Jerusalem is factually the capital of Israel

To say that the city of Jerusalem, the entire Land of Israel, has a contentious history would be a colossal understatement. Doing justice to the entire history of this land in the Southern Levant in one short piece would be an impossible task.

Let us simply deal with the reality of the world today. Israel is by far America's greatest friend and ally in the Middle East, a challenging region of the world where those are hard to come by for the United States.

When the modern State of Israel was formed nearly seven decades ago, the United States under President Harry Truman was first to recognize it as legitimate.

Over the ensuing decades, through times of outright war and spasmodic peace, United States support for Israel has slowly but steadily grown stronger. Drawing lines on a graph to display that U.S. support would look more like a roller coaster than a straight, steady upward incline, but the overall movement would certainly be upward.

Donald Trump is perhaps the greatest U.S. Presidential supporter that the Israelis have had to date. He now appears poised to become the first to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel.

This public recognition has not happened previously due to claims on Jerusalem by the Palestinians. Not wanting to further inflame tensions in the region, past administrations have withheld this recognition, and have kept the U.S. foreign embassy located in Tel Aviv.

The President's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, has been intimately involved in relations between the administration and Israel since the momentous 2016 election. Just yesterday, Kushner stated that he wasn't sure the President actually had made up his mind on formal recognition.

“He’s still looking at a lot of different facts, and then when he makes his decision, he’ll be the one to want to tell you, not me," said Kushner per Marisa Schultz for the New York Post. \

Still, rumors persist of a speech this week by the President granting just such recognition. This past Friday, Jonathan Swan at Axios reported that "two sources with direct knowledge" had told him that the speech would likely come on Wednesday. 

The capital of Israel is the city of Jerusalem. This is the location for their formal seat of government, the Knesset.

David Ben-Gurion, the nation's first Prime Minister, stated the following in 1949:

"Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel, just as it is an integral part of Jewish history and belief. Jerusalem is the heart of the State of Israel...its eternal capital. Twice in the history of our nation were we driven out of Jerusalem, only after being defeated in bitter wars by the larger, stronger forces of Babylon and Rome. Our links with Jerusalem today are no less deep than in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus Flavius, and when Jerusalem was attacked after the fourteenth of May 1948, our valiant youngsters risked their lives for our sacred capital no less than our forefathers did in the time of the First and Second Temples. A nation that, for two thousand and five hundred years, has faithfully adhered to the vow made by the first exiles by the waters of Babylon not to forget Jerusalem, will never agree to be separated from Jerusalem. Jewish Jerusalem will never accept alien rule after thousands of its youngsters liberated their historic homeland for the third time, redeeming Jerusalem from destruction and vandalism."

Netanyahu or Livni: Why You Should Care

Approximately three weeks ago the people of Israel went to the polls in order to attempt to elect new leadership to guide them as the troubled Jewish nation moves forward in particularly challenging times.

I am no expert on Israel or it's political process, but I am going to try to explain the possible outcomes, as well as to explain why that outcome is important to you.

Americans have to begin by understanding that Israeli elections are not as clear-cut as those in the United States. For all of the faults of our own democratic system, all of the intense battles between Republicans and Democrats, Israel's hodgepodge of parties on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum cause extreme confusion.

Not only that, but the plethora of parties with competing visions, goals, and ideologies makes it difficult to form a ruling governmental structure.

In America it is easy to simply add up the number of Dems and GOP members in the House and Senate to get a picture of who holds the power. When the party in power in Congress is the same as that of the elected President, that party holds most of the cards in getting it's agenda passed.

If there is a Democratic Party president with a Democratic majority congress, as there is right now, then liberal ideologies, programs, and laws are going to be front and center. With a Republican president and congress, such as happened in the beginning of the most recent Bush administration for example, then conservative principles, laws, and policies are going to hold sway.

There are the same issues of government in Israel as there are in America regarding domestic problems. But in Israel there really is one issue which rises above all others: national security. Israel is surrounded on all sides by neighbors that want to see it wiped from the map, including a few that have actually tried to accomplish just that feat.

Against this backdrop was last month's Knesset election which came down to a struggle between former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured on left) and his Likud Party, and the Kadima Party of foreign minister Tzipi Livni (pictured on right.)