Israel: “No way to U.S. reopening of consulate in Jerusalem”
No way would Israel agree to have the United States reopen its consulate dedicated to Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, said Israeli Justice Minister Gideon Saar. His comment comes ahead of a meeting between the two countries’ top diplomats in Washington, D.C. this week, where such a discussion is likely to be on the agenda.
When pressed during a public conference on Tuesday whether Israel would allow for the consulate’s reopening if the Biden administration pushes for it, Saar repeatedly registered his opposition, a response that drew applause from the audience.
“I spoke with [Prime Minister Naftali Bennett] a couple of times on the issue. We are on the same page and we don’t see differently,” Saar added. “Someone said it’s an election of commitment. But for us, it’s a generation’s commitment. We will not compromise on this.”
The State Department could not be reached for comment early Wednesday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in May that the United States would reopen the Jerusalem consulate which traditional engaged with the Palestinians, but observers say the issue presents a dilemma for the Biden White House.
Israel’s current prime minister, Bennett, headed the small, right-wing Yamina party before coming into power by putting together a coalition government with more centrist parties in the fourth nationwide election in half as many years. The first prime minister to have lived in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank — illegal under international law — Bennett has made his objection to Palestinian statehood clear.
While the current U.S. administration may wish to reopen the consulate, it does not want the issue to become a wedge in Israeli domestic politics or weaken a government it considers “more moderate than its predecessor,” according to David Makovsky, a senior adviser to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Obama era.
Nir Barkat, a current member of the Knesset and a top contender to replace former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as leader of the right-wing Likud Party, proposed a bill in July that sought to bar countries from creating diplomatic missions in Jerusalem that aren’t missions to Israel.
The opening of U.S. consular doors in Jerusalem can only be with Israel’s approval, said Ron Hassner who teaches international conflict and religion at University of California, Berkeley. “No traffic light goes up, no street is paved, and no mail is collected in East Jerusalem unless Israel does so,” he told The Post. “It’s unthinkable for a foreign entity to set up diplomatic offices without the permission of the ruling authority. The Israelis are the only such authority.”
Palestinians have “no de facto or de jure control, nor have they ever had such control” over the eastern section of the city, Hassner explained.
Following victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel declared sovereignty over Jerusalem after capturing the eastern part of the contested city from neighboring Jordan, thereby gaining control of the Old City and the surrounding Arab neighborhoods. To this day, East Jerusalem is viewed by most of the international community as occupied territory; for Palestinians, it would one day be the capital of their own nation.
In late 2017, President Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This break from decades of U.S. foreign policy set in motion a series of events: the U.S. Embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv (where nearly all embassies are located) to Jerusalem in 2018, and the consulate there that long handled Palestinian affairs was merged into the new embassy.
Just this week, figures instrumental behind the decision to move the embassy gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the establishment of the Friedman Center for Peace Through Strength, named after Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. Friedman, along with former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, helped broker the Abraham Accords that normalized Israel’s diplomatic relations with a number of Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The embassy move, which at the time entailed hanging a plaque on the existing consular walls in Jerusalem, carried deep symbolic significance. Past presidential administrations withheld the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital so that it could be part of a final Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
The first U.S. consul to Jerusalem was appointed by President John Tyler in 1844, and a permanent mission was established a decade later. In the ensuing 170-or-so years, the consulate became viewed by Palestinians as an independent channel of communication with the State Department.
Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in Gaza City to protest the opening of the Jerusalem embassy. In a phone call to Trump, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the U.S. decision “a declaration of withdrawal” from the peace talks. The militant group Hamas that effectively controls the Gaza Strip predicted that “doors of hell” would open for U.S. interests.
But as Makovsky pointed out, “the symbolism of Jerusalem often overwhelms other considerations.”
