What country is Jerusalem in? Trump's proclamation avoids some thorny questions
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At a press briefing, State Department officials stopped short of saying
whether the U.S. recognizes that Jerusalem is actually in Israel. This comes after President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday — but on Thursday, State Department officials stopped short of saying whether the U.S. believes that the city Jerusalem is actually in Israel.
That seemingly contradictory policy demonstrates just how difficult it will be for the Trump administration to implement what the president called a “recognition of reality.”Â
Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem upended decades of American foreign policy, delighted conservatives in both countries, ignited protests in the West Bank and cast the future of peace talks into doubt.
But it also left any number of political, diplomatic and practical issues unresolved: How will U.S. passports identify people born in Jerusalem? How will the city appear on maps? What’s the future of the Consulate General in Jerusalem? And where will the U.S. pay for and build a new embassy in a city where historic, political and security considerations so often intersect?
More: Why declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital may upend peace in Middle East
More: Trump’s Jerusalem plan signals to Palestinians — the less you give up, the more you lose
All those questions may be beside the point.Â
“It’s pretty clear the embassy is not going to move to Jerusalem in the foreseeable future, so it’s a moot point for the time being,” said James B. Cunningham, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The political situation will outrun the technical details of how to move the embassy in the long run.”
For now, State Department officials said, there will be no practical change in how the U.S. deals with the status of Jerusalem.Â
A 2015 Supreme Court decision, for example, upheld the longstanding practice of omitting the country on passports for people born in Jerusalem, effectively giving it a stateless status. That won’t change, officials said.Â
“There has been no change in our policy with respect to consular practice or passport issuance at this time,” said acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield on Thursday. U.S. government maps also won’t change for now, he said.
“The president’s decision speaks for itself,” he said. “He didn’t go beyond that, and I’m not going to go beyond that.”
While Israel sees Jerusalem as its undivided and “eternal” capital, the Palestinians also claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Previous presidents have said that the decision on Jerusalem’s capital must come from a negotiated agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.
But even after Trump’s decisive foreign policy pronouncement, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert declined to say what country Jerusalem is in.
“What country was the president in when he prayed at the Western Wall?” an Associated Press reporter asked.
“We’re not taking any position on the overall boundaries. We are recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Nauert responded. “There are some questions that you will rightfully have about passports, for example, about maps. Some of those things, we are still working out.”
More: Jerusalem has history of many conquests, surrenders
More: Palestinian leader: Trump’s Jerusalem decision a ‘withdrawal’ of peace process
Another question: Whether the president’s directive to move the embassy can be completed during his presidency.Â
“We are not going to be doing that quickly,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday in Austria. “We have to acquire a site. We have to develop building plans. We’ll have to construct the building. So this is not something that will happen overnight.”
The two most comparable embassies now under construction — in Beirut, Lebanon and Islamabad, Pakistan — are expected to cost more than $1 billion each. They also take years to build: The Beirut embassy broke ground in 2011 and is scheduled to open next year. Construction on the Islamabad embassy started last year and isn’t expected to be completed until 2022.
That doesn’t include two or three years of site selection and design before construction can begin. Finding a site for the embassy will also have the effect of taking the position that the embassy — wherever it’s located — is in Israeli territory. But the U.S. position remains that the borders of that territory are still to be resolved by negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.Â
“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. And all of the other aspects – boundaries of sovereignty – we’re not taking a position. It’s for the sides to resolve,” Satterfield said.
An embassy move could also complicate consular relations with the Palestinian territories. A consulate general in Jerusalem — located on the “green line” that marks the pre-1967 borders of Israel and Palestine — serves as a de facto mission to the Palestinian Authority, and is almost completely independent from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Closing or combining that facility would treat Israel and Palestinian territories as one state. Leaving it open would effectively put two separate U.S. missions in Jerusalem.
Even if the embassy moved, Cunningham said, the U.S. would likely retain some presence in Tel Aviv. The facility houses about 1,000 diplomatic staff, plus Homeland Security, Defense Department and FBI personnel. The Israeli Ministry of Defense is headquartered there, as is every other foreign embassy. And there’s a beachfront ambassador’s residence on the north side of Tel Aviv.
Could the U.S. ambassador could even choose to live in Tel Aviv and commute to Jerusalem? Â
“That’s a very interesting question,” said Cunningham, a career diplomat who served as ambassador in Tel Aviv in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. “It’s a really nice residence.”
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