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The uproar in the wake of President Trump’s speech on Jerusalem was as widespread as it was predictable. During a brief speech in the White House — with a Christmas tree and a mute Vice President Pence as the backdrop — Trump announced his decision to formally recognize the holy city as Israel’s capital, as well as a plan to eventually move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.
As we explained yesterday, Trump did so in the face of almost-unanimous opposition from the international community. For the second time in two weeks, he received a stern rebuke from the British prime minister; Pope Francis expressed his “deep concern” over any move that disrupts the “status quo” of the city; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the whole thing was a “red line” for Muslims and threatened to cut diplomatic ties with Israel.
Figures as diverse as the French president, the Saudi king and the Iranian supreme leader reproached Trump for taking a decision that all believe imperils the prospects for a two-state solution. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose political career has hinged on being the main Arab interlocutor in the U.S.-backed peace process, said Trump’s speech marked “a declaration of withdrawal” by the United States from its role as a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians.
The only world leader who seemed pleased was exactly the one you would have guessed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu said it was “a historic day. … Jerusalem has been the focus of our hopes, our dreams, our prayers for three millennia. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.” The city’s authorities beamed a joint image of the Israeli and U.S. flags on the Old City’s ramparts.
In his remarks, the president hailed Jerusalem as “the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times” and said it was time to take “a new approach” to a conflict that has no resolution in sight.
The irony here is that, no matter the claims to age-old right that accompany the debate over Jerusalem, the current dispute is profoundly modern. An earlier generation of secular Zionists was disinterested in the holy city, an abode of myriad sects and zealots, and focused on building Tel Aviv and other modern visions of the new Israeli state. But that changed over decades of war.
“The Arab-Jewish conflict escalated into a nationalistic conflict, with Jerusalem at its center,” said Yehoshua Ben-Arieh of Hebrew University to the New York Times. “Jerusalem was a city holy to three religions, but the moment that, in the land of Israel, two nations grew — the Jewish people and the local Arab people — both embraced Jerusalem. More than Jerusalem needed them, they needed Jerusalem.”
No matter the age of the claim, however, it seems that Trump will allow only Israel to make it. At no point in his speech did he acknowledge majority-Arab East Jerusalem, which Israeli troops occupied in 1967 and which Palestinians view as the seat of their future state. And while he did not disavow American support for the two-state solution, Trump offered nothing like full-throated backing, saying he would support any solution “if agreed to by both sides.” Ultimately, many experts concluded, the speech gave the right-wing Israeli government something it has long sought — and offered Palestinians nothing.
Beyond the many concerns that surround the sudden change in long-standing U.S. policy — not the least of which is a potential surge of violence — there’s a glaring question: Why do this now? Trump, ever keen to be a disrupter, argued that the methods of the past need to be jettisoned to achieve a lasting peace deal, though it’s hard to see how this particular defenestration will help. Some observers suggest instead that Trump was creating a distraction from his encroaching domestic controversies.
But perhaps the simplest explanation is an ideological one: Trump’s delivery on his campaign promise was greeted with glee by the right-wing pro-Israel lobby in Washington — but even more so by powerful American evangelicals, who see Israel’s supremacy over the holy city as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Numbering in the tens of millions, they are a significant constituency. In July, Netanyahu told an audience in Washington that “we have no greater friends than Christian supporters of Israel” — in part an implicit recognition of declining support among American Jews for his government’s policies. And while it may be easy to be cynical about Trump’s claims to religiosity, the same can’t be said for Pence, a darling of the evangelical movement. His presence during Trump’s speech was a clear nod to evangelical sentiment.
“Like Judaism, Christianity believes that the Messiah will one day sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem,” wrote American evangelical activist Laurie Cardozo-Moore in Israeli daily Haaretz. “It is one more step in reversing the policies of the four previous administrations before [Trump]. The Judeo-Christian United States of America can once again say, ‘Israel — We’ve got your back’!”
