The news of the pending announcement by the president of the United States to formally recognize Israel as the capital of Israel and to move the US embassy to Jerusalem will have profound and enduring effects on the city, its people, and any prospects for a return to negotiations, expectations of which have been shaped by months of advance diplomacy by the United States.

Since 1949, when Israel declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, no state or official international organization has formally recognized this exclusive status. Reiterating the position that the international community and successive U.S. administrations have always held, in December 2016 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2334, declaring that the Security Council “will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.”  This resolution, later adopted by the foreign ministers of 70 countries, calls on both sides, the Israelis and Palestinians, to return to the negotiating table and do everything in their power to promote the sole viable and sustainable solution: that of two-states.

Throughout the trajectory of historical attempts to negotiate a resolution to the conflict, the United States has held a pivotal leadership role in mediating, guiding, and supporting the political process. Given the political ramifications of a unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – in defiance of the position of the entire international community and fatally prejudicing the results of any future negotiations by preferencing one side over the other – the United States will now find it exceptionally difficult to fulfill its key role as a mediator.

Perhaps most toxic in terms of the lasting impact on the city of Jerusalem and the 800,000+ people who live in it – near 40% of whom are Palestinian – a unilateral decision on Jerusalem by the president of the United States further emboldens Israeli policy makers who are currently pushing through a raft of bills and proposals aimed to unilaterally and decisively further redraw the boundaries of the city and radically alter its demographic balance.  If realized, these proposals would result in the transfer of approximately 120,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem and the de facto annexation of some 140,000 settlers from the adjacent major settlement blocs.  These plans have been transparently declared by some of their promoters as intended to render a two state solution impossible. 

Finally, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, as the city is defined today by Israeli law, is a negation of the fundamental principle of the American Declaration of Independence, that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  It is hard to reconcile the current administration’s decision with these founding principles. This contradiction cannot be lost on the Palestinians of East Jerusalem, who every day wake up to the reality of being permanent residents of the city in which they live – a “temporary” status since 1967 and one constantly under threat of revocation – and citizens of no country. Palestinian Jerusalemites are therefore denied the right to vote in elections for the government that controls their every facet of life. 

Ir Amim yearns for the day in which the American flag flies over two embassies in Jerusalem – the American embassy to Israel in West Jerusalem and the American embassy to Palestine in East Jerusalem. The only framework in which this vision will be realized is a comprehensive, tenable, political agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, brokered by a fair and impartial mediator committed to the realization of Jerusalem as the present home and future capital of the two peoples.

Please address all inquiries to:

Betty Herschman

Director of International Relations & Advocacy

Ir Amim (City of Nations/City of Peoples)

Jerusalem

betty@ir-amim.org.il

054-308-5096

www.ir-amim.org.il

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Twitter: @IrAmimAlerts