Free Republic

US Vice President Mike Pence told Israel’s Knesset on Monday that Washington was intending to bring forward a controversial plan by the Trump administration to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the US Embassy in Jerusalem — and the embassy will open before the end of next year,” Pence said. The intention to move the embassy, which has been condemned by the Palestinians and their Arab allies, was agreed in theory by US lawmakers years ago but was set in motion by US President Donald...

I reported this weekend on reports that the U.S. planned to move our Embassy from Tel Aviv, to Israel’s capital Jerusalem, by the end of 2019.This timetable, which was faster than the 3-4 years previously discussed for building a new Embassy, was based on renovating the existing U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, the main location of which was built in 2010 and is actually larger than the Tel Aviv embassy. Those reports were confirmed today when VP Mike Pence addressed the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Pence, the first American VP afforded that honor, was given a rousing welcome by Israeli Prime...

Vice President Mike Pence’s address to the Knesset Monday afternoon, the first by a senior American official in a decade, was praised by a number of Israeli officials from across the political spectrum, who noted the Vice President’s pledge to bar Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and a time-table for the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, however, expressed a more personal reaction to the speech, saying that he had been so touched by it as to have been moved to tears.