From Palestine Chronicle
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump is about to do just that, reversing an historical course that has been in the making for 100 years.
The inexperienced, demagogic politician hardly understands the danger that lies in his decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
If he goes through with this, he is likely to unleash an episode of chaos in an already volatile region.
The move, which is now reportedly in the "beginning stages," is not a mere symbolic one, as some naively reported in western mainstream media.
True, American foreign policy has been centered mostly on military power, rarely historical fact.
But Trump, known for his thoughtlessness and impulsive nature, is threatening to eradicate even the little common sense that governed US foreign policy conduct in the Middle East.
If the new president moves forward with his plan, unsympathetic to Palestinian pleas and international warnings, he is likely to regret the unanticipated consequences of his action.
History for the Wise
A century ago, British forces under the command of General Sir Edmund Allenby occupied the Palestinian Arab city of Jerusalem.
That ominous event in December 1917, has disturbed the cultural and political equilibrium that existed in Palestine for nearly a millennia.
It also initiated a war that has proved the longest and one of the most bloody and destabilizing in modern human history.
Although Palestine was wrestled from the hand of its governing bodies operating under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire, its new British rulers understood the unequaled importance of Jerusalem to its people.
That understanding was always present, even when France and Britain signed the Sykes-Picot agreement in May 1916, dividing Ottoman territories amongst themselves, Jerusalem's status was designated as an international area due to its shared religious significance.
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