Remember how just yesterday we told you that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on a plane with him in the vast Indian skies that “things are happening in the United States that have never happened before,” and therefore “My assessment is that the embassy will move much faster than we think, within one year, this is my solid assessment” ?
Not gonna’ happen.
President Trump on the same Wednesday told Reuters in an exclusive interview: “By the end of the year? We’re talking about different scenarios – I mean obviously that would be on a temporary basis. We’re not really looking at that. That’s no.”
Way to embarrass your best friend in public, Mr. President…
But perhaps the fault was Bibi’s. since Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has already stated that the moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was “probably no earlier than three years out, and that’s pretty ambitious.” So why did the PM shoot his mouth off like that? Was he just making conversation? Did he not expect that millions of people—those who love and those who hate the idea of the embassy move—would think it’s a big deal?
Or was Netanyahu speaking based on some reassurances from his friend in the White House, but the same friend simply changed his mind, based on the last conversation he had had on the subject?
Can the president revoke his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Legally – of course he can. Also, since this is a matter of foreign policy, the next president can reverse it with a snap of his or her fingers. It makes no difference, according to the Constitution, that Congress has long ago put this recognition in writing as a law, in 1995. Foreign policy is the president’s purview.
So that the only way Trump’s declaration has any lasting effect is if he moves the embassy during his term in office – that would be a substantial act of recognition. If he doesn’t, then all he has done is blow hot air and enrage half the planet. He does two of those on any given weekday, three on Wednesday.