Most of the reaction to President Trump’s historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was predictable. But criticism from some Democrats was flat-out hypocritical.
That’s because many of those now bashing the move, which includes relocating the US Embassy from Tel Aviv, enthusiastically supported it when they felt sure it wouldn’t actually happen.
Such self-professed friends of Israel as Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) all criticized Trump’s decision.
Yet DiFi and Durbin voted for the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act, which mandates the embassy’s move to Israel’s “undivided capital” and passed, 93-5. And all three voted for its unanimous Senate reaffirmation this past June.
(Another critic, New Jersey’s Sen. Cory Booker, co-sponsored this year’s measure, while failing to actually vote on it. Then again, he has abandoned Israel regularly of late.)
For two decades, nearly every presidential nominee of either party has declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s undivided capital and supported moving the embassy. Some even attacked rival candidates for balking, only to do so themselves after taking office.
So credit Trump with calling everyone’s bluff by being the first to keep that promise, leaving Democrats to ignore reality and instead pander to their party’s increasingly anti-Israel, hard-left base.
One honorable exception: New York’s Chuck Schumer, who’d called on Trump to “show the world that the US definitively acknowledges Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
His colleagues, though, stand exposed as hypocrites who talk out of both sides of their mouths on siding with Israel.
Trump not only affirmed the reality of Jerusalem’s status but also (as John Podhoretz notes) the new reality of a rapidly realigning Middle East in which a threatening Iran is the top priority.
Most important, it destroys any illusion by Palestinians and their allies that Israel will let itself be evicted from its capital.
Democrats claimed to recognize these realities. But it’s clear too many remain stuck to failed policies, hard-left extremism — and hypocritical double-talk.