Trump to light fire over Israel
MIDDLE EAST: President Donald Trump today plans to upend decades of United States policy by formally recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordering the relocation of the US Embassy to that city, senior aides have said, a decision that could derail the White House’s peace efforts and spark regional unrest.
Trump intends to make his pronouncement in a speech after months of deliberation within his administration and consultations with governments in the Middle East.
But in a sign of the complexities of such a shift, White House aides emphasised that Trump would sign another six-month waiver maintaining the embassy’s current location in Tel Aviv, because the process of moving it would take at least three years.
Without the waiver, which has been signed by every US president for more than two decades, crucial State Department funding to the embassy would be cut off.
Trump began informing his counterparts in the region of his decision yesterday, prompting warnings from several countries that the move would inflame Muslims and disrupt progress toward a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
US allies in Europe, including France, also have opposed such a change in policy, and the State Department sent a classified memo to embassies in the Middle East late last month warning of potential anti-American protests.
‘‘Our president said, ‘You don’t have anything that would make up for this on Jerusalem’,’’ said Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas told Trump he would ‘‘not accept it’’, and warned that Trump was ‘‘playing into the hands of extremism’’.
But Trump ‘‘just went on saying he had to do it’’, Shaath said.
In Riyadh, the Saudi Press Agency, using the Arabic name for Jerusalem, said King Salman bin Abdul Aziz had warned Trump ‘‘that such a dangerous step of relocation or recognition of Al-Quds as the capital of Israel would constitute a flagrant provocation of Muslims, all over the world’’.
The backlash from other Middle East nations mounted yesterday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said American recognition of Jerusalem would be a ‘‘red line’’ for Muslims, possibly forcing Turkey to cut diplomatic ties with Israel, which were recently renewed after a six-year hiatus.
Senior White House officials described Trump’s decision as the fulfilment of a key campaign promise that had broad bipartisan support in Congress. They said the move would not fundamentally change other aspects of US policy. For example, they said, Trump remained supportive of a two-state solution, if that was what the parties agreed to, and the administration was maintaining the status quo on Jerusalem’s holy sites.
The officials said Trump was simply recognising the reality that Jerusalem had historically been Israel’s capital and that most of the nation’s government – including the prime minister’s office, the Supreme Court and the legislature – was based there.
‘‘For a long time, the US position held ambiguity or a lack of acknowledgment in hopes of advancing the process of peace,’’ said one senior administration official. ‘‘It might have been reasonable under certain circumstances and times. Certainly, it’s been tried. But . . . it seems clear now that the physical location of the American embassy is not material to a peace deal.’’
Another US official said that while Trump would reiterate his commitment to the peace process during his speech today, the White House recognised that ‘‘some parties’’ might react negatively.
No other countries have their embassies in Jerusalem, with a long-standing international consensus that the city’s status should be decided in a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Palestinian factions jointly announced three ‘‘days of rage’’, beginning today, to protest the embassy move and recognition of Jerusalem. In a statement, they called on supporters around the world to gather in city centres and at Israeli embassies and consulates to voice their anger.
The US Consulate in Jerusalem urged Americans in Israel to avoid large crowds or areas where security had been increased, and ordered its staff members and their families to avoid Jerusalem’s Old City and the West Bank except for ‘‘essential’’ business.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, which contains most of the important holy sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians, after the 1967 war with Arab powers. Palestinians claim Arab-majority East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, while many Israelis and some in the US consider the sector to be already and irrevocably under Israeli administration. Some of Trump’s prominent Jewish backers appear to hold that view, although he has said he wants to honour Palestinian sovereignty through a mutual settlement.
US officials did not identify any prospective location for the new embassy, and said it would take years to plan and build to meet security concerns for the roughly 1000 diplomats headquartered in Tel Aviv. But the officials emphasised the move would not prejudice Palestinians’ claims to East Jerusalem, strongly implying that only sites on the western side of the pre-1967 Green Line will be considered.
‘‘This doesn’t speak to finalstatus issues,’’ a third administration official said, referring to the thorniest disputes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – those that are assumed to be in limbo until completion of a final peace settlement.
The officials said the decision was made with the support of Trump’s envoys seeking a longelusive peace deal, an assertion meant to counter warnings that the change would unleash fresh Arab violence. They offered no specifics to support the claim that the move would not spoil the peace initiative headed by presidential son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
The aides said, however, that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other State Department officials were closely involved in the deliberations.
Other advocates of recognising Jerusalem as the Israeli capital have pointed to Russia as an example. Moscow declared West Jerusalem to be the Israeli capital earlier this year, and the announcement produced no wave of violence or diplomatic backlash.
The US position is more charged, however, because of Washington’s historic role as a peace broker.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the move would undermine US efforts to resume the peace process. –