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U.S. Embassy in Israel to move to Jerusalem by end of 2019: Pence

By Jeff Mason and Jeffrey Heller

 

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Ariel Schalit/Pool

 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Israel will move to Jerusalem by the end of 2019, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in a speech to the Israeli parliament on Monday that highlighted a policy shift that has stoked Palestinian anger and international concern.

 

President Donald Trump last month recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said he would move the U.S. Embassy there - dismaying Palestinians who claim the eastern part of the city and angering Arab states across the region.

 

"In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the United States Embassy in Jerusalem – and that United States Embassy will open before the end of next year," Pence said.

 

"Jerusalem is Israel’s capital – and, as such, President Trump has directed the State Department to immediately begin preparations to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

 

The speech was briefly disrupted, at the outset, by Israeli Arab parliament members who held up protest signs in Arabic and English, reading "Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine", and were ejected by ushers.

 

Pence responded to the fracas by saying with a smile: "It is deeply humbling for me to stand before this vibrant democracy."

 

Though shunned by the Palestinians, the Trump administration says it remains committed to helping them and Israel negotiate a peace deal. Those talks have been stalled for almost four years.

 

"FAIR MEDIATOR"

 

Responding to Pence's speech, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said: "If the United States wanted to a play a role of a mediator in the peace process it must be a fair mediator and it must abide by (international) resolutions."

 

Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City with its holy sites, as the capital of their own future state. Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it in 1967 in a move not internationally recognised, regards all of the city as its "eternal and indivisible capital".

 

Pence, who visited Egypt and Jordan before travelling to Israel, said that with its policy shift on Jerusalem, "the United States has chosen fact over fiction - and fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace".

 

It was the highest-ranking visit by a U.S. official to the region since Trump's Jerusalem declaration and gave Pence and Netanyahu an opportunity to highlight their own warm relationship for a conservative Christian American community that serves as a power base for the U.S. administration.

 

Pence, an evangelical Christian, drew parallels between Jewish history dating back to biblical times and the European pilgrims who founded the United States. He was greeted with ovations by Israeli legislators throughout his speech.

 

Noting that Israel will in May mark 70 years since its founding - in a war Palestinians mourn as a catastrophe - Pence switched to Hebrew to recite a Jewish prayer of thanksgiving.

 

Welcoming Pence to the parliament, Netanyahu said he was the first U.S. vice president to have been accorded the honour.

 

Israel and the United States "are striving together to achieve a true peace, lasting peace, peace with all our neighbours, including the Palestinians," Netanyahu said.

 

He reiterated his long-standing demand that the Palestinians recognise "the Jewish people's right to a nation state in its land, a nation state of its own here in the land of Israel". The Palestinians have ruled out such recognition, saying it would disadvantage Israel's Arab minority.

 

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams; Editing by Stephen Farrell and John Stonestreet, William Maclean)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-01-23

[Cats4ever]

That will please Israel and, more importantly, the rapturists in the back blocks of the States.

[dexterm]

This is typical of Zionist apologists' ability to call black white. 3 lies in one sentence...

 

From the OP Pence: "the United States has chosen fact over fiction - and fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace".

 

Point is that Jerusalem as Israel's capital is anything but fact, except in the eyes of Israel and Pence.

The United Nations General Assembly last month voted 128 to 9 declaring the US move on Jerusalem "null and void" because it is contrary to international law, following a similar vote in the UNSC, where the US was outnumbered 14 to 1. And of course one half of the conflict, Palestinians reject it, and that's a fact. Or maybe those are all just fake facts.

 

Nor is any peace based on the US move just, when sites in Jerusalem are sacred to 3 major world religions, not just the personal real estate of one.

 

Nor will it be lasting...it will not even get off the ground. Israelis will forever be looking over their shoulders. No way to live. 

 

The only lasting peace is through a just 2 state solution, or a democratic secular non apartheid one state solution, where all peoples and religions share the capital, the country and civil rights as equals.

 

Looks like Pence is helping right wing Israelis to shoot themselves in the foot ending the Zionist dream, since expansionist colonialist Israel is making a one state solution inevitable.

Edited January 23, 2018 by dexterm

[samran]

Weasel words.

 

Even if they had a site procured in Jerusalem, it would take years for the new embassy to be designed and built. 

 

The new embassy is as real as Donny’s wall. Like most things, it is just made up. 

 

 

[simple1]

6 hours ago, samran said:

Weasel words.

 

Even if they had a site procured in Jerusalem, it would take years for the new embassy to be designed and built. 

 

The new embassy is as real as Donny’s wall. Like most things, it is just made up. 

 

 

Media reports the current US Consular building in Jerusalem will be updated / renovated to serve as an Embassy. One assumes building a new Embassy from scratch will occur later.

 

Pence comes across as a creep.

Edited January 23, 2018 by simple1

[lannarebirth]

12 minutes ago, simple1 said:

 

Pence comes across as a creep.

 

Let's put it this way. Those who are looking to oust Trump prematurely should be careful of what they wish for.