Delete waiver from U.S. embassy move in Israel?

November 7, 9:31 AMNY Israel Conflict ExaminerRichard Shulman

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Sen. Brownback has introduced a bill to delete the waiver abused to stall the mandated move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.  The requirement to move the embassy was enacted by a vote of 90% to 10%, 14 years ago.  Israel is the only country in which the US embassy is not located in its capital, although other countries have had similar territorial disputes.

Every six months, our most recent three Presidents have cited “national security” as the reason for their waiving the move.  They either do not explain what national security is involved or they offer an illogical and weak explanation. 

The presidents imply that if it were moved, Arabs might riot.  In the 14 years since the law was waived, riots and terrorism have gotten worse, leading to wars.  The implication holds this U.S. law hostage to Arab rioters.  We don’t let terrorists hold our other laws hostage.  Putting our law into the hands of enemy terrorists is contemptible.  By making the U.S. contemptible, our presidents embolden the Arabs against the U.S..  Does that help or hinder U.S. national security?  It undermines the “international war against Islamist terrorists.”

Pres. Clinton said implementation of the move would have to wait until a peace settlement?  Why?  Where is the logic in that?  His peace efforts failed anyway, so what was the point?  This is a matter of U.S. law having nothing to do with foreign countries’ arrangements.  No explanation given.

You might think that the presidents’ stalling merely is avoiding taking sides in a territorial conflict.  But it does take sides.  It takes sides by making a pro-Arab exception in U.S. policy and “harms Israel’s long-standing position that Jerusalem is its capital.”  (11/5 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member.)

Notice the presidents’ double standard about what law to defer to terrorists and what capital to recognize.  There are too many double standards against Israel, including many in the UN Human Rights Council, itself, to be coincidence.  The reasons offered when making Israel the butt of so many double standards must be phony.  People must learn caution about accepting idealistic sounding excuses given by cynical agencies, such as the State Dept., which has deployed Nazis, 

Every government declares what part of the country that it controls is its capital.  If a territorial conflict resolves itself differently, embassies can be relocated accordingly.  ZOA was too tactful to mention that the State Dept. has an anti-Zionist tradition.  The State Dept. does not recognize that Jerusalem is the capital of a country it did not want to recognize, wanted to revoke sovereignty of, and either wants to dismantle Israel piecemeal or would deprive it of secure borders that prevent its conquest. 

The State Dept. excuse about Jerusalem is that the UN resolution advising that there ought to be a Jewish state suggested that Jerusalem be kept apart from any national state.  Advice and suggestion have no legal standing, not that that advice made sense then, especially because the other international cities all were conquered by surrounding countries. Obviously, the State Dept. excuse is a cover for animosity.  U.S. foreign policy should be based on U.S. national interests and not on some subversive clique’s animosity.  It is not their government, it is ours.  They have forgotten they are supposed to be the servants of the people.

For more on the status of Jerusalem, click here