The Miraculous Truth About Jerusalem
Jerusalem is now the home of the United States Embassy in Israel, as it should be.
But our first diplomatic presence in Jerusalem began in 1844, when we established a one-man consulate in the holy city. Why a mere consulate, and not an embassy? Because Jerusalem at the time wasn’t the capital of anything—no separate Palestinian state had ever existed, and Jerusalem wasn’t even a provincial capital in the Turkish Empire that ruled the area.
The population of the destitute village was only 15,000, with more than 7,000 Jews and scarcely 5,000 Muslims. In other words, more than a hundred years before the rebirth of the modern Jewish state, Jerusalem was already a predominantly Jewish city—and still is, now that the population has multiplied to nearly a million.
Moreover, Jerusalem has emerged as a world class center of culture and technology, with one of the world’s most livable urban environments. The truth about Jerusalem is more compelling than any of the propagandistic myths.