Jordan: Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is ‘Red Line’

Image by Getty Images
A spokesman for the Jordanian government says Donald Trump’s promise to move the US Embassy to Israel to Jerusalem would be a “gift to extremists.”
According to the Associated Press, Information Minister Mohammed Momani said Jordan would use all political and diplomatic measures to prevent such a move.
Momani said moving the embassy “will have catastrophic implications on several levels, including the regional situation.”
Jordan is custodian of the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock stands and where Jews believe the ancient Temple once stood.
Jordan is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and a member of a U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, a move not recognized by the international community. Palestinians hope east Jerusalem will be the capital of their future state. For years, U.S. presidents have promised to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but have ultimately reneged on their pledges.
Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has said he looks forward to starting his job in Jerusalem.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace accord in 1994, but relations between the peoples are cold.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.