President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner said on Sunday the president is still undecided whether to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy there, refusing to announce a premature decision. He added that Trump was still considering his options ahead of an announcement he is expected to make this week.
“The president is going to make his decision. He is still looking at a lot of different facts,” Kushner said in a rare public appearance at the Brookings Institution Saban Forum.
Shortly before Kushner’s appearance, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that if the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it would harm the White House’s efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
“Any American step related to the recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, or moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, represents a threat to the future of the peace process and is unacceptable for the Palestinians, Arabs and internationally”, he said.
Earlier that day, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said he didn’t know what the president would decide regarding the embassy’s possible relocation, but claimed it could create “momentum” for a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine.
According to U.S. officials, Trump is likely to make his decision public in a speech on Wednesday. He could, on the other hand, also put off moving the embassy from Tel Aviv, as presidents before him have done.
Under a 1995 law, the president of the United States must move the embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city of Jerusalem or sign a waiver every six months based on national security grounds. Trump signed the waiver in June, but signaled that he was still planning to move the embassy.
The decision risks spark tensions in the Middle East and setting back a long-elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
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