Trump’s Mideast decision was political, not diplomatic
WASHINGTON — Ten days before Donald Trump took office, Sheldon Adelson went to Trump Tower for a private meeting. Afterward, Adelson, the casino billionaire and Republican donor, called an old friend, Morton Klein, to report that Trump told him that moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a major priority.
“He was very excited, as was I,” said Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, a hard-line pro-Israel group. “This is something that’s in his heart and soul.”
The two men had to wait nearly a year, but on Wednesday, Trump stood beneath a portrait of George Washington to announce that he was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and setting in motion a plan to move the embassy to the fiercely contested Holy City.
“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise,” he said, “they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”
For Trump, the status of Jerusalem was always less a diplomatic dilemma than a political imperative. Faced with disappointing evangelical and pro-Israel backers like Adelson, or alarming allies and Arab leaders while jeopardizing his own peace initiative, the president sided with his key supporters.
In doing so, Trump invited opprobrium from foreign leaders, who said the move was reckless and self-defeating. He also acted against the counsel of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who worried about anti-American blowback, not least to diplomats and troops serving overseas.
Trump conceded the provocative nature of his decision. But as he has before, whether in pulling the United States from the Paris climate accord or disavowing the Iran nuclear deal, the president on Wednesday seemed to relish playing a familiar role: the political insurgent, defying foreign policy orthodoxy on behalf of the people who elected him.
“People are waking up to the fact that the president doesn’t see grays and doesn’t like pastels,” said Christopher Ruddy, a conservative news media executive and friend of Trump’s. “He is very proud that he’s fulfilled so many campaign promises, and the embassy decision is another notch on his belt.”
Trump’s handling of the embassy question was not unlike his handling of the nuclear deal with Iran, which he reluctantly certified the first time before disavowing it the second time the issue came up.
Under a 1995 law, the president is required to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem unless citing national security concerns, he signs a waiver, which has to be renewed every six months. The first time he faced that decision, in June, Trump grudgingly signed it.
His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is leading Trump’s peace initiative, argued at the time that to move the embassy then might strangle the effort before the administration had established relationships in the region.
Adelson and other proIsrael backers were deeply frustrated. He pressed Trump on the issue at a private dinner in October at the White House that included his wife, Miriam, and Kushner. Adelson also vented to Stephen Bannon, then the president’s chief strategist, who argued internally for moving the embassy in June.