New U.S. Embassy May Be in Jerusalem, but Not in Israel
- 6 years ago
New U.S. Embassy May Be in Jerusalem, but Not in Israel
Eugene Kontorovich, the director of international law at the conservative Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, contends
that by moving the embassy to the Arnona site the United States is recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over areas it captured in the 1967 war.
The diplomatic compound that will serve as the American Embassy until a permanent
site is found lies partly in a contested zone known as No Man’s Land.
But if the American recognition was already vague, leaving the eventual boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem up to the Israelis
and Palestinians, this odd quirk of political geography raises even sharper questions about which parts of the city the United States considers as Israel’s capital.
"Any permanent status for that territory should be part of a final status negotiation." The dispute could turn the American ambassador,
David M. Friedman, an avid supporter of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, into a new kind of diplomatic settler himself.
The provisional embassy site, in the Arnona neighborhood, "has been in continuous
Israeli use since 1949," the department said in a statement last week.
The fortresslike compound sits partly in predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem
and partly in a section of No Man’s Land between West Jerusalem and predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.
Eugene Kontorovich, the director of international law at the conservative Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, contends
that by moving the embassy to the Arnona site the United States is recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over areas it captured in the 1967 war.
The diplomatic compound that will serve as the American Embassy until a permanent
site is found lies partly in a contested zone known as No Man’s Land.
But if the American recognition was already vague, leaving the eventual boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem up to the Israelis
and Palestinians, this odd quirk of political geography raises even sharper questions about which parts of the city the United States considers as Israel’s capital.
"Any permanent status for that territory should be part of a final status negotiation." The dispute could turn the American ambassador,
David M. Friedman, an avid supporter of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, into a new kind of diplomatic settler himself.
The provisional embassy site, in the Arnona neighborhood, "has been in continuous
Israeli use since 1949," the department said in a statement last week.
The fortresslike compound sits partly in predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem
and partly in a section of No Man’s Land between West Jerusalem and predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.