Peace Now opposes US Embassy move to Jerusalem
APN to Trump: Don’t Transfer Israel Embassy to Jerusalem
Washington, DC — Alarmed by reports that the Trump Administration is considering immediate action to move the US Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Americans for Peace Now is calling on President Trump to eschew this dangerous action.
In the past few days, Vice President Mike Pence said that Trump is “actively considering” how to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, and senior Israeli officials were quoted as saying that they expect the move to be announced imminently. Tomorrow is the deadline by which the President must issue a national security waiver to a 1995 law that required the embassy’s transfer. Every six months since then, four consecutive presidents — Democratic and Republican (including Trump himself) — have signed such waivers.
As the Trump Administration is reportedly preparing to launch its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, this dramatic change in the status quo is almost certain to derail peace efforts and trigger violence. Jerusalem should indeed be recognized as Israel’s capital, but only in the context of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Unilateral American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, before Israeli Jerusalem has been defined in bilateral negotiations, would pre-judge the outcome of peace talks.
As popular as this action may be among some Israelis and their right-wing American supporters, it will justifiably infuriate Palestinians, who view East Jerusalem as their future capital, and who see themselves as the guardians of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites. Because Jerusalem is a holy city for Muslims worldwide, repercussions will likely reach beyond Israel and the Occupied Territories, raising the specter of bloodshed in the region and beyond.
Changing the status quo in Jerusalem is playing with fire. If Trump cannot muster the judgment and discipline to resist pyromaniacal urges and push back against those who would be only too happy for an opportunity to blow up a peace process before it begins, we can only hope that someone in the White House will hold him back.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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