Trump Planned To Move Embassy In Israel At ‘12:01’ On First Day — So What Happened?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Naomi Zeveloff February 14, 2017
President Trump planned to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as his first act in office, but backed off because of because of regional concerns over such a move.
Interviewed on Politico’s The Global podcast, Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said that Trump was “ready to move the embassy at 12:01 on January 20th. Maybe even 12 and 30 seconds. That was going to be their first move.”
Corker said that an announcement may have been put on hold when the Trump administration realized some of the complexities involved, including the fact that it might not be in Israel’s best interest given its increasing cooperation some Sunni Arab states in opposition of the nuclear deal with Iran.
Corker said that the move was not off the table altogether, but said it could only happen in consultation with Arab states in the region that promote the two-state solution.
“I think they got to communicate to the Arab world that this isn’t doing away with the two-state-solution. There’s a lot of communication that’s got to come with it,” he said.
Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]
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