This is a quote by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian about Trump’s Jerusalem statement. A warning about an immense stupidity that’s going to happen. He writes more about the utter folly:
But here comes Trump, oblivious to precedent and indeed history – even in a place where history is a matter of life and death – stomping through this delicate thicket, trampling over every sensitivity. The risk is obvious, with every Arab government – including those loyal to Washington – now issuing sharp warnings on the perils of this move, almost all of them using the same word: “dangerous”.
And Freedland is right. How can any (sane) government be so shortsighted, so blind to facts and religious feelings (save their own)? Obviously there is no counterweight in the fractured political system in the ‘United’ States of America. All parties are complicit and have (internal) factions arguing about it someway or another.
How incendiary is that statement going to be? I don’t know, but my gut feeling is bad, really unforeseeable bad. Like Freedland states, speeches/symbols matter and Mr T. is going to screw the world:
But that is to forget that in the Israel-Palestine conflict, symbols matter. Which is why other world leaders, and senior US politicians, need to close ranks in saying this act is wrong and does not speak for them. They need to signal that a saner policy might prevail once Trump has gone. The trouble is that by then, given the way violence in that region can spread and escalate, it might be too late.