October 23, 2018

Merging the U.S. Consulate and Embassy in Jerusalem Is a Mistake

By Hady Amr and Ilan Goldenberg

While the world was rightly focused on the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an entirely different consulate—that of the United States in Jerusalem—all but disappeared. And the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace took a major blow in the process.

Here’s what happened: On Oct. 18, U.S. President Donald Trump treated the world to the latest twist in what he says is his quest for the “ultimate deal.” His secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced that the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, which opened in 1844 and has served as the United States’ principal venue for communication with the Palestinian people and Palestinian leadership, would be merged into a subunit of the U.S. Embassy in Israel—which Trump moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May.

Read the full article in Foreign Policy.

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