The invocation of the “Judeo-Christian” United States happens to be a consistent theme for Trump. “We don’t worship government, we worship God,” Trump declared in a speech in October. Grousing about a phantom “war on Christmas,” he later added: “We are stopping all our attacks on Judeo-Christian values.”
President Trump, with Vice President Pence looking on, signed an order Dec. 6, 2017, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and launching preparations to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency-EFE)
But the term has an even deeper potency for Trump. The president built his platform on a loaded tribalism that explicitly rejects any belief in “universal values” and, at various stages, is articulated in soaring defenses of blood-and-soil nationalism and Western identity. For Trump, harping on “Judeo-Christian” values is less about actual religious belief and more about his own brand of divisive politics, which has seen him repeatedly demonize Islam and Muslims.
Trump is surely aware of how sensitive the question of Jerusalem’s status is; his decision to press ahead with the recognition and relocation suggests he may be inviting the chaos that may follow.
“Religious conflicts, like racial and ethnic ones, are critical to Trump’s appeal. He needs Mexican-Americans to rape and murder white girls. He needs African-American athletes to ‘disrespect the flag.’ And he needs Muslims to explode bombs and burn American flags,” the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart wrote. “The more threatening non-white, non-Christians appear, both at home and abroad, the more his supporters rely on him to keep the barbarians down and out. If Trump has to invent these dangers, he will. In the case of Jerusalem, however, he can go further: He can help create them.”
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Facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) resigned as Congress’s longest-serving member Tuesday, becoming the first lawmaker to step down as Capitol Hill grapples with allegations of inappropriate behavior by lawmakers.
Conyers, who represented the Detroit area for 52 years, yielded to mounting pressure from Democratic leaders to step aside as a growing number of female former aides accused him of unwanted advances and mistreatment. He has denied wrongdoing.
From a hospital in Detroit, the 88-year-old congressman said he was “putting his retirement plans together” and endorsed his son John Conyers III to replace him. Another Conyers family member has already declared his intention to run for the seat, raising the specter of an intrafamily contest.
Asked about the harassment allegations, Conyers said his legacy “can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now.”
“This, too, shall pass,” Conyers told a local radio station in an interview. “My legacy will continue through my children.”
Conyers’s accusers described sexual advances and inappropriate remarks
Conyers’s abrupt departure marks the end of a career that spanned the Watergate hearings, impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and the debate over a national health-care system. Conyers influenced debates over each issue as a member and, eventually, as chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. He recently stepped aside as the panel’s ranking Democrat.
Conyers is hospitalized for what his lawyer has described as a stress-related illness. His family has not provided further details.
Described by supporters as an icon of liberal policymaking, Conyers was revered on Capitol Hill as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. The group declined last week to call for his resignation, pitting its members against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said that he must leave Congress.
Conyers’s resignation comes as his colleagues grapple with how to address the growing public outcry over sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, which some female lawmakers and aides have described as rampant. Disclosure of a $27,000 settlement Conyers reached with a former employee intensified scrutiny of Congress for its secretive system of settling harassment complains.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is facing multiple allegations of inappropriate touching. He has apologized, and he suggested in a recent statement that any unwanted touching was not intentional.
Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) said Monday that he would reimburse taxpayers after it was revealed that he used $84,000 in public funds to settle a sexual harassment complaint. He has denied wrongdoing.
And Pelosi called on Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.) to resign after his former finance director alleged that he made unwanted advances toward her on the campaign trail. Kihuen, who has not denied the allegations, apologized for any comments or actions that made the staffer “uncomfortable.”
In a statement Tuesday, Pelosi said Conyers’s accusers “were owed the justice” of his resignation. She called for the House to approve legislation reforming the system for filing and settling workplace complaints on Capitol Hill.
“Congressman Conyers has served in the Congress for more than five decades, and shaped some of the most consequential legislation of the last half century. But no matter how great the legacy, it is no license to harass or discriminate,” she stated.
