Russia recognizes West Jerusalem as Israel's capital in a surprise statement

[Nahash]

[URL="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Jpost-Exclusive-Moscow-surprisingly-says-west-Jerusalem-is-Israels-capital-486336"]http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Jpost-Exclusive-Moscow-surprisingly-says-west-Jerusalem-is-Israels-capital-486336[/URL]

[QUOTE]Russia recognizes west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated in a surprise announcement on Thursday, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post.

The announcement comes as US President Donald Trump's administration is agonizing over whether to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would constitute recognizing west Jerusalem as the country's capital. No other country in the world recognizes any part of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry reads, “We reaffirm our commitment to the UN-approved principles for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which include the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. At the same time, we must state that in this context we view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

This is a sharp shift in Russian policy, which until now has formally held that Jerusalem should eventually be under a permanent international regime. The statement appears in English on the Russian Foreign Ministry's Russian web site.[/QUOTE]

[Bradyns]

This just comes across as a run-of-the-mill diplomatic retort.

[Bertie]

I wonder if this will encourage Trump to follow suit. Jerusalem will never be international as long as Israel stands.

[Sims_doc]

I always thought that Israel and Palestine was more of an internal conflict like the American civil war with the Union and Confederates and in this case Israel is winning the civil war, however I've never understood why outside countries get involved in a purely internal conflict.

[PsychedelicLiz]

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52071023]I always thought that Israel and Palestine was more of an internal conflict like the American civil war with the Union and Confederates and in this case Israel is winning the civil war, however I've never understood why outside countries get involved in a purely internal conflict.[/QUOTE]

More or less for the fuck of it since the age of mass communication began.

[Sims_doc]

Well? Why wasn't it a front during the cold war?

[EmperorScorpious]

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52071119]Well? Why wasn't it a front during the cold war?[/QUOTE]

Because no one cared about the Palestinians during then. It was more about the nations already existing that the US and USSR cared about.

The US had Israel and Turkey, while the USSR had Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

Plus the Middle East had its own mini cold war between monarchies and nationalists, with Saudi Arabia and Jordan vs Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

Hell, when all the Arab nations invaded Israel in 1948 when Israel declared its independence, they did so as a land grab for themselves, not to liberate or give the Palestinians independence. Even today, many Palestinians are denied work or citizenship in Arab nations they have lived their entire lives. The West Bank was Jordan's for a few decades, then Israel took it over in 1967. When they took it, it was perceived as land taken from Jordan, not Palestine. That concept took a few more decades to develop, until you hit the late 80s/90s where the Arab states began making peace with Israel and stop caring about the land for themselves. When Arab states stopped wanting the land, the only other claimant left were the Palestinians themselves.