Jerusalem: The Capital Of Israel
In a parting interview with The Jerusalem Post six years ago, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl said his biggest regret in three decades of public service was adding a presidential waiver to the Jerusalem Embassy Act that he authored in 1995.
The law requires the US to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and passed by a 93 to five vote, despite the objection of president Bill Clinton. But the waiver enables American presidents to suspend implementing the law for six months. Kyl said he was a brand-new senator then, so he let himself be talked into it by veteran pro-Israel senators.
“What I regret is that when we did this, we were told that it couldn’t happen by ‘friends’ of Israel in the Senate who insisted that they would be supportive as long as the waiver was included,” Kyl recalled. “I should have tested them and seen if they would have voted against it without the waiver. In a spirit of reconciliation, I put in the waiver, and the rest is history.”
President Barack Obama signed the last waiver in December. That means moving the embassy has been delayed to the end of May.
To honor his commitment that he made throughout his campaign to move America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to the capital, President Donald Trump does not have to do anything at all. He just has to let June 1 arrive without signing another waiver.
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