John Conyers could be replaced by his son — who has his dad’s name but not his political resume
Now that Conyers has resigned, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) will call a special election to replace him that could pit two Conyers family members against each other.
The grandson of Conyers’s brother indicated Tuesday that he plans to run. Ian Conyers, a Michigan state senator, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: “I look forward to our local and national media taking a thorough look at all candidates to replace my uncle @RepJohnConyers.”
He did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Less is known about John Conyers III, the retired congressman’s preferred successor and his son with former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers. A writer and aspiring rapper, he is described as a “partner at Detroit’s first minority run hedge fund” and a “seasoned multi-discipline consultant” on his contributor page at the HuffPost.
He has defended his father in several media interviews as more women emerged to accuse Conyers of misconduct.
“It’s disconcerting to me to see the way my father is being treated after he’s given so much to this country — not just for black people but for people alike. He fights for everyone,” John Conyers III told local reporters last week.
Snyder’s office confirmed that it received Conyers’s official letter of resignation and now can begin reviewing possible election dates.
Outside the Conyers home, longtime Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle said it is not clear that either John Conyers III or Ian Conyers will win the seat.
“We are on the verge of the biggest free-for-all politically you’ve ever seen in Detroit,” Riddle said at a news conference. “There should not be an automatic ascension to that congressional seat because your last name is Conyers.”
Franken faces pressure to quit as Democrats demand ‘zero tolerance’ for sexual misconduct
Black activists continued to defend Conyers, arguing that “white hypocrites and phony liberals” found it easier to call for his resignation than Franken’s because Conyers is African American.
“You’re going to catch pure hell, Democratic Party, getting out the vote in Detroit,” Riddle said.
Conyers’s legacy was a complicating factor for his colleagues as they weighed their responses to the misconduct allegations.
In 1964, when he won his first term, Conyers was one of just five black members of Congress. He hired Rosa Parks, who served on his staff until her retirement in 1988, and backed the major planks of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” program, including the Voting Rights Act.
In April 1968, four days after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Conyers introduced the first bill proposing a holiday in honor of the civil rights icon. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he made a successful push for impeachment proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon.
In recent years, Conyers lent his name and clout to several progressive bills, not least the Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act. In 2017, a majority of Democrats — for the first time — co-sponsored the measure, putting them on the record for universal health care.
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a longtime co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, said the Conyers-backed bills — which had no chance of passage in this Congress — would be adopted by other members. “People can pick up the load,” he said.
Leading Democrats call for Nevada congressman to resign amid harassment allegations
In and out of the House majority, Conyers established himself as a fierce critic of Republican policies. During the George W. Bush administration, he held unofficial hearings to challenge the results of the 2004 election and to investigate whether the Iraq War had been launched under false pretenses.
While in Congress, Conyers ran twice for mayor of Detroit, but lost both bids in the Democratic primary. He had more success on Capitol Hill, where he took over as chairman of the House Oversight Committee in 1989. Six years later, he became the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, a role he held until late last month.
Conyers’s decision to step aside comes as Congress struggles to explain its secretive process for investigating and settling claims about sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct.
Under a system created more than 20 years ago, victims must undergo counseling and mediation before they can pursue legal action against members who mistreat them. Settlements are paid out of a special Treasury Department fund, designated for the purpose, or out of members’ office budgets.
Conyers paid a former employee in 2015 out of his own budget after she made a sexual harassment complaint, listing the payment as severance, according to House payroll records. He has denied wrongdoing in the case.
“We take these in stride,” he said Tuesday of the harassment accusations. “This goes with the issue of politics, the game of politics which we’re in.”
A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to Conyers as the first African American congressman to represent Detroit. It was Charles Diggs.
Mike DeBonis in Washington and Steve Friess in Detroit contributed to this report.
Read more at PowerPost
