U.S. President Donald Trump has signed the six-month waiver that postpones relocating the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The move was expected, but comes as a major disappointment to Jewish and right-wing Christian voters who expected the president to keep his campaign promise to move the embassy upon entering the White House.
Despite his action, administration officials did their best to mitigate the inevitable reaction from his voter base in a statement issued with the news that he had signed the waiver despite all campaign promises to the contrary.
“President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America’s national security interests,” the White House said in a statement.
“While President Donald J. Trump signed the waiver under the Jerusalem Embassy Act and delayed moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the President’s strong support for Israel and for the United States-Israel alliance,” the statement continued.
“As he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when,” the White House said in its statement.
Sadly, upon the advice of career foreign service employees and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the president has put the move on the back burner as a hostage to the “ultimate deal” between Israel and regional Arab peace partners, and/or the Palestinian Authority.
This is a mistake, because peace with Israel has never been contingent on the location of the U.S. Embassy, or any embassy for that matter.
Peace with Israel has had to do with the perception of Israel’s place in the world, the issue of anti-Semitism and more specifically, Israel’s place in the region. The rest has to do with straight business negotiations — what Israel can provide to make her presence worth everyone’s while, with and without the backing of the United States, and little else. The issue of the “rights” of the Palestinian Authority have very little to do with it: had “rights: been relevant, so-called “refugees” from this area would have long ago been absorbed by their host countries — their “Arab brothers” — and long since been welcomed as citizens in their new homes, generations ago, as were Jews elsewhere around the world.
No, this is not about the “rights” of their Palestinian Authority brethren.
This is about anti-Semitism — as it was 70 years ago — and finally, thank God, about business. And since President Trump is a master businessman, perhaps he can indeed cut the ultimate deal. But the American embassy has nothing to do with it, and everything to do with endorsing the delegitimization of Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem. President Trump has inadvertently allowed himself to be sucked into that black hole. He now has six months in which to see that and escape.
The Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act, passed by Congress in 1995, requires the U.S. to move its embassy to Jerusalem, although every president since that time has signed the six-month waiver that has given the executive branch an “out” for the purpose of “national security.”
Recently, U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) introduced a resolution urging the president to finally move the embassy to Jerusalem regardless of what effect such an action might have on peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, or regional talks in general.
“Moving our embassy from Tel Aviv to western Jerusalem is not inconsistent with any peace proposal,” Graham said in a statement last month. “It’s consistent with the reality, as I and many others understand it, that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem.”
Trump administration officials, however, are loathe to go that far. At a White House news briefing prior to the president’s trip to the region, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster refused even to say whether the Western Wall is located in Israel. “Sounds like a policy question to me,” he chuckled, and ducked it entirely.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer went as far as saying the Western Wall is located in Jerusalem – but then hurriedly moved on before he could be pinned down on the issue of whether Jerusalem is located in Israel or not — which obviously it is.
The Palestinian Authority with the help of its Arab backers has worked assiduously to delegitimize the Jewish historical link to the area of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount (wherein it is believed the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Holy Temple was located), the Jewish link to Jerusalem, and the Jewish link to the Land of Israel itself.
Needless to say, the Western Wall – the sole remnant of the ancient Jewish Holy Temple – and Jerusalem itself, obviously – are mentioned in the Bible, as is the Land of Israel as well.
There is, however, no mention of any “Palestinian Authority” in the Bible, or for that matter, any “Palestine” either. There is a mention of the land of the Philistines, an Aegean people who lived near Gaza. The name ‘Palaestina’ was the name given by the Romans to Judea after they crushed the revolt by Shimon Bar Kochba in 132 CE, in an effort to destroy the Jewish identification with the Land of Israel. The Ottoman Empire continued to use the term Palestine, and it was also used under the British Mandate. Prior to 1948, the media – and the Jews themselves – called Jews who came to live in Israel “Palestinians.”
Moreover, in this first week of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, it also bears mention that the word “Palestine,” “Philistine” or “Filastin” does not appear at all in the Qur’an either.
So in six months from now, when the question of a signature on a waiver to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem once again arises . . .