Trump Decided: American Embassy Will Not Move To Yerushalayim

Final decision, U.S. embassy will not be moved to Yerushalayim: Like his predecessors, president Trump signed a presidential waiver delaying the move of the U.S. embassy to Yerushalayim by a half a year.

The order comes despite pledges made by Trump throughout his campaign to move the U.S. embassy to Yeushalayim.

On October 23, 1995 congress passed the ‘Jerusalem Embassy Act’. The law was sponsored by three leading republican senators, Mark Rubio, Ted Cruz and Dene Heller.
It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, no later than May 31, 1999, and attempted to withhold 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the State Department specifically for "Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad" as allocated in fiscal year 1999 until the United States Embassy in Yerushalayim had officially opened.

The act also called for Yerushalayim to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel, Israel's declared capital.
Since passage, the law has never been implemented, because of opposition from Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, who view it as a Congressional infringement on the executive branch's constitutional authority over foreign policy; they have consistently claimed the presidential waiver on national security interests.
Now president Trump seems to be taking the same stance on the matter.

In July of 1999 the senate attempted to pass a revised version of the law, containing a clause which stated that if the embassy is not relocated to Yerushalayim then 100 million dollars of the state department’s budget would be withheld.

However, the law was withdrawn after then acting Israeli PM Ehud Barak requested from the sponsoring senators to refrain from passing the law, over concern that it would infringe upon, and harm the ongoing peace process.

In September of 2016, during the presidential campaign, Trump met with PM Benyamin Netanyahu and assured him that if he won the elections he would recognize Yerushalayim as the capital of Israel, and thereby act upon it by moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim.

Trump reiterated this promise many times throughout his campaign, and after winning the elections his aid Klion Koloy remarked: “The relocation of the embassy to Yerushalayim is a top priority for Trump. It’s something that our friend in the middle east, Israel, will really appreciate”.

While still serving under Obama, former secretary of state john Kerry sharply disagreed with Trumps approach, and warned that such a move can ignite violent unrests in the region, “it will cause an explosion in the region. Not only in the west bank, and perhaps even in Israel itself…” Said Kerry.

A journalist based in the white house shared with “Bechadrei Chareidm” that “one of the reasons not to move the embassy is out of concern that it can cause unrests in the Arab world. President Trump knows that such a move can throw the middle east into a chaotic state, and can even have ramification for the west. Trump wants to advance a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and he knows that such a move will only cause damage”.

Translated by Eli B.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!