Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?

[Mauer]

This article is from 2001. I am just wondering if he will ever make due on this promise? I think he should do it.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23062

Will U.S. Embassy
move to Jerusalem?
Administration avoids comment on announcement expected by May 31

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

President Bush was expected yesterday to make an announcement about whether the government would follow through on a campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

However, today the White House press office was shuffling calls on the subject to the National Security Council. The NSC was, in turn, referring inquiries about the embassy to the State Department, which was not returning calls on the matter.

The evasiveness suggests the Bush administration will delay a decision and invoke a six-month security waiver. The Clinton administration continually delayed a decision throughout its last two years in office, though Congress approved the move in 1995 when it overwhelmingly passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act. Clinton, too, in both election campaigns promised to move the embassy to Israel’s capital city.

Of the 170 countries in the world with which the U.S. maintains diplomatic relations, Israel is the only one in which the embassy is not located in the host country’s capital.

 

[downtown]

forgive me, but why does it matter where it is?

 

[PresidentMike]

forgive me, but why does it matter where it is?

It's a political issue. Both Israelis and Palestineans claim Jerusalem as the capital of their state (or proposed state, as the case may be). The U.S. maintains a pretense of neutrality on this issue by not "recognizing" Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and it does so by keeping our embassy in Tel Aviv (if I am not mistaken, just about every other foreign country has their embassy in Jerusalem).

 

[Taliesin]

Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, but this isn't recognised worldwide because Jerusalem is a shared city. If the US recognises Jerusalem, it would signal a strong pro-Israel shift.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I spose it's symbolic.

Where's the one in the Netherlands?