Today’s slated opening of the new embassy follows from US President Donald Trump’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a decision he said fulfilled decades of policy pledges in Washington and formalised realities on the ground.
The Palestinians, who want their own future state with its capital in east Jerusalem, have been outraged by Trump’s shift from previous administrations’ preference for keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv pending progress in peace efforts.
Those talks have been frozen since 2014.
Other major powers worry that the US move could now inflame Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank and on the Gaza Strip border, where Israel reinforced troops in anticipation of the embassy opening. Most countries say the status of Jerusalem should be determined in a final peace settlement.
Addressing dignitaries at the Foreign Ministry, including US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the Israeli prime minister urged others to follow Washington’s lead.
“Tragically, the US administration has chosen to side with Israel’s exclusivist claims over a city that has for centuries been sacred to all faiths,” the general delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the United States said. The US Embassy move “gives life to a religious conflict instead of a dignified peace,” it said in a statement.
Israel said all 86 countries with diplomatic missions in Israel were invited to the event, and 33 confirmed attendance.
Among those present were delegates from Guatemala and Paraguay, which will open their own Jerusalem embassies later this month.
Attending the Foreign Ministry gathering were representatives from Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, but none from western European Union states — suggesting a rift within the bloc over Trump’s Jerusalem move.
No-show nations withheld comment yesterday.
The EU mission in Israel tweeted on Friday that the bloc would “respect the international consensus on Jerusalem...including on the location of their diplomatic representations until the final status of Jerusalem is resolved”. Outside Jerusalem’s ancient Damascus Gate, Israelis danced in another celebration yesterday, marking the capture of the Old City from Arab forces in the 1967 Middle East War.
Hundreds of Israeli rightists entered Al Aqsa mosque compound, an icon of Palestinian nationalism.
The US Treasury secretary called the embassy relocation “a sign of the enduring friendship and partnership between our two countries” and also referred to the US withdrawal last week from the Iran nuclear deal, a move welcomed by Israel and some US allies in the Gulf but lamented by other world powers.
