The U.S. Embassy Move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

●       From the memoirs of Jared Kushner"Breaking History"“Breaking History” Memoirs in the White House

●     On many hot nights in meetings at the White House, the Israeli lobby team (Ansar Israel), which works in the White House, headed by the President's senior advisor in the White House: Jared Kushner..and including Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations for peace in the Middle East, who is an Orthodox Jew... and who defended his view that settlements should not be considered an obstacle to peace..knowing that he lived in the state of New Jersey in the same state where Kushner's father resides ..a sympathizer with Israel..., and David Friedman, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, whom the press nicknamed the spokesman for the Jewish state...and who was the bankruptcy lawyer for former President Trump, when he was a businessman, before he assumed the U.S. presidency. In 2016, and Avi Berkowitz, Kushner's senior adviser, who replaced Greenblatt after his resignation shortly after the announcement of the Deal of the Century by former President Trump.....And it is known that Avi Berkowitz is an Orthodox Jew, and a resident of the state of New Jersey, the same state in which the Kushner family resides..!...With indirect support from Ivanka, President Trump's daughter - Kushner's wife - this team managed to pin down Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and cause his humiliating dismissal from his post later on 13-3-2018 via a tweet from former President Trump, after Kushner's team poured out their wrath on him, and incited President Trump, having inflamed his displeasure with Tillerson..because of his dissatisfaction as Secretary of State with handing the Middle East file to Jared Kushner, and his opposition also to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and to recognizing it as the eternal capital of the Jewish state..!

●     Kushner lifted the veil in his memoir "Breaking History"..which we referred to in a previous post, in chapter number 16 of his memoirs titled "Building Capital", about how the rhythm and intensity of the discussions proceeded..to remove the Secretary of State from the White House. And how this team pressured President Trump to implement the 1995 congressional decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to embellish the issuance of the decision for the American president...suggesting to him that there were no risks in implementing this decision, according to their expectations in light of their contacts and consultations..with some of America's allied countries, foremost among them Arab states...in the Middle East..!

●     Kushner mentioned in the course of his memoir about the file of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, under the title "Building Capital", where he wrote about one of the decisive sessions: "The time has come now", "the President had just asked me one of the most important direct questions I faced in the Oval Office: Should the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv be moved to Jerusalem?" He added that "after the AIPAC speech in 2016, Trump repeatedly pledged to move the embassy - a promise that motivated many evangelical and Jewish voters. He had considered doing it by executive order on his first day in office, but Mattis and Tillerson warned that it would lead to catastrophic violence"..! "For that reason, Trump postponed the decision, and ten months into the administration, Tillerson had no plan to move the embassy, he thought the decision was deferred indefinitely..."

●     I (that is, Kushner) and my team saw an opportunity: for more than twenty years, Ansar Israel had been waiting for a president to move the embassy to Jerusalem. In 1995 Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which obliges the president to move the embassy" ...Kushner continues his account about Congress's 1995 decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem saying" "it was buried in the legislation, a provision allowing the president to postpone the step, if he signed a waiver every six months. Since then, every president repeatedly signed the waiver. The first time it reached Trump's desk in June, Tillerson (then Secretary of State) urged him to sign it. With the waiver returning for the second time in late November"

-        Kushner added in his memoir...continuing on the subject of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, saying: "We planned to recommend that the President fulfill his campaign promise, and to reverse twenty years of broken promises, by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moving the U.S. embassy"!.. "On 17 November 2017, we—me (Kushner), Tillerson, H. R. McMaster, Friedman, Greenblatt—met in the Oval Office. The stated purpose of the meeting was to brief the President on our ongoing dialogue with the Israelis and Palestinians and to seek his comments. After we briefly discussed our progress, Trump asked what we were doing about the embassy. Friedman and Greenblatt anticipated this and were prepared to discuss it. The National Security official jumped in and explained that the issue was complicated - there was a lot at stake in the decision, and it was going through the National Security Council process to ensure that all factors and viewpoints were considered before they presented him with a recommendation"..

-        Kushner goes on to say that the National Security official and Tillerson must be stopped so as not to extend another six months: "This step would stop, and Friedman from the team took the floor...!"

-        Here Kushner adds details of Friedman's defense on behalf of Kushner's team, where he continued his account and said "and he said that this was an early test of Trump's presidency. The whole world - from Tehran to Pyongyang - was watching to see whether he would become a president who keeps his promises, or whether he would fall into the familiar patterns of conventional wisdom. Trump turned to me (that is, Kushner) and asked me whether moving the embassy would make it harder to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. I said: "In the short term, it would be more difficult, but in the long term, it would be easier because we will build capital with Israel, while showing world leaders that you are not bound by tradition"..."

-        Adding his remark addressing President Trump he said: "The Middle East is a tough region, where leaders respect those who do what they say, and who are not afraid under pressure." Worried about the peace plan, Trump then asked whether we should wait another six months, and see whether the plan had gained traction, .....I said: "While that should be considered, this is a relatively quiet period in an inherently volatile Middle East". "Anything can happen, and in six months you may not have the same distribution of cards to play."

