Each year, in the month of December, around the time Jews celebrate their meaningful Chanukah holiday, a holiday that signifies heroism and fighting for what one believes, light and much hope, the organization StandWithUs, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, holds the annual Festival of Lights Gala.
As each year, at this year 2017 gala, – emceed by Elon Gold, honorees Dina & Fred Leeds and Rosana & Alon Miller and Kfir Itzhaki, Krav Maga expert, guest speaker, Yahya Mahamid, and keynote speaker, Ambassador Dore Gold – over 1000 people gathered in the Beverly Hilton Hotel to show their support for this organization.
SWU not only partners with many other organizations in order to stand together strong, against bigotry and discrimination, it also acts as the front line teacher, teaching students the facts and truth about Jews and the state of Israel. It is also the front line warrior against Antisemitism displayed rampantly on campuses around the world.
Jerusalem
Mr. Dore Gold’s speech subject was Jerusalem and his expertise is most valuable when delivering words on the subject. The reason is that he held an impressive diplomatic record and has been in the field on behalf of Israel for decades. He served in various positions under several Israeli governments and was an adviser to the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office. In May 2015, Prime Minister Netanyahu named Mr. Gold the Director-General of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In a Q@A session with attorney Barak Lurie, Mr. Dore stated that President Trump’s announcement of the ancient fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel – as it was since ancient times and is the capital of the modern state of Israel today – and his plan to move the USA embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is not a matter of real estate transaction.
Apparently, the global and Arab position on Israel and Jerusalem goes back to UN resolution 181, adopted by the United Nations on November 29, 1947. It is UN General Assembly / United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate with Jerusalem Corpus Separatum, a term used to describe the Jerusalem area, according to which the city would be placed under an international regime, conferring it a special status due to its shared religious importance.
The Jews accepted UN resolution 181, the Arabs rejected it, an ongoing rejection mode according to which they have been acting when it comes to issues they have with Israel. And these actors’ list of issues never ends, it always grows.
However, in 1949, Mr. David Ben Gurion, then Israel Prime Minister, declared that the clause on Jerusalem, buried in UN resolution 181, is no longer valid and he went ahead to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
One reason Ben Gurion declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel was that during Israel’s War of Independence, Jerusalem was under siege and the Jordanian Legion cut the water supply to the city. Israel will not allow this to happen again and take a chance with Arabs, their word and actions were not to be trusted.
One other very important reason to keep Jerusalem under the watchful eyes of the Jews, is the display of disrespect to Jewish holy sites the Arabs showed during Jordan’s 19-year illegal occupation of the old part of the city, mistakenly referred to as ‘east Jerusalem.’ During the Jordanian illegal occupation of that part of Jerusalem, they destroyed and desecrated 55 synagogues and Jewish study institutes that were in the Jewish quarter of the [old part of] city for hundreds of years.
And what did the UN do about it? NOTHING!
Ben Gurion was well aware of this behavior.
The fact is that Moslems cannot be left to protect holy sites of any religion. We witnessed looting and destruction in Iraq, what ISIS did in Iraq and Syria, and how the Taliban destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. Moslems destroyed important historic and holy sites without any consideration to their historic and religious value.
From time to time the international community, Arabs and their cohorts alike, as it serves their end goal, their hostility to Israel, refer to UN resolution 181 and demand the division of Jerusalem. With his announcement, President Trump buried UN resolution 181’s Jerusalem clause, exactly what Ben Gurion did when he buried it in 1949. Hopefully the idea of Corpus Separatum Jerusalem will be now buried for eternity.
In life you have to do the right thing, and President Trump did the right thing, what his predecessors promised to do and did not.
And with his announcement, President Trump gave the Jewish people the 9th Chanukah candle, the one candle that will shine that extra bright light on the capital of Israel, Jerusalem.
StandWithUs gave Jerusalem its own light of a 9th candle.
