The United States on Wednesday signed an agreement to build a permanent embassy compound in Jerusalem, with Israeli officials calling the move a reflection of the “unbreakable alliance” between the two
countries.
The new embassy will be built at the Allenby compound in southern Jerusalem.
Speaking at the signing ceremony at Israel’s foreign ministry, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said Washington “recognises Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people”.
“We are going to plant our flag, our American flag, on the soil of Jerusalem for a permanent and a brand new embassy compound that will serve as our mothership of diplomatic activities here in Israel,” he said.
Referring to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Huckabee added: “I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along.”
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The agreement follows US President Donald Trump’s decision in December 2017 to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv. Since then, embassy operations have been spread across multiple locations in Jerusalem while a permanent site was identified.
Israel Hails Embassy Agreement
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the project builds on Trump’s 2017 decision.
“President Trump’s historic decision in 2017 to move the embassy to Jerusalem set the record straight,” Saar said.
“And today, with the agreement to begin building a permanent embassy complex, that decision becomes even deeper and more enduring.”
He added that the agreement reflected the “unbreakable alliance” between Israel and the United States.
Rights Group Opposes Project
Israeli rights group Adalah criticised the planned embassy site, calling it “enshrines a profound, historical injustice”.
In a statement, the group said the site “is located on land confiscated by Israel from Palestinian landowners under the discriminatory 1950 Absentees’ Property Law”.
It added that it had previously objected to the project on behalf of descendants of the original Palestinian landowners.
Adalah said that by proceeding with the project, “the US government directly endorses Israel’s unlawful mechanisms of dispossession and displacement, violating the fundamental property rights of the original Palestinian owners and their descendants, in direct defiance of international law.”
Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel considers the city its undivided capital, while Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
With inputs from AFP
