Little seems to have changed in 30 years. Certainly not the US State Department, which still advises the President every year that ‘national security’ would be damaged if the US embassy were moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Today’s Dry Bones Blog features a cartoon from 1977, which is more to the point than ever today:
The Western acquiescence to the Arab view that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel continues to be an affront to Israel’s sovereignty. The Knesset has been meeting in West Jerusalem since the building was constructed in 1950.
The Arabs should be grateful for the fact that they are permitted to live in Jerusalem at all and that the Muslim holy places there still exist and are under Muslim control. When Jordan conquered East Jerusalem in 1948, all Jews living there were driven out or killed, synagogues were destroyed or converted to stables, and Jewish gravestones were used as paving material.
The Arab and Muslim attitude seems to be that they are not required to behave according to post-7th century standards, but that everyone else must be exquisitely sensitive to their feelings. And the response in the West seems to be to appease them.