Trump To Block Moving U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem In New Flip-Flop
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Nathan Guttman June 1, 2017
Breaking a campaign promise that had excited pro-Israel activists, President Trump has reportedly decided to sign a waiver postponing the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Senior administration officials told CNN on Wednesday that Trump will follow the path of his predecessors and sign the biannual waiver on Thursday to postpone the implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which mandates that the embassy must be in Jerusalem.
They stressed, however, that Trump has not given up on his promise to relocate the embassy and still intends to do so when conditions are ripe. “It will be when, not if,” one official told CNN.
The bill, which was passed nearly unanimously in 1995, requires the State Department to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in an move seen as an attempt to bolster Israel’s claim over the city, which it designates as its capital. But ever since, presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama used the waiver option to postpone implementation due to national security reasons.
The otherwise dormant issue came to a head following Trump’s campaign promise to immediately move the embassy.
Now, with the previous waiver stands to expire on June 1, Trump has been forced into making a decision.
Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
