Senior White House officials say that President Trump has ruled out moving the US Embassy in Israel out of Tel Aviv and into the city of Jerusalem. Moving the embassy was a promise he made during the campaign, and the officials insist Trump still “wants” to move it in the future.
Officials say that Trump is concerned that moving the embassy would complicate his efforts to kick-start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, though it’s likely to anger Israel’s far-right government, which is pressing hard for the move.
It’s also likely to anger Congress, which mandated such a move decades ago, only to watch the past three presidents put off the movement throughout their terms in office. Though like Trump, President Bush promised to make such a move later in his term in office, he never actually did so.
It had been speculated Trump would use next week’s visit to Israel to announce the move, though there were also a lot of indications this wouldn’t happen. Now that it seems definitely ruled out, expect Israel to complain even more loudly about the Western Wall questions they have with the administration.
Great news!
Jerusalem never made practical sense to me. The seat of Israel’s govt is in Tel Aviv, along with the country’s officials and offices. For our diplomats to have to make a dangerous commute back and forth between the cities, possibly on a daily basis, serves no purpose beneficial to the US that I can think of.
a 30 minute commute does not really factor in to things i presume.
the whole thing is symbolism, to say Jerusalem is the capital is to say greater isral is legitimate, and that every thing between the river and the sea is rightfully israel’s
to say jerusalem is not the capital is to recognize israel as a creation of the un and consequently to recognize there was a partition of palestine of which jerusalem was not meant to belong to either side.
Israel just did this to themselves.
The whole “Trump gave Russia intel” story has come from Israel. Early reports referred to a “intelligence partner” being upset that intel they’d given the US might have been given to Russia. Anyone who can read the lines could have guessed from those early reports that the “partner” was Israel. That has since been confirmed.
So, I suspect that Israel just really po’d Trump, and then immediately after comes this announcement that this long-running dispute within the Trump administration just got decided. Interesting.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Shamir .. The Israelis only did it to themselves.
As you said, the entire “Trump gave Russia intel” story came from Israel. Early reports referred to an “intelligence partner” being upset that intel they gave the US might have been given to Russia. Anybody who can read the lines could’ve guessed from those early ones that the “partner” was Israel, which has since been confirmed.
Your suspicions are valid .. Israel just really po’d Trump .. Then immediately after comes the announcement that this long-running dispute within the Trump Admin just got decided. Stay tuned and bring out the popcorn ,, This could get quite interesting.
trump is turning out to be much more of an obama figure than anything else, talks way out, but the actual policies implemented are not really departures from the status quo