-        "After hearing the opposing view from Tillerson and weighing the potential risks and benefits, the President made his decision: "I want to do it...., " and Kushner continues his memoir as he rejoiced at President Trump's approval to issue the decision, where he said: "I was delighted with the decision"

-        Kushner continues, describing the sharp discussion with Tillerson (the Secretary of State).... "At that time, Tillerson entered my office, erupting with rage; he was stunned by the meeting with the President. He had assumed it would be solely about the peace plan, and was unfortunately unprepared to discuss the embassy. To make matters worse, he had spoken with Mohammed bin Salman earlier that day, and told the Crown Prince, Tillerson, that he was pleased that his team was now working with the White House on a daily basis. I think Tillerson believed this meant that Mohammed bin Salman and I were speaking regularly. It angered him to think this was happening without the State Department's knowledge., , and less than a week after the President returned from his first foreign trip, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic relations with Qatar, halted air, sea and land traffic, and accused Qatar of fomenting terrorism, by financing the Muslim Brotherhood, and working with Iran to destabilize the region.!"

-        Tillerson was sympathetic to the Qataris. Under his leadership, Exxon had invested tens of billions of dollars to build the gas industry in Qatar. He had developed close ties with the Qatari ruling family. He knew that I often spoke with Emirati leader Mohammed bin Zayed and also had developed a friendly relationship with Mohammed bin Salman. He speculated that the quartet of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt were exploiting our good faith in bullying the Qataris", (It is worth noting that Rex Tillerson ran the world's largest oil company by market value, Exxon Mobil, in Texas, and worked there on behalf of it in the United States, Yemen and Russia, and has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin).

Then Kushner continues describing Tillerson's feelings toward him, saying: "He alleged that I was responsible for the Saudi dispute with Qatar, which was completely the opposite of the truth. I felt as though I had lost Tillerson's trust — he seemed to stop regarding me as a close friend and ally, and instead looked at me as a serious obstacle, and I told him to exercise better control over his State Department team's activities, before he accused me of things I had not done," concluding his remarks with a sentence Tillerson said to him: "I cannot work this way! I feel like we have four secretaries of state."

On November 27, 2017, Kelly McMaster scheduled a small meeting with the President in the situation room to seek a final decision regarding the Jerusalem embassy. "Kelly invited Vice President Pence and Tillerson and Mattis and McMaster and Ambassador Friedman. Although I was the White House Director for Middle East Policy, Kelly refused to allow me or Jason Greenblatt to join. He assured me this was to protect us."

Kushner continues his account of the final meeting to decide on moving the embassy to Jerusalem, saying: that President Trump wanted to hear from those who opposed moving the embassy, and after every speech Friedman would provide a rebuttal... Tillerson went first, reading from a loose paper. He said the Trump administration had reestablished a strong working relationship between the United States and Israel. The current American position on the embassy was our long-standing policy, and moving it would not greatly improve our standing with the Israelis, so why do it? From his prepared text, the President walked through the history of modern Jerusalem, but he committed an embarrassing, serious mistake when he told the President that the Israelis had controlled Jerusalem since the "War of 1996." When Tillerson finished, Trump turned to Friedman and asked him to respond. Friedman said..., "I am willing to concede that in ninety-nine percent of this world, you know the issues a thousand times better than I do. I'm just not willing to concede that to Israel. I didn't bring any notes with me. On the other hand, you were just reading from talking points someone wrote for you, and whoever wrote them should be fired, because they contain many errors. For example, the war was in 1967, not 1996. We can have this discussion, if you want it, but it will not be fair to you." Tillerson looked down his nose and over his reading glasses at Friedman, closed his notebook, and said: "I have made my point."

After that, the President turned to Mattis (the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time), who explained that he could not understand the heavy focus on the Jerusalem issue.... He had visited Israel on countless occasions, and each time his meetings took place in Tel Aviv. Why move the embassy to Jerusalem if the Israeli Ministry of Defense is in Tel Aviv? The group turned to Friedman to reply. "Where is the Pentagon?" Mattis asked, who replied that it was in Arlington, Virginia. Friedman then continued: "Is our capital in Virginia? By your logic, it should be. When you go to Israel, you meet at their defense headquarters in Tel Aviv. And when they come here, they meet at the Pentagon, in Virginia. But Congress and the Supreme Court and the White House in America are all in Washington, D.C. Similarly, the Knesset and the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister's residence are all in Jerusalem!"

Mattis acknowledged that point! At the end of the meeting, the President announced that he wanted to proceed with the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Tillerson spoke again. Apparently, he had not really made his point. He said: "I would like to put on the record that this is a mistake." Trump wanted to be prepared in case violence broke out, and he ordered me to speak to all the leaders in the Middle East, and report back if there was any... trouble. While many leaders made clear they were against moving the embassy, they also committed to working with us to prevent violent reactions in their countries.

Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj, who are among the senior Palestinian interlocutors with Washington, made an urgent visit to see me at the White House. Erekat warned that the step would be a grave mistake. Faraj echoed these concerns, and predicted that there would be severe consequences in the region if the President proceeded with the step.

During the tense forty-eight hours before the embassy announcement, Trump stared at twenty years of conferences and disturbing intelligence forecasts and the opposition of the Secretaries of State and Defense. Here, it seemed we were asking him to give Israel a large present for free, which ran counter to his instincts. When a businessman friend called and advised Trump that he should force the Israelis to freeze their settlement activity in exchange for moving the embassy, the President wondered whether it was wrong to give something important to Israel without asking for something in return. He called me for my reaction to this idea, and I assured him he would get something in return. I said: "This step will build capital with the Israeli people." "If we make progress on the peace file, the Israeli leadership will need to make some difficult political concessions, and making them trust you is invaluable. Moreover, you promised to move the embassy during your campaign, and you are working hard to keep all your promises!!"