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The White House will on Monday announce that the US embassy in Israel is to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to an unconfirmed report by an Israeli news outlet.
Channel 2 cited an anonymous source as saying a member of the Trump administration would announce the highly controversial move on the President’s first full working day in office.
The news channel said it had received no confirmation of the claim and there has been no public statement on the move since Friday’s inauguration of the new US President.
Relocating America’s diplomatic HQ to Jerusalem would represent a major break with policy of Obama administration.
Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he intends to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, despite warnings the move would violate international law and destroy the peace process.
Earlier in January, US officials and Israeli Foreign Ministry sources said the incoming US ambassador to Israel could be based in Jerusalem, while the official embassy building remains in Tel Aviv.
Relocating the embassy to Jerusalem would be seen as a provocative move by Mr Trump’s critics as the city is claimed by both the Israelis and Palestinians as their capital.
A multi-story poster in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood hails US President Donald Trump’s proclaimed plan to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital.
The sign, which went up in the days leading up to Trump’s Friday inauguration, reads: “Mazeltov on your decision to move your Embassy to Jerusalem.”
Trump vowed to make the move while on the campaign trail and after his election victory in November.
The poster is part of an ad for a real-estate development company. It covers the side of a building under construction in the capital’s Bethlehem Road, and has become a favorite target for shutterbugs in recent days.
Still, last week, Trump told the Israel Hayom Hebrew-language daily that he intended to go through with his pledge, saying that “clearly I did not forget” the promise made on the campaign trail.
Asked by the paper Tuesday night at the Chairman’s Global Dinner in Washington, DC — an exclusive black tie event for diplomats and members of the incoming administration — if “you have not forgotten your promise concerning the embassy in Jerusalem,” Trump responded that “of course I remember what I said about Jerusalem.”
“You know that I am not a person who breaks promises,” he added in comments published in Hebrew by the paper on Thursday morning.
© Moshé Anielewicz pour Europe Israel
