[LI] Donald Trump has promised, both himself and through surrogates, to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.That move, long promised by American presidents but never implemented, would have particular importance in light of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which the Obama administration pushed behind the scenes and allowed to pass by abstaining.
That Resolution purports to declare illegal the Jewish presence even in place such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was captured by Jordan after Israel declared independence, and then ethnically cleansed of Jews. That ethnic cleansing of Jew along with ransacking and destruction of Jewish religious places, even cemeteries, was remedied when Israel recaptured the area in 1967 after Jordan attacked Israel in support of Egypt and Syria. Israel also recaptured the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism at which Jews are permitted to pray. The UN Resolution declares Israeli control over the Western Wall illegal as well.
While Resolution 2334 does not have force of law because it was not issued under UN Charter Chapter 7, it nonetheless has substantial political impact.
As Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker notes, John Kerry was not accurate when he claimed that this declaration as to these Jewish sites was consistent with prior administrations:
The administration can point to 25 UNSC resolutions, between 1971 and 1994, that included some reference to Jerusalem, 1967 or occupied territories. In virtually all cases, the reference was not in an operative paragraph but in the preamble; many of these resolutions were on distinct events (such as the shooting of Palestinian youth or expulsions of Palestinians) that had alarmed the international community. There also was no specific reference to "East Jerusalem."
The last time a resolution was approved by the Security Council with phrasing concerning Jerusalem and occupied territories in a key operative paragraph was in 1980 -- during the Jimmy Carter administration, when Obama was a college student....
Back in 1980, the Israelis and Palestinians were not even negotiating directly. Since then, the Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization set in place a process under which settlements were to be discussed and negotiated as part of final status negotiations. That’s a key reason no resolution was passed with even this language in the preamble between 1994 and now. The last time, in 1994, the United States sought a rare paragraph-by-paragraph vote on the resolution to make clear its opposition to the Jerusalem language.
Indeed, then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said the United States would oppose the assertion of Jerusalem as "occupied" in future resolutions because it was a matter for negotiations:
"We simply do not support the description of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as ’occupied Palestinian territory.’ In the view of my Government, this language could be taken to indicate sovereignty, a matter which both Israel and the PLO have agreed must be decided in negotiations on the final status of the territories. As agreed between them, those negotiations will begin not later than two years after the implementation of the Declaration of Principles."