A few weeks ago, El Salvador announced that it was following Costa Rica’s example and moving its embassy in Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. While this is disappointing news, it is clear that these two brave nations withstood political and economic pressure over the years as they courageously maintained their embassies in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, while the rest of the world equivocated and kept their embassies in Tel Aviv.
By choosing to keep their embassies in Tel Aviv instead of Jerusalem, the United States and other countries are consciously discriminating against Israel by making it the only nation in the family of nations not allowed to name its own capital. At the same time, it makes Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem ambiguous, something the enemies of Israel, those who see the current conflict as part of a march of history to eliminate the Jewish State, draw comfort and sustenance from. They gain strength from what they rightfully see as hesitancy in the world’s commitment to Israel’s continued existence.
Israel must redouble its efforts to bring the diplomats of the world to her capital, but she needs the U.S. to take the lead in this move, too.
Our State Department consistently advocates that the U.S. keep its embassy in Tel Aviv. They fear that a move to Jerusalem is a loud and clear statement of bias in favor of Israel which would anger the Arab world. In effect, what they say by not acting is that Jerusalem is negotiable. Unfortunately, they will continue to obstruct any move to Jerusalem as long as Congress and the president allow them to have their way.
This year is an election year, and like every other election year, our politicians will trumpet their support for moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Every president also makes that promise while running for office. But when Congress delivers on its promise and sends legislation to the president urging the move to Jerusalem, they always include a provision for presidential discretion which in reality is a State Department veto on the move.
By now it is clear to everyone that the objective of the Arab world is ending Israel’s existence, yet the State Department persists in believing that one more agreement, one more round of negotiations and one more set of Israeli concessions will bring peace. An Arab capital in Jerusalem, which never happened in all the years that Arabs controlled that city, is one of those concessions the Arabs covet as a means to their end. Affirming Israel’s historical right to Jerusalem by moving our embassy there would take that issue off of the table and bring some realism to the dreams and hopes of Israel’s bitterest adversaries. Even the State Department has to appreciate that there is a strong possibility that the lessening of ambiguity on Jerusalem could bring the region closer to a peaceful environment.
But State will say, no doubt, “it’s not the right time.” It is never the right time, according to the State Department’s stopped clock, but if they looked hard enough, they might find that it is a propitious time to make this move.
When Israel replied forcefully to Hezbollah’s aggressive actions, she initially received the tacit consent of Arab countries most fearful of Shi’ite hegemony in their region. For them, America’s demonstrated commitment to an embassy in Jerusalem will likely elicit mixed feelings. Loud and belligerent recriminations would mask the reassurance important elements in those countries would feel about America’s commitment to retain a strong presence in the area.
When Ronald Reagan said the words, “Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall,” few knew that the State Department had excised those words from his speech at least two times, but they were put back in due to his own personal conviction, and those historic words had an effect. It’s time to ignore State again, and move forward with a different judgment than the one they’ve been applying for close to 40 years.
Our embassy belongs in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. So do the embassies of other countries that will likely follow our move. But we have to know that real peace will come to that part of the world only when there are Arab embassies in Jerusalem, too. In the meantime, we should do the right thing and move our embassy to Jerusalem now.

–nrg

Comments are closed.