Trump: Jerusalem is Israel’s capital

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but emphasized that he was not pre-empting negotiations over the final status of the city.

“It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said in a televised address from the White House, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, with Vice President Mike Pence standing behind him.

“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. I today am delivering.”

Trump in the proclamation also directed the State Department to start planning an embassy in Jerusalem. The US Embassy is currently in Tel Aviv.

The president said the decision should not impinge on efforts led by his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, to bring about a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Trump said the proclamation does not presume the outcome of Jerusalem’s status in negotiations.

“We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,” he said.

Trump also made a point of urging the preservation of the status quo on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam.

The controlling authority on the Temple Mount now is the Muslim Waqf, and Jews are forbidden to pray on the site.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the recognition of Jerusalem is “an important step towards peace.”

Netanyahu in a statement issued moments after President Donald Trump made the announcement from the White House called it a “historic day.”

He said the Jewish people and the Jewish state will be “forever grateful” to the US for the recognition of Jerusalem.

“It’s been the capital of Israel for nearly 70 years. Jerusalem has been the focus of our hopes, our dreams, our prayers for three millennia. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years,” Netanyahu said.

The Israeli leader said the announcement was a “new and genuine milestone in the glorious history of this city.”

Netanyahu also said it is “an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn’t include Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel,” while reiterating that Israel is committed to advancing peace with the Palestinians.

He called on others to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move their embassies there.

Netanyahu also asserted that there would be no change in the “status quo” of Jerusalem’s holy sites.

“Israel will always ensure freedom of worship for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike,” he said.

Jewish groups expressed both disappointment and pleasure at this week’s announcement.

The Reform Jewish movement, the largest in the US, called the announcement “ill-timed but expected.”

The announcement, said Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs on behalf of the organizations of the movement, “affirms what the Reform Jewish movement has long held: that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

“Yet while we share the President’s belief that the US Embassy should, at the right time, be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, we cannot support his decision to begin preparing that move now, absent a comprehensive plan for a peace process.”

Jacobs also said that the White House should not undermine efforts toward making peace between Israel and the Palestinians by “making unilateral decisions that are all but certain to exacerbate the conflict.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition praised the president for his announcement of a “significant change in US policy” by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announcing a plan to begin the process of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

“President Trump is doing what he does so well: recognizing the reality on the ground. No more false news — Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” Norm Coleman, the RJC’s national chairman and a former Minnesota senator, said in a statement.

AIPAC tweeted:

“It is our long-held position that undivided #Jerusalem is the historic, current and future capital of Israel. We continue to believe that the US should recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and implement the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.”

The left-wing J Street said in a statement that the change of US policy on Jerusalem will undermine Middle East peace efforts and could lead to violence.

“Israel’s capital is in Jerusalem and it should be internationally recognized as such in the context of an agreed two-state solution that also establishes a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem,” J Street said.

“In the absence of that final agreement between the parties on the city’s status, blanket recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is premature and divisive.

“That is why, since 1967, all administrations have maintained that the final status of the entirety of Jerusalem is to be decided by negotiations, and have avoided any actions that could be interpreted as prejudging their outcome.”

J Street said the decision “could seriously undermine the administration’s stated commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while potentially threatening Israel’s security and alienating Arab regional partners.”

Mort Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, told Jewish Insider:

“I am pleased that after 22 long years since the embassy bill passed that Trump is going to be finally recognizing the obvious.

“I am disappointed that he is signing a waiver two days after the deadline. I would have preferred he take the existing consulate or another government-owned building, put a sign on it and say this is the embassy, immediately.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said that with his announcement, Trump “will right a historic wrong.”

The New Israel Fund, which channels funds to progressive Israeli NGOs, called the president’s decision to begin the process of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem “a dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible move by a dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible American president,” adding that “Israelis will be the ones to pay the price.”

IfNotNow, an anti-Trump organization, condemned the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu both know that any change to an already untenable status quo in Jerusalem has the potential to spark deadly violence. Yet they continue to capitulate to the political whims of the far right, advancing extremist policies, with no care about the impact on the lives of everyday Israelis and Palestinians,” the group said in a statement.

“Trump’s choice to recognize Jerusalem as the capital plays right into the hands of these extremists who support the indefinite and violent occupation of millions of Palestinians.”

Malcolm Hoenlein, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Trump was doing “the right thing.”

“When President Trump visited the Western Wall and made a declaration recognizing Jerusalem as holy to the Jews after the denunciation of UNESCO, there was not even one warm-up, not one demonstration, because when you do the right thing, you do not have to ask questions, you just do it,” Hoenlein said in an address at the launching of the Lobby for the Protection of the Mount of Olives in the Knesset.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, called the announcement “a bold, courageous move that is long overdue, and is especially significant coming from Israel’s closest ally.

“Both Jews and Christians around the world have prayed for this day, which rights a historic wrong by affirming to the world that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.”