Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an NBC interview that ‘Trump was presently checking to see if moving the US embassy to Jerusalem would promote the peace process or disturb it.’
“Israel’s position was stated many times to the American administration and to the world,” Netanyahu’s office said. “Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem not only will not harm the peace process but quite the opposite. It would promote it through repairing a historical wrongdoing and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.”
Rex Tillerson also said ‘The president is very careful as he understands how this decision will influence the peace process.’ He mentioned that “Trump listens to both the Israeli position and the Palestinian one in this subject and is checking if Israel sees this as something that helps the peace process or destruction.”
It’s important to note that in 2 weeks at the end of May, the delay order signed by Obama against moving the US embassy expires. Therefore at that time Trump will need to decide if he wants to move the embassy or if he wants to continue the tradition of his predecessors repeatedly signing delay orders against moving the embassy, something that was already declared US law years ago.
Earlier in the evening, Naftali Bennett called upon Netanyahu to “make it clear that we’re hoping the US administration will move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize a united Jerusalem under the sovereignty of Israel.”
Bennett said: “Moving the US embassy to the Israeli capital strengthens Israel and strengthens the chance for true peace because any agreement based on dividing Jerusalem is doomed to fail. Just as the embassies of all countries are in the US capital, Washington D.C. they also must be in Jerusalem, our capital for 3,000 years. This is our eternal capital, there is no other.”
