John Lyons is an award winning journalist in Australia who has recently written a book about Israel. The book is apparently an anti-Israel hatchet job.
He tweeted this:
LIVING IN JERUSALEM for 6 years taught me the importance of the city. For 70 years, every President of both sides refused to move the US embassy there as that would kill any 2-state solution. For 70 years, every Australian PM refused such demands. Then along came Donald Trump...— John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) October 16, 2018
How many wrong assumptions can be in one tweet?
"For 70 years, every President of both sides refused to move the US embassy there as that would kill any 2-state solution."
The reasons that the US didn't move the embassy has had little to do with the two state solution before Oslo. Until then, it was because of the legal fiction that Jerusalem should be a "corpus separatum" as the UN insisted, even though there is no legal basis for that. Then, when Israel declared sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, the UN Security Council passed a biased resolution saying that no country can put an embassy or diplomatic post in Jerusalem for Israel (they could serve Arabs, though.)
We're not done with that sentence. Because there is no logical reason why a two-state solution is dependent on where the US puts its embassy. Over 170 nations somehow manage to exist without Jerusalem being their capital; why can't "Palestine" be one more? What exactly is the dependency?
It doesn't exist.
But wait, there's more. To blame the lack of a two state solution on the US Embassy move is ridiculous. Embassies can be in the western part of the city that everyone agrees is Israeli. How can they impede peace?
In fact, the Palestinians have been offered a state. Multiple times. They rejected it. Multiple times. Isn't that a more reasonable explanation for no two state solution than the location of an embassy?
Palestinians are the ones who blew up the Oslo process, quite literally. After rejecting the Clinton parameters they chose terror instead. This isn't ancient history. They abrogated the Oslo agreement where they claimed to abandon terror.
I made a pithy tweet for those who always blame Israel for lack of peace:
I made a pithy tweet for those who always blame Israel for lack of peace:
Since everyone is sure that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital dooms peace, please explain why there is no peace now.— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) October 16, 2018
Since everyone is sure that
"occupation" dooms peace, please explain where peace was before 1967.
And explain why there was no peace before 1948, too.
Lyons' statement seems like it makes sense on the surface - but that is only because of decades of reporters and journalists who simply refuse to report the facts in context. The world has been brainwashed by hacks like Lyons.
There is an underlying racism there as well. Palestinian Arabs are not expected to make peace; only Israeli Jews must keep trying. Even in the face of terror. Even in the face of peace plans being rejected. The Jews simply must try harder!
Jerusalem is Israel's capital. No one can deny that. Pretending otherwise does not bring peace - on the contrary, it gives Palestinians more reasons to be even more intransigent.
If journalists like Lyons really cared about peace, they would do their jobs and report the actual reasons there isn't peace today, not these fictional narratives about the location of third-country embassies.