RUSH: Everybody’s waiting on President Trump to show up at the microphones in the White House. He’s gonna announce that the official position of the United States government is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It’s simply a recognition of what already is. The Israeli government is in Jerusalem and our embassy is in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is the party town. If there is a party town in Israel, it’s Tel Aviv, and our ambassador is there and our embassy is there.

Whenever there are official government meetings in Israel, they have to travel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and stay in hotels, which are not as secure as the embassy. They’re good, but they’re not as secure. Now, something you may not know. Bill Clinton promised in his campaign to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He didn’t do it. Barack Hussein O promised. George W. Bush promised. Donald Trump promised and Trump is actually going to keep the promise.

For 20 years, every president has promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem as recognition that it’s the capital. The reason this is a big deal — the short version of this — is that there are four quadrants in Jerusalem. There is the Arab sector, the Israeli sector… I mean, Jerusalem serves as a capital for a number of different peoples, and for the United States to come along and claim that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is a major diplomatic step of recognition of the prominence of Israel, the Israeli government in Israel.

There are many Arabs that live in Israel, many Arab citizens, and they live in Arab sectors of Jerusalem and in other parts of the country. I find when I tell them about what I learned after spending some time in Israel, that people are stunned at some of this basic fact because it’s not commented on, certainly not reported. There’s a large Arab population in Israel. The Israeli government provides all the services. The Israeli government provides the electricity, the power, the water, the air-conditioning in the heated areas, the warm areas, heat and so forth. It’s quite an unusual arrangement.

You would think that Israel is all Jewish and that every Arab in Israel hates Israel. But there are many Arabs inside Israel that like it, have no qualms. It’s the Palestinians, the so-called Palestinians and Arabs outside of Israel that are really put off by this and angered by it. But Trump doing this… Our friends over at Conservative Review have a piece. “In Recognizing Jerusalem, Trump Shows America Is Leading Again.” The point being that since Trump is actually going to do this — and this will involve moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel, which means our diplomats will have to travel back to Tel Aviv to party.

Now they have to leave the party to go to Jerusalem to work. I’m exaggerating a bit here. Jerusalem is where the Israeli government is, but our embassy’s in Tel Aviv. So in recognizing the capital of Israel is Jerusalem, our embassy will move there and other nations in the world are following our lead now. Look, it’s only common sense. But once again common sense has been overruled and trumped by diplomatic and Department of State concerns, and it actually is kind of a gutsy move.

Even Il Papa, Pope Whatsisname… I’m having a mental block. Pope… Not X. Pope Francis is opposed to this. Pope Francis says, “No, you don’t touch Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s the capital of nowhere. Nobody gets to claim Jerusalem.” I got a couple of audio sound bites. Does the name Hanan Ashrawi ring a bell? She’s the former girlfriend of Peter Jennings, the late Peter Jennings at ABC News. Peter Jennings used to be the ABC News foreign correspondent.

He had the best-looking trench coat of a foreign correspondent I have ever seen. I don’t think there’s ever been anybody that looked better in the official trench coat. You buy them at Burberry. You go to Burberry in London and there is a section of the store: Journalist Wear. So Peter Jennings, nobody looked better in one of these journalist trench coats. (interruption) They did. They named one the Peter Jennings model. You think I’m making this up? I’m not.

Anyway, when he was stationed over there, Peter was a ladies’ man. He really was. Peter could have been James Bond if he wasn’t such a big lib. But, anyway, one of his shall we say “female acquaintances,” Hanan Ashrawi, has been a spokeswoman for the PLO, for the Palestinian… Well, many different organizations. Right now, she is “committee member of the PLO executive committee.” Alisyn Camerota of CNN spoke with her today and said, “Palestinian leaders are calling for three days of rage. What does that look like?”

ASHRAWI: This is the, uhhh — a popular movement. These are grassroots moves. We as Palestinian leadership are talking about taking more legal measures, more political measures. We are calling on the rest of the international community to recognize Palestine with its capital as Jerusalem. President Trump is not only encouraging violence; he is provoking violence. He is also provoking a religious war! He is provoking sectarianism. We are the voices of reason. We have tried to maintain a negotiated settlement. We have tried to, ehhh, legitimize peaceful revolutions to the conflict.

RUSH: (laughing) Are you kidding?

ASHRAWI: And they want to go out and protest? It is a right to protest.

RUSH: C’mon, Hanan! You can’t —

ASHRAWI: They’re not talking about violence or attacking anybody.

RUSH: That went to the next page. I’m sorry. I thought the transcript was over and she kept talking. Well, nothing unusual about that. But come on! What is this business, “We have tried to maintain a negotiated settlement; we are the voices of reason”? Every day is a day of rage for you guys, Hannan! Trump’s not provoking anything here. What we have been doing for the last 50 years has been working how? Somebody tell me? (interruption) That’s exactly right. Whatever we’ve been doing the last 50 years hasn’t been working, including not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital.

We have been deferring to the Arafats and the Abbases and all of these people of the world. We’ve been deferring In fact, back when Clinton was president, he was so desirous of being the president that finally presided over a legitimate Palestinian peace — which is not possible, folks, if words make it happen. Peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is simply not possible if it’s negotiated. It’s never been the case. It’s not gonna be the case now. There’s been never been a war won with words, except maybe a marriage here and there.

