This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/trump-waives-law-requiring-us-to-move-embassy-to-jerusalem

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Trump waives law requiring US to move embassy to Jerusalem Trump waives law requiring US to move embassy to Jerusalem
(35 minutes later)
Donald Trump has temporarily waived a law requiring the US to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Donald Trump will not order the moving of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the near future, despite strong lobbying in recent days by senior Israeli officials.
The US president’s move to renew the waiver for six months keeps the US embassy in Tel Aviv for now. Trump has said he is reviewing whether to fulfil his campaign promise to move it to Jerusalem. A senior US official disclosed that Trump – like all his presidential predecessors – has signed the six-monthly presidential waiver to the 1995 US Embassy Act, reneging on a key campaign promise, citing his desire to maximise the chances of “negotiating a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians”.
Trump was facing a Thursday deadline to renew the waiver or see the State Department lose half its funding for its overseas facilities. Presidents of both parties have renewed the waiver every six months for years. Trump’s move to renew the waiver came as he faced a Thursday deadline to renew or see the state department lose half its funding for its overseas facilities.
Israel considers Jerusalem its capital, but the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of a future state. Presidents of both parties have renewed the waiver every six months for years.
The US says its policy on Jerusalem has not changed and that Jerusalem’s status must be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians. During his campaign last year, Trump repeatedly promised he would break with an international convention by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, as Israel had long demanded.
More soon … The move is regarded as controversial because it would be seen as overt recognition by the US of Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, the east of which was captured by Israel during the six-day war in 1967.
Palestinians claim the east of the city as a future capital in any negotiated two-state solution.
According to reports in the Israeli media, as the deadline for signing the waiver ticked down Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intervened with the new US ambassador, David Friedman, earlier this week in an attempt to persuade Trump to stand by his campaign promise.
Friedman, a longtime Trump lawyer, has expressed his support in the past for the move to Jerusalem, despite warnings from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and other Arab leaders it risked provoking violence.
Trump’s decision not to move the embassy for now was not, however, completely unexpected.
Although Trump said he would move the embassy on his first day in office, since the inauguration all the indications from diplomats and officials have been that he was backsliding on the issue – allegedly because he does not want to muddy the waters in pursuit of a Middle East peace agreement that he has described as the “ultimate deal”.
Jordan and Saudia Arabia are among those who had warned Trump against the move.
Although the Trump administration has briefed behind the scenes that it is looking for ways to fulfil its commitment – and that the waiver is only temporary – it will be seen as a huge blow to the rightwing government of Netanyahu, not least coming days before the anniversary of the six- day war at the beginning of next week.