. SEC. 3. TIMETABLE. (a) Statement of the Policy of the United States.-- (1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected; (2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and (3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. (b) <> Opening Determination.--Not more than 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the Department of State for fiscal year 1999 for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' may be obligated until the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the United States Embassy in Jerusalem has officially opened.

SEC. 4. FISCAL YEARS 1996 AND 1997 FUNDING.

(a) Fiscal Year 1996.--Of the funds authorized to be appropriated for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' for the Department of State in fiscal year 1996, not less than $25,000,000 should be made available until expended only for construction and other costs associated with the establishment of the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

(b) Fiscal Year 1997.--Of the funds authorized to be appropriated for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' for the Department of State in fiscal year 1997, not less than $75,000,000 should be made available until expended only for construction and other costs associated with the establishment of the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

SEC. 5. REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION.

Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit a report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate detailing the Department of State's plan to implement this Act. Such report shall include--

(1) estimated dates of completion for each phase of the establishment of the United States Embassy, including site identification, land acquisition, architectural, engineering and construction surveys, site preparation, and construction; and

(2) an estimate of the funding necessary to implement this Act, including all costs associated with establishing the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

SEC. 6. SEMIANNUAL REPORTS. At the time of the submission of the President's fiscal year 1997 budget request, and every six months thereafter, the Secretary of State shall report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate on the progress made toward opening the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

SEC. 7. PRESIDENTIAL WAIVER.

(a) Waiver Authority.--

(1) Beginning on October1, 1998, the President may suspend the limitation set forth in section 3(b) for a period of six months if he determines and reports to Congress in advance that such suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.

(2) The President may suspend such limitation for an additional six month period at the end of any period during which the suspension is in effect under this subsection if the President determines and reports to Congress in advance of the additional suspension that the additional suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.

(3) A report under paragraph (1) or (2) shall include--

(A) a statement of the interests affected by the limitation that the President seeks to suspend; and

(B) a discussion of the manner in which the limitation affects the interests.

(b) Applicability of Waiver to Availability of Funds.

If the President exercises the authority set forth in subsection (a) in a fiscal year, the limitation set forth in section 3(b) shall apply to funds appropriated in the following fiscal year for the purpose set forth in such section 3(b) except to the extent that the limitation is suspended in such following fiscal year by reason of the exercise of the authority in subsection (a).

SEC. 8. DEFINITION.

As used in this Act, the term ``United States Embassy'' means the offices of the United States diplomatic mission and the residence of the United States chief of mission.

[Note by the Office of the Federal Register: The foregoing Act, having been presented to the President of the United States on Thursday, October 26, 1995, and not having been returned by him to the House of Congress in which it originated within the time prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, has become law without his signature on November 8, 1995.]

This was, a bad idea.

Right now its widely believed that Donald Trump "recognized" Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel.  In reality, it was Congress that did this 1995.

And when I mean Congress, I mean Congress.  This bill passed into law with out the President's signature.  Bill Clinton was the President at the time.

This raises the question of why would Congress have done this?  And that has to do with politics.

A lot of the reason that this passed may in fact be because Bill Clinton was President.

Let us take a look at that.

It is not possible to recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel without making a lot of people mad. We are well aware of this. We commonly hear that the city is "holy to three major religions".  It is, but it's a lot more complicated than even that.  The city is obviously holy to Jews, and so identified with their history that it is not really possible to conceive of a government of Israel really wishing to share the city with any other group politically.

It is also obviously holy to Muslims in a way that they cannot be expected to simply ignore.

And the city is holy to Christians, but not to all Christians in the same fashion.  It is obviously an important city for to all Christians because of what happened there during Christ's time on Earth.  It's additionally important to all Apostolic Christians and those Protestant Christians who closely identify with the Apostolic Churches as it was an Apostolic seat and it has had a presence on the part of Apostolic Christians from the very beginning.  Indeed, they have the second longest presence in the city next to Jews.

However, it's become important to some fundamentalist American Protestants who associate restoring Israel's rule to the city with the End Times, which they seek to hasten. That is something that Apostolic Christians largely miss and which Jews find to be rather uncomfortable.

And all of this has a role in American politics.

The United States has been uniquely friendly to Israel since its founding in a way that no other nation has been. In no small part this is due to the United States being uniquely friendly to refugees and immigrants to a degree no other nation has been which has meant that it has a large Jewish population that stems from European immigration.  Indeed, the United States has received more Jewish immigration than Israel has.  Given this, the US has been uniquely supportive of Israel.  If you look at the issue of Jerusalem, for example, even Norway is opposed to Jerusalem being Israel's capitol  We're pretty unique in these regards.  Right now, only the Philippines seems slated to follow us, and given their leadership, that really can't be taken as a great sign.

Anyhow, there's no way to move an embassy from Tel Aviv without sending a message you probably don't really want to send unless that message is that you wholeheartedly take Israel's position in this.  But do we,  and should we?

FWIW, in pondering this I came up with an idea I thought was original, but it turns out not to be.  It won't happen, however.  I'd make Jerusalem a self governing city.  That's the position, as it turns out, of the Vatican and at least a few other countries.  It's also the position of at least the Armenian population of the city, it seems.

About any other result ends up favoring one culture and one religion over another. And that doesn't seem to be recipe for resolution.

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*This is really entering dangerous territory but this custom was almost certainly adopted from Christians and Jews, with whom Muhammad was very familiar and had been influenced by.  To get into this in greater depth would require an exploration of the history of Islam which will have to wait for some future thread, assuming that we post on it ever.