美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Favors Moving U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem, Despite Backlash Fears

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Trump¹ Favors Moving U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem, Despite Backlash Fears

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Let's look now at one of President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy pledges. As a candidate, he said that he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He would move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. By saying so, Trump is raising what might be the thorniest³ issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the status of Jerusalem. Sometimes it has sparked violence. NPR's Daniel Estrin explains from Jerusalem.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE⁴: This massive stone building with a big eagle insignia on the front belongs to the U.S. Consulate⁵ General in Jerusalem. Israelis and Palestinians come here to apply for visas. It looks like an embassy. But it isn't because no U.S. administration has officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Israeli-American Eliezer Shapiro says it's time for that to change. He was at the consulate, renewing his passport.

ELIEZER SHAPIRO: If we want any reconciliation⁶ between Israelis and Palestinians, we also have to have our rights recognized here in this country, not just their rights.

ESTRIN: Israel has declared Jerusalem as its eternal capital. But the Palestinians want part of the city for their future capital, based on negotiations⁷. And internationally, countries haven't wanted to take sides on the issue. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry⁸, no country has its embassy in the city.

In the '90s, Congress voted to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all delayed the move. Part of the rationale all these years was not to interfere⁹ with U.S. efforts to broker¹⁰ peace talks. Former Israeli diplomat¹¹ Yaki Dayan says many Israeli diplomats¹² have quietly accepted that to preserve the U.S. role as mediator¹³ in negotiations.

YAKI DAYAN: Israel sees the United States as not only an honest broker but the only broker.

ESTRIN: He said it would undermine U.S. credibility in leading a peace process. In Arab East Jerusalem today, Amin Shweiki sat in his picture-frame store with a Palestinian newspaper spread across his desk and the TV tuned¹⁴ to the news. He says he's been seeing a lot about Trump's plans to move the U.S. embassy. But that's the least of his gripes with the U.S.

AMIN SHWEIKI: I don't care. If they move it, they'll move it. And we believe that American government are against us - against us not as a Palestinian only - as a Muslim.

ESTRIN: That anger is what former Jordanian Foreign Minister Kamel Abu Jaber is concerned with around the region, Trump provoking Arab and Muslim backlash.

KAMEL ABU JABER: That man is a businessman. And he's a realist. And he - I don't think he wants to see anymore flames in the Middle East. It would be just like poking¹⁵ a stick into a beehive.

ESTRIN: Last week, Trump adviser¹⁶ Walid Phares seemed to hint at flexibility¹⁷, saying Trump would create consensus¹⁸ at home before moving the embassy. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Jerusalem.