But I’m talking about between states, nation states. No such thing. The negotiations happen after one side loses, and the winner tells the losers how it’s gonna be, and the losers are forced to sign on to how it’s gonna be. But other than that, words do not determine winners. So Clinton — desirous of becoming the president that oversaw legitimate Middle East peace — offered Yasser Arafat everything he had demanded, and Clinton was serious.

This was not a negotiating technique. Bill Clinton was prepared to give the PLO everything it was asking for. What did Arafat do? He ran for the nearest falafel. He wanted no part of it, because peace is not what these people want. It would be like offering the Reverend Jackson everything he’s demanding. He wouldn’t take it. It’d put him out of business. So negotiations aren’t gonna work here. These people have been running around enraged every day. It’s been 50 years of rage, and we’ve been trying it the same way.

Here comes the Trumpster, and he’s putting a new way on this, trying a new way to see if we can’t get closer to what people claim they really want, and that is Middle East peace. They went next at CNN and they asked Fareed Zakaria GPS — Fareed Zakaria Global Positioning Satellite. Last night on CNN, he spoke with Anderson Cooper. He said (paraphrased): Hey, Fareed, what do you think Trump acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital? What do you think that’s really all about, using your expertise with global positioning satellites?

ZAKARIA: It makes no sense from a strategic point of view. I mean, if Jared Kushner is really trying to do the once-in-three-generation peace deal, why would he do this? I think what you’re doing here is you’re paying off or giving a favor or showing your loyalty to a group of people in the United States. What is the actual strategy here? What is the plan? How does this get us to peace? If somebody can explain to me how this move would get a peace deal, I would be willing to consider supporting it, but I don’t even hear anyone making that argument.

RUSH: All right. So you know what Fareed Zakaria GPS is really saying, “I think what you’re doing here is you’re paying off or giving a favor or, you know, showing your loyalty to a group of people in the U.S.” He’s accusing people of paying off Jewish donors, supporters, and what have you, and Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, is in that deal.

But where Fareed gets it all wrong — you know, this is classic to me. “What is the actual strategy? What is the plan? How does this get us to peace?” Fareed, nothing in the last 50 years has gotten us any closer to peace! You know, in a real sense, this is one of the biggest wastes of time there’s ever been, in terms of actually achieving a stated objective.

All this has done is provide careers for a bunch of diplomats who are incapable of getting anything done. People at the State Department are no different than Yasser Arafat, the PLO. A solution is the last thing you want. If you solve it you don’t need diplomats anymore. If you solve it, you don’t need precious negotiations anymore. If you solve it, you don’t need strategies anymore. They don’t any more want to solve this than Arafat wants to solve it.

And I really mean this, particularly speaking about diplomats on our side. They exist to prolong instances. They exist to prolong circumstances. Diplomacy, by design, is trying to say what you mean without saying it and making sure nobody knows what you mean at the same time. It’s like telling somebody they have an open mind instead of telling ’em they have holes in their head. But the last thing a diplomat wants to do is actually solve — A president would like to be able to have said so because, man, history books, legacy, Nobel Peace Prize, all of that.

But the diplomats on the ground, this is such — this is another scam, this whole Middle East peace process. And looking at it, common sense, I’ve often wondered why do they lie to us about this? Or are they not and do they really think this is possible? Because there isn’t a single instance in the world where hostilities like this have been solved with words, with doctors, with nurses, with clean water, with health care, with environmental responsibility. Sorry. It’s never happened.

In the history of the world it’s never happened. The hostilities are not solved and won. Victors are not determined by the best negotiators. They’re not determined by who has the best diplomats. They’re determined by who has the best army and who’s best able to kill people and break things. And that’s how hostilities are solved, and that’s the history of the world and it’s always gonna be the history of the world.

And after one side defeats the other militarily, that’s when the words come into play. That’s when the winners dictate the articles of surrender and shove ’em in the face of losers and say, “Sign this. This is what you’re gonna have to do from now on.” That’s why to this day Germany is not allowed to have a military. That’s why to this day Germany is prevented from having — Japanese, too, because of the terms of surrender after World War II.

I mean, Germany’s got a quasi-military, but Japan does not. Maybe there have been changes recently, they have National Guard type, I don’t know. But those were the terms of the surrender back in the 1940s. And they lasted and may still in fact be in effect.

Do you think if MacArthur, on the deck of the battleship Missouri meeting with the Japanese emperor, said, “We want you to basically disband your military forever,” Japanese emperor would say, “Fine, absolutely we’ll do that.” Before we dropped any bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before we caused great damage to their? No. That’s not the way the world works. But why they think it’s gonna work here is beyond me.

But there are careers invested in this, diplomatic careers invested in this. There are think tank academics who specialize in the Middle East peace process. You know how we know this? Because every time a gun is fired, every time there’s an explosion in Israel, these guys all pop up on TV as expert analysts and scholars to tell us what it all means. But they never have any answers and they never have any solutions. All they have is warnings for America and how we’re on the precipice of maybe doing something. It’s a sham, scam, what have you.