Obama’s policy on Jerusalem and the US Consulate is anti-Jewish and anti-Israel? That’s outrageous.
An email smear claims: “The website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem is shocking and disturbing! Jerusalem is the official capital of the Jewish state of Israel. Israel is a Jewish country and the only democracy in the Middle East, and yet this official US Government website is 100% pro-Palestinian. The US Consulate 2009 programming only includes programs for Arabs, not Jewish Israelis. There is no reference to cooperation or coordination between the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and the State of Israel. The website is in English and Arabic, but not Hebrew, the official language of Israel. It seems that the US Department of State has joined the Palestinian Authority in wiping Israel off the map. US policy has turned anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. What’s next? This is scary.”
This smear makes it seem as if the United States doesn’t recognize Israel at all. That’s just crazy if you’re actually paying attention to the facts.
The United States has maintained an Embassy in Tel Aviv for decades to provide U.S. diplomatic representation to Israel and services to Israelis and Americans in Israel. [1] The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem – a less significant diplomatic presence than an Embassy – has always been an “independent U.S. mission that is the official diplomatic representation of the United States in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza,” providing U.S. representation and services to Palestinians and Americans in those areas, much like United States Embassies, Consulates, and other missions all over the world. [2] The U.S. also maintains cultural and educational centers that provide information about the United States to the Israeli public, such as the American Center in Jerusalem.
Under President Obama, the United States has continued extensive cooperation with and assistance to Israel, including $2.55 billion in annual US military aid to Israel (slated to grow to $3.1 billion annually by the end of President Obama’s term); a wide array of joint U.S.-Israel programs, including the Joint Political Military Group, combined military exercises, joint military research and weapons development; American-Israeli science and technology efforts, such as the Binational Science Foundation and the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Foundation; the U.S.-Israeli Education Foundation, which sponsors educational and cultural programs; the Joint Economic Development Group; the Joint Counterterrorism Group; and the Strategic Dialogue. [3]
There has been no change in the role of the U.S. Embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv or the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem under the Obama administration.
Since 1967, the U.S. – under both Democratic and Republican administrations and like the rest of the international community – has never accepted full Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem and its more than 265,000 Palestinians, viewing it as an attempt to prejudge the final status of Jerusalem, which must be decided within the framework of negotiations.
Every U.S. president, from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, has exercised the waiver in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 – which declared that Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel and required that the U.S. embassy in Israel be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – permitting the president to suspend the Act if he deems it “necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.”
President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials have consistently emphasized that “the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain unshakeable.” At the same time, the Obama administration believes that Israel’s security and well-being can best be ensured “through comprehensive peace in the region, including a two-state solution with a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel. That is the ultimate goal to which the President is deeply and personally committed.” [4]
Every peace proposal offered by Israeli leaders – from Ehud Barak’s at Camp David in 2000 to Ehud Olmert’s this past year – has recognized that a two-state solution to the conflict and Arab-Israeli peace are possible only if Israelis and Palestinians agree to share sovereignty in Jerusalem. This would mean granting Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (where the Palestinian state seeks to place its capital), preserving Israel’s sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (including the Western Wall), and worldwide recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said:
“We have a window of opportunity—a short amount of time before we enter an extremely dangerous situation—in which to take a historic step in our relations with the Palestinians and a historic step in our relations with the Syrians. In both instances, the decision we have to make is the decision we’ve spent forty years refusing to look at with our eyes open. We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage [of territory elsewhere]—without this, there will be no peace. Including Jerusalem—with, I’d imagine, special arrangements made for the Temple Mount and the holy/historical sites.
“Whoever talks seriously about security in Jerusalem… must be willing to relinquish parts of Jerusalem. [In July 2008, Jerusalem saw two separate attacks involving construction vehicles operated by Arab East Jerusalemites.] Whoever wants to maintain control over the entire city will have to absorb 270,000 Arabs into the borders of Israel proper. This won’t do. We need to make a decision. This decision is difficult, awful, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our deepest yearnings, our collective memories, and the prayers of the nation of Israel for the past two thousand years. I was the first person who wanted to maintain Israeli control over the entire city [Olmert served as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 – 2003]. I confess. I’m not trying to retroactively justify what I’ve done for the past thirty-five years. For a significant portion of those years I wasn’t ready to contemplate the depth of this reality.” [5]
The past three U.S. presidents have affirmed that Jerusalem’s final status must be negotiated. The Bush administration’s Roadmap to a Two-State Solution alluded to the need for shared sovereignty in Jerusalem by referring to the Arab Peace Initiative, in which all 21 Arab countries and the Palestinians pledged to establish normal relations and comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for an agreed solution to the refugee problem and Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (which will serve as capital of the Palestinian state). The Roadmap also seeks “a negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides…and fulfills the vision of two states, Israel and sovereign, independent, democratic and viable Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security.” [6]
It is only through a two-state solution that the Arab world and the international community will formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
[1] Embassy of the United States, Tel Aviv, Israel
[2] Consulate General of the United States, Jerusalem
[3] “Background Note: Israel, U.S.-Israeli Relations,” U.S. Department of State.
[4] “Statement by the Press Secretary on Israeli Settlements,” The White House. September 4, 2009.
[5] “The Time Has Come To Say These Things.” Interview with Ehud Olmert, Yedioth Ahronoth. Reprinted in The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 19, December 4, 2008.
[6] “Roadmap to Solution of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” US Department of State. April 30, 2003.