The Jerusalem Issue, Explained

The Jerusalem Issue, Explained
This implies that the United States is increasingly supportive of Israel’s position
— full annexation — though this would almost certainly kill any viable peace deal.
Why is President Trump’s announcement that the United States now considers Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital such a big deal?
The last three administrations — led by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — all believed
that they needed to grant Israel concessions to make Israeli leaders feel secure and comfortable enough to make their own concessions for peace.
The United States, in order to present itself as a dispassionate broker, long considered Jerusalem’s
status to be a conflict issue that was up to Israelis and Palestinians to decide.
Mr. Trump actually went ahead (though only partly,
because he will not move the embassy right away), implicitly endorsing an American shift from neutral arbiter to overtly siding with Israel.
Evangelical Christians have been joined by a subset of American Jews and others on the political right in arguing
that the United States should overtly back Israel in the conflict.
(Still, a number of Palestinians are themselves Christian, and Jerusalem’s Christian leaders objected to Mr. Trump’s move.)