Imagine! Jews Claiming Jerusalem!

Horror of horrors, Israel is laying claim to Jerusalem as its capital. They made it their capital three thousand years ago, but that’s irrelevant. Nineteen hundred years ago, when they revolted against the Roman government that had proscribed their religion and destroyed their temple, they were slaughtered and driven out of the city.
From AD 135 to the end of Roman rule over Judea (around AD 700), it was officially illegal for a Jew to set foot in his own capital city, the center of his religious observances. The Muslim conquerors allowed them to sneak back into the city in a little quarter of their own.
For over 1,200 years, observant Jews prayed that next year’s Passover would be held in Jerusalem—whether they were in Poland, Spain, North Africa, New York or Zimbabwe. It was a foundation of their faith—that one day David’s City and Solomon’s Temple would be theirs again.
In 1948, the United Nations granted Jews—who had moved back into a Galilee and Judea that had been denuded of its vegetation and largely abandoned by its Muslim overlords—a tiny sliver of those two ancient Jewish provinces.
But now that the Jewish settlers had found water and made the land productive again, the Arabs wanted the land back. Five armies attacked the infant Jewish state the day it was born. To everyone’s astonishment the Jews fought back—and won.
They even enlarged their territory. But they failed to take Jerusalem away from Jordan’s British trained and commanded Arab Legion. Eight years after firing the British commander of the Legion, Jordan made the foolish mistake of declaring war on Israel.
This time, without British command, the Jordanian troops were chopped to pieces and for the first time since AD 135, the Jews had their capital back. THIS year, Jerusalem. But the United Nations refused to recognize Israel’s right to the ancient capital it had so unjustly been stripped of.
Jordan gave up all claim to the city and handed its pretensions to a new entity called the Palestine (a rename for Israel foisted on it by the vengeful Romans in AD 135) Liberation Organization. The leader of that group—the nephew of one of Hitler’s top SS commanders—declared that Jerusalem was to be the capital of his new state.
The United Nations agreed. The European Union agreed. There is pressure on the United States to agree. (No one is suggesting that Paris be stripped from France and handed over to its Muslim suburbs as their capital—or London from England.)
An international consensus is building that under no circumstances are the Jews in Israel to be allowed to have their ancient capital as a permanent possession. The European Union is on the verge of recognizing Jerusalem as the official capital of the Arab state of Palestine.
So the Jews are inducing Arab inhabitants of the old city—who, after all, have no claim on the city older than thirteen hundred years—to leave, so that it becomes a Jewish City. This is viewed with horror by Europeans and many Americans.
Why don’t they make a sympathetic gesture toward Israel by, say, giving up Stockholm or Washington? They could show Israel the proper way to do it. For myself, I rather favor allowing the Jews to hang on to their ancient city.
After all, they’ve been worshipping at Jerusalem (Salem) since the days of Abraham, before there were any Arabs.