If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem

Leon T. Hadar speculates as to the future of Israel in the emerging world after American hegemony. But what if what is now the impending Palestinian Declaration of Independence not only laid explicit claim to the whole of the viable Palestinian State created on both sides of the Jordan in 1948, but also, even if it guaranteed the Premiership to a Muslim, guaranteed the Presidency to a Christian, and mirrored the Constitutions of Lebanon, of Iran, and of Palestine east of the Jordan in guaranteeing parliamentary representation to Christians, as well as establishing that Christian festivals will be public holidays, as in Syria? And what if it placed the new state under the protection of each and all of the remaining sacral monarchies, there being no other kind, in Christendom?

Or what if it were accompanied by a declaration over the names of the spiritual fathers of Christianity in the Holy Land, of their own authority placing that state, and those who looked to its creation, under the protection of the world's Christian monarchs and of all who professed allegiance to them, namely the monarchs of Andorra, of Antigua and Barbuda, of Australia, of The Bahamas, of Barbados, of Belgium, of Belize, of Canada, of the Cook Islands, of Denmark, of Grenada, of Jamaica, of Lesotho, of Liechtenstein, of Luxembourg, of Monaco, of the Netherlands, of New Zealand, of Norway, of Papua New Guinea, of Saint Kitts and Nevis, of Saint Lucia, of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, of Spain, of the Solomon Islands, of Swaziland, of Sweden, of Tuvalu, of Tonga, of the United Kingdom, of the State of the Vatican City, and the Paramount Chief of the Great Council of Chiefs of Fiji, together with all Christian subnational monarchs throughout the world, and together with all Christian Heads of deposed Royal Houses?

And what if that were, because its signatories' people's is, also a wider appeal, an appeal to any and every country that regards Christianity as fundamental to its identity? Does the American Republic so regard itself? Does the Russian Federation? Do the republics of Europe? Do the republics of Central America, South America and the Caribbean? Do the republics of Africa? Does any other country? In each country's case, how it responded to that appeal would be its definitive answer to that question.

We may not have long to wait before we find out.