Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday marked the third anniversary of U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by thanking President Donald Trump and hanging a copy of the American president’s proclamation on the wall of the cabinet room beside a 1948 proclamation by then-president Harry Truman recognizing the new State of Israel.
“Exactly three years ago, President Trump became the first world leader to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Netanyahu said.
“These two historic proclamations will never be forgotten. They will never be forgotten by the Jewish people and by the Jewish state. They will be cherished for generations.”
He went on to list other “historic decisions” by Trump, including: recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights; recognizing Israel’s “legitimate rights” in the West Bank; his proposed peace plan for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and brokering the historic Abraham Accords, which he said, “ushered in a new period of peace that is dramatically changing the face of the Middle East before our very eyes.”
He also thanked Trump for scrapping the “dangerous Iran nuclear deal, placed crippling sanctions on Iran and took out the world’s most dangerous terrorist, Qassem Soleimani.”
“He brought the U.S.-Israel alliance to unprecedented heights,” Netanyahu said.
“We in Israel are deeply grateful for all you have done for Jerusalem, for Israel, for bringing peace and for bringing the U.S.-Israel alliance to unprecedented heights,” the prime minister said.
Noting the start of the Hanukkah holiday on Thursday, Netanyahu added, “Thanks to you, Mr. President, we, the descendants of the Maccabees, can celebrate that that alliance between the reborn Jewish state and the most powerful country on earth is stronger than ever.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, also spoke, saying Trump had “acknowledged the 3,000-year-old history of Jerusalem and its centrality to the Jewish people. And he actualized the will of the American people, whose leaders passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities.”
“In recognizing Jerusalem, President Trump also did something else. He sent a clear message to the world that the United States stands unflinchingly with its allies and that the United States bases its foreign policy on the truth, not on wishful thinking or on fantasy,” Friedman said.
“On behalf of President Trump and the United States of America, I thank you Mr. Prime Minister for your kind words and for making this proclamation part of the glorious history of the United States and Israel,” he added.