US Embassy’s move to Jerusalem becomes reality Monday

WASHINGTON — Years turned into months after President Donald Trump announced on Dec. 6 that he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Jerusalem.

Trump’s secretary of state at the time, Rex Tillerson, predicted it would take years to relocate the flagship U.S. mission to the holy city.

Instead, the transfer of power — which will turn part of a consulate building in Jerusalem into the embassy and the Tel Aviv embassy into a consulate — will occur on Monday, months after the announcement.

When Trump announced the move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the decision as “courageous and just.” European and Middle Eastern leaders, meanwhile, predicted a violent backlash from Palestinians who, like Israeli Jews, consider Jerusalem their capital.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likened the decision to “throwing the region into a ring of fire.” Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud Salman called it a “flagrant provocation of Muslims.” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new “intifada,” or uprising.

The U.N. General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution by a 128-9 vote that declared the move “null and void.”

Still, the U.S. move has spurred other nations to follow suit. Guatemala and Paraguay plan to move their embassies to Jerusalem later this month.

And violent backlash to the embassy decision has not occurred. To the contrary, some Muslim nations appear to have softened their opposition to Israel.

In April, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid: “In the last several decades, the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.”

Unrest in the region

Still, there is unrest in the region as the date for the embassy move draws near.

On Friday, hundreds of Gaza residents gathered near the border with Israel for a seventh weekly protest aimed at shaking off a decade-old blockade of their territory.

The protest came three days ahead of what the Hamas leader of Gaza said will be a march Monday by tens of thousands who could burst through the border fence into Israel. Israel said it will prevent any border breach. Forty protesters have been killed and more than 1,700 wounded by Israeli troops since late March.

Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Iran have escalated since Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the 2015 international nuclear pact with Iran.

Iranian forces in Syria sent rockets into the occupied Golan Heights, and Israel has launched missile strikes against Iranian military installations in Syria.

Last week, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa tweeted in Israel’s defense: “As long as Iran has breached the status quo in the region and has (yet to) evacuate its troops and missiles, any state in the region, including Israel, is entitled to defend itself by destroying the sources of the danger.”

A senior administration official told reporters Friday that it was significant that Khalifa issued that tweet just days before the new embassy opening.

Campaign promise

For Trump, the embassy transfer represents a campaign promise kept. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made the same pledge to move the embassy to Jerusalem on the campaign trail, only to abandon it after winning the White House.

The move also reflects the stated intent of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which called on Washington to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Under the law, presidents could delay the move by signing a waiver every six months, which Presidents Clinton, Bush, Barack Obama and Trump did until December.

The embassy issue was especially important to Trump donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson of Las Vegas, who the Center for Responsive Politics reports donated more than $80 million to GOP campaigns in 2016 and $5 million to the Trump inauguration.

Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Miriam Adelson visited Trump at the White House on Wednesday afternoon. They were in town and wanted to say hello, as well as thank Trump for moving on the embassy, said Andy Abboud, senior vice president of government relations with Las Vegas Sands.

‘Deal of the century’

A frequent criticism of Trump’s decision in foreign policy circles is that he won no concessions from Israel toward what the president has billed as “the deal of the century,” a peace pact that senior aides have been trying to broker between Israel and Palestinians.

During a briefing with reporters Friday, a senior administration official conceded as much. The decision, he said, was viewed to be in the best interest of the United States, something Trump had promised during the campaign.

“And so, no, there was no give and take with Israel with regard to this decision,” the official said.

Talks between Palestinian leaders, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special representative working to broker a peace deal, appear to be on hold.

When Trump announced the embassy move in December, he asserted that the move was a “recognition of reality.” By removing the embassy from negotiations, the administration believes, it can move closer to a deal.

Saeb Erekat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Affairs Department disputes that. He sent a statement ahead of Monday’s ceremony that called the move illegal and an obstacle to “a just and lasting peace between two sovereign and democratic states.”

The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.