No Movement on U.S. Embassy's Move to Jerusalem -- 03/29/1999

No Movement on U.S. Embassy's Move to Jerusalem

29 March, 1999

By Patrick Goodenough
CNS Jerusalem Bureau Chief

Jerusalem (CNS) – Just two months away from the due date for the U.S. to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, there is no sign of any activity on the vacant property in the Israeli capital staked out for the mission.

Because of the sensitivity of the question of Jerusalem, the Clinton Administration has taken no steps towards honoring a 1995 law requiring the move, and seems unlikely to do so, short of a final negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

A senator has now raised a suggestion he said offers the White House a way out, while not risking America's role in peacemaking efforts.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act, approved in October 1995 by 93 to 5 vote in the Senate, and 374 to 37 in the House, stipulates that the embassy be moved by May 31 this year.

President Bill Clinton warned it "could hinder the peace process" but allowed it to become law several weeks later without his signature.

The law noted that every country has the right to designate its own capital, and that Israel had chosen Jerusalem, the spiritual center of Judaism.

Should the Jerusalem embassy not be opened by May 31, 1999, the law forbids the State Department from spending 50 per cent of the funds allocated to buy and maintain official properties abroad – such as foreign missions – during the 1999 fiscal year.

But a loophole was designed to enable Clinton to exercise a six-monthly waiver on the basis of "national security interests". Last October, Clinton did so; he is expected to renew the waiver within the next 48 hours, when the foreign property penalty again becomes effective

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) has proposed a temporary compromise which he said will not jeopardize U.S. standing in peace negotiations, while at the same time making clear Washington's eventual intention.

Rather than merely extend the waiver, Moynihan suggested the administration acknowledge its commitment to move the embassy once final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been concluded.

In the meantime, the U.S. could designate an appropriate property in Jerusalem for holding "ambassadorial functions."

Moynihan outlined the proposal in a letter sent recently to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.

Taking these steps, he wrote, "would give all sides a clear understanding of the intentions of the U.S. in a way that none should find surprising nor objectionable."

While upholding the spirit and letter of the law, the compromise would also avoid "actions or statements that may have negative repercussions on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the current Israeli election campaign," Moynihan wrote.

The likeliest site for the U.S. to use for the purposes envisaged by Moynihan would be the Laromme Hotel, south of the city center and several minutes away from the property off Hebron Road earmarked for the new U.S. Embassy.

The hotel has been the venue of numerous meetings involving U.S., Israeli and Palestinian leaders and negotiators.

Samson Krupnick, the Israel chairman of an international campaign called the Jerusalem Embassy Initiative, today welcomed Moynihan's proposal.

"It sounds like a very good idea. I'm happy about it because it's an indication that Congress is interested in ensuring the decision it carried out," he told CNS.

However he conceded that Clinton appeared to want to delay doing so as long as possible and would almost certainly extend the waiver.

Krupnick noted the site set aside for the U.S. Embassy – a former army base – had been cleared, but that "nothing really constructive has happened since."

"It would be an excellent location. Now if only they'd get going."

The Jerusalem Embassy Initiative has had considerable success in signing up high-profile individuals in support of the campaign to have the world's nations recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move their embassies to the city.

Its international chairman is Norwegian Kaare Kristiansen, a former lawmaker and a member of the Nobel Prize committee until he resigned to protest its decision to award its 1995 peace prize to PA chairman Yasser Arafat, who shared the joint award with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

Last May, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cancelled a highly symbolic planned visit to the embassy site, after PA spokesmen warned that he could trigger bloodshed by meddling in the dispute over Jerusalem.

In 1980, 13 nations moved their embassies in Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, under threat of an Arab oil boycott following the passage of an Israeli law declaring Jerusalem its "eternal, undivided capital."

Currently only Bolivia, Costa Rica and El Salvador have their embassies in Jerusalem

| In Depth Archives |