The United States will relocate
its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May, coinciding with Israel's celebration
of the 70th anniversary of its independence, US officials said Friday.
The
decision sparked a furious reaction from Palestinians, who object to the US
recognition of the disputed city as Israel's capital and call May 14 -- which
in 2018 marks 70 years since Israel's declaration of independence -- Naqba,
their "day of catastrophe."
The choice of the date, a year
earlier than originally forecast, is likely to further cloud efforts to restart
peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, putting in greater doubt the
traditional US role as an "honest broker."
"We are planning to open the
new US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May. The Embassy opening will coincide
with Israel's 70th anniversary," a State Department spokesperson said.
In December, President Donald
Trump broke with decades of policy to announce US recognition of Jerusalem as
Israel's capital, drawing near global condemnation, deeply angering the
Palestinians and sparking days of unrest in the Palestinian territories.
Until now, the US embassy has
been located in Tel Aviv.
The new embassy will be located
temporarily in a US consular building in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood, the
US official said, while Washington seeks a permanent location.
It will initially consist of the
ambassador and a "small team," the official added.
- 'Blatant violation of
international law' -
The Palestine Liberation
Organization decried Washington's decision as a "provocation to all
Arabs."
"The American
administration's decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and
choose the Palestinian people's Naqba as the date for this step is a blatant
violation of international law," PLO number two Saeb Erekat told AFP.
He said the result would be
"the destruction of the two-state option, as well as a blatant provocation
to all Arabs and Muslims."
The US move to recognize
Jerusalem as Israel's capital broke with generations of international consensus
that the city's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal
between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as
its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of
their future state.
Trump said his defiant move --
making good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge -- marked the start of a
"new approach" to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israelis and Palestinians alike
interpreted Trump's move as Washington taking Israel's side in the conflict --
a view reinforced by the White House's recent decision to withhold financing
for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas
delivered a rare address to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, calling for an
international conference to be held later this year to launch a new, wider
Middle East peace process and pave the way to Palestinian statehood.
The revised schedule on the
embassy move comes after US Vice President Mike Pence pledged only last month
to move the embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019 in a speech to Israel's
parliament that saw Arab lawmakers expelled after they shouted in protest.
Source: AFP
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