US President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump has been telling friendly audiences that he is proudly fulfilling a campaign promise with the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem and that his real estate savvy is already saving the taxpayers a buck on the new location.
A campaign rally crowd gave Trump lengthy applause when he said the new embassy will open tomorrow afternoon (1am Tuesday NZT), and on the cheap.
"I said, 'how much?,' something other presidents don't ask. They said, 'sir, US$1 billion dollars,'" Trump said in theatrical disbelief.
"For US$150,000 I could fix it. It'll be beautiful," Trump said at the rally in Elkhart, Indiana.
The President said nothing about another campaign promise to seek a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, or the fact that meeting the first promise has, at least for now, foreclosed a chance for the second.
A regional peace initiative led by presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has been shelved because of Palestinian anger over the shift in decades of US policy regarding the embassy, which held that Jerusalem's disputed status was an issue to be resolved through negotiations.
Keeping the US embassy an hour away in Tel Aviv was a signal that the US would not prejudge competing Israeli and Palestinian claims to land and sites in the holy city.
Before the embassy announcement, the Trump peace plan was widely expected to be unveiled in early 2018, with Israeli-Palestinian talks to follow. Trump spoke expansively last year of a chance to make "the ultimate deal," succeeding where others had fallen short.
Palestinian leaders called the embassy move a betrayal and an abdication of the US role as a neutral broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They have boycotted meetings with American officials since the move was announced in December.
None of the senior US officials attending the embassy opening, including Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, are expected to meet Palestinian leaders.
The opening is timed to celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary.
Trump is not attending, and neither are Vice-President Mike Pence nor Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose deputy John Sullivan is leading the delegation. The relatively low-key delegation is a signal that the White House retains hope for the peace proposal this year, although there are no outward signs of progress.
US officials say the plan is not dead and will be presented "at the right time." Trump has barely mentioned it publicly in months, although he sounded upbeat when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White house in early March.
Palestinian protesters run for cover from teargas fired by Israeli troops during a protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel. Photo / AP
"We're working on it very hard," Trump said then. "It would be a great achievement - and even from a humanitarian standpoint - what better if we could make peace between Israel and the Palestinians? And I can tell you, we are working very hard on doing that. And I think we have a very good chance."
Trump, who got numerous details wrong in his account of the embassy cost, cites the embassy move as an example of his bolder leadership style.
"America is respected again. Different ballgame," Trump said at the campaign rally.
"After the promises of many administrations and presidents, and that they never did it - they campaigned on the promise, they never did it - next week we will finally open the American Embassy in Jerusalem," he said.
Trump said he told US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to spend a little more - maybe US$300,000 - and "it'll be beautiful."
The US$1 billion estimate is for a planned replacement for an existing consular services site in southern Jerusalem, on land that was under Israeli sovereignty before 1967 and, the Israelis argue, will likely remain in Israel's hands under any future peace agreement.
Under plans presented to Congress earlier this year, the new embassy would initially be housed in temporary quarters at that office site. The cost would be about US$300,000 to US$500,000, the figure Trump appeared to reference at the rally.
He suggested the renovated building would then become permanent, saving money, but it is not clear that would satisfy legal and logistical issues for moving most operations from Tel Aviv.
Other Administration officials frame the embassy decision as a common-sense recognition that Jerusalem already functions as the Israeli capital and would remain so in any negotiation.
In the face of criticism from Europe and the Muslim world, the White House has argued that the embassy decision would help peace prospects rather than hurt them.
That idea got surprise backing from a former US ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama. Dan Shapiro wrote in a column for CNN.com that "the shattering of this taboo is useful in its own right," and "helps return the search for a resolution to this conflict to its origins," in the partition of Palestine.
"The UN understood in 1947 that the conflict required the creation of two states, which logically means Jews and Arab must share the land," Shapiro wrote.
No other countries have their embassies in Jerusalem, though some did operate from there until the 1980s. On Thursday, Guatemala will open its embassy in Jerusalem following the US move.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat last week accused the Trump Administration of violating international law and its "own commitments towards the peace process."
"As Washington pursues a policy of encouragement of international anarchy and disregard for organisations and international law, we call upon all diplomatic corps, civil society organisations, and religious authorities to boycott the inauguration ceremony," Erekat said.
Attending the ceremony would "lend legitimacy to an illegal decision and to continued Israeli policies of occupation, colonisation, and annexation," Erekat said.
Some European and other diplomats have declined to attend a separate celebration sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, a US group that favours a two-state peace settlement, called the embassy move a "suicidal act" that blocks the United States from playing any role in helping forge a deal of the magnitude and complexity that Trump seeks.
"The credibility of this Administration as a potential broker is lost and irreparable," he said. "If it does put forth any sort of a proposal, the most one can expect is it will be a recitation of the right-wing Israeli talking points - proposals that have been aired out in Israel for some time but do not bear any resemblance to anything a Palestinian representative can accept."
