The Trump Jerusalem Waiver The President made the embassy move a test of U.S. credibility.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-jerusalem-waiver-1496358880?mod=nwsrl_review_outlook_u_s_
No one forced Mr. Trump to make his pledge. He chose to make it a campaign issue. The Israelis will be disappointed but are still delighted to have a President who is friendlier than his predecessor. The Palestinians will pocket this concession and hold out for more.
Way back in 1995, Congress passed a law requiring the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. On Thursday Donald Trump became the latest in a long line of Presidents to issue a waiver to put the move off.
Moving the embassy to the actual capital of the Jewish State is not the most important U.S. priority in the region. But because Mr. Trump made such a point of it in the campaign—vowing that he would make good where others had backed down—the waiver damages American credibility. As President Obama’s infamous red line in Syria illustrated, the world is more dangerous when Presidents show they don’t mean what they say.
In a statement explaining the waiver, the White House said that “the question is not if that move happens, but only when.” The statement further claims the embassy waiver was given in hopes of boosting chances for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
Here lies the bigger problem, which is less that the embassy is staying in Tel Aviv than that the Trump White House has concluded it should spend scarce political capital on a Palestinian-Israeli peace that has eluded Presidents for decades. That peace will only have a chance when the two parties are prepared to negotiate seriously, and the Palestinians now are not. They won’t be any more likely to deal because Mr. Trump backed down on the embassy.
No one forced Mr. Trump to make his pledge. He chose to make it a campaign issue. The Israelis will be disappointed but are still delighted to have a President who is friendlier than his predecessor. The Palestinians will pocket this concession and hold out for more.
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