{"id":111482,"date":"2018-05-21T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T11:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=111482"},"modified":"2018-05-17T17:38:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T16:38:26","slug":"a-grotesque-spectacle-in-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/05\/a-grotesque-spectacle-in-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"A Grotesque Spectacle in Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 May 2018 – <\/em>Today, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and other leading lights of the Trumpist right gathered in Israel to celebrate the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem, a gesture widely seen as a slap in the face to Palestinians who envision East Jerusalem as their future capital.<\/p>\n

The event was grotesque. It was a consummation of the cynical alliance between hawkish Jews and Zionist evangelicals who believe that the return of Jews to Israel will usher in the apocalypse and the return of Christ, after which Jews who don\u2019t convert will burn forever.<\/p>\n

\"\"


\"\" Jared Kushner delivered a speech during the opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the same day that Palestinian protesters were met by tear gas and gunshots along Israel’s border with Gaza.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa\/Reuters (Gaza); Menahem Kahana\/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images (Kushner)<\/p><\/div>\n

Religions like \u201cMormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism\u201d lead people \u201cto an eternity of separation from God in Hell,\u201d Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor, once said. He was chosen to give the opening prayer at the embassy ceremony. John Hagee, one of America\u2019s most prominent end-times preachers, once said that Hitler was sent by God<\/a> to drive the Jews to their ancestral homeland. He gave the closing benediction.<\/p>\n

This spectacle, geared toward Donald Trump\u2019s Christian American base, coincided with a massacre about 40 miles away. Since March 30, there have been mass protests at the fence separating Gaza and Israel. Gazans, facing an escalating humanitarian crisis<\/a> due in large part to an Israeli blockade, are demanding the right to return to homes in Israel that their families were forced from at Israel\u2019s founding. The demonstrators have been mostly but not entirely peaceful; Gazans have thrown rocks at Israeli soldiers and tried to fly flaming kites into Israel. The Israeli military has responded with live gunfire as well as rubber bullets and tear gas. In clashes on Monday, at least 58 Palestinians were killed and thousands wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.<\/p>\n

The juxtaposition of images of dead and wounded Palestinians and Ivanka Trump smiling in Jerusalem like a Zionist Marie Antoinette tell us a lot about America\u2019s relationship to Israel right now. It has never been closer, but within that closeness there are seeds of potential estrangement.<\/p>\n

Defenders of Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza will argue no country would allow a mob to charge its border. They will say that even if Hamas didn\u2019t call the protests, it has thrown its support behind them. \u201cThe responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas,\u201d a White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said on Monday.<\/p>\n

But even if you completely dismiss the Palestinian right of return \u2014 which I find harder to do now that Israel\u2019s leadership has all but abandoned the possibility of a Palestinian state \u2014 it hardly excuses the Israeli military\u2019s disproportionate violence. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is that Israel has used, yet again, excessive and lethal force against protesters who do not pose an imminent threat,\u201d Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International\u2019s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, told me by phone from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Much of the world condemned the killings in Gaza. Yet the United States, Israel\u2019s most important patron, has given it a free hand to do with the Palestinians what it will. Indeed, by moving the embassy to Jerusalem in the first place, Trump sent the implicit message that the American government has given up any pretense of neutrality.<\/p>\n

Reports of Israel\u2019s gratitude to Trump abound. A square near the embassy is being renamed in his honor<\/a>. Beitar Jerusalem, a soccer team whose fans are notorious for their racism, is now calling itself Beitar \u201cTrump\u201d Jerusalem. But if Israelis love Trump, many Americans \u2014 and certainly most American Jews \u2014 do not. The more Trumpism and Israel are intertwined, the more left-leaning Americans will grow alienated from Zionism.<\/p>\n

Even before Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped open a partisan divide on Israel in American politics, where previously there had been stultifying unanimity. \u201cUntil these past few years, you\u2019d never heard the word \u2018occupation\u2019 or \u2018settlements\u2019 or talk about Gaza,\u201d Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, said of American politicians. But Ben-Ami told me that since 2015, when Netanyahu tried to undercut President Barack Obama with a controversial address to Congress opposing the Iran deal, Democrats have felt more emboldened. \u201cThat changed the calculus forever,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

The events of Monday may have changed it further, and things could get worse still. Tuesday is Nakba Day, when Palestinians commemorate their dispossession, and the protests at the fence are expected to be even larger. \u201cPeople don\u2019t feel like they can stay at home after loved ones and neighbors have been killed for peacefully protesting for their rights,\u201d Abdulrahman Abunahel, a Gaza-based activist with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, told me via email.<\/p>\n

Trump has empowered what\u2019s worst in Israel, and as long as he is president, it may be that Israel can kill Palestinians, demolish their homes<\/a> and appropriate their land with impunity. But some day, Trump will be gone. With hope for a two-state solution nearly dead, current trends suggest that a Jewish minority will come to rule over a largely disenfranchised Muslim majority in all the land under Israel\u2019s control. A rising generation of Americans may see an apartheid state with a Trump Square in its capital and wonder why it\u2019s supposed to be our friend.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Michelle Goldberg became an Op-Ed columnist for <\/em>The New York Times in 2017. She is the author of three books: <\/em>Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, and<\/em> The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West. Her first book was a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, and her second won the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize and the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award.<\/em><\/p>\n

A version of this article appears in print on May 15, 2018, on Page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: A Grotesque Spectacle In Jerusalem.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the<\/em><\/strong> BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em><\/strong>campaign<\/em><\/strong> <\/span>to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 May 2018 – Religions like \u201cMormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism\u201d lead people \u201cto an eternity of separation from God in Hell,\u201d Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor, once said. He was chosen to give the opening prayer at the embassy ceremony. John Hagee, one of America\u2019s most prominent end-times preachers, once said that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to their ancestral homeland. He gave the closing benediction. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner celebrated the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem. The event was grotesque. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":111484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}