The White House lived up to its promise to send Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Middle East to “rebuild ties” with Palestinians. In fact, it exceeded expectations, with a pledge by Biden to ask Congress to donate $75,000,000 to the Palestinians. It didn’t stop there. Blinken formally announced the decision to reopen the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem during a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. But to do so isn’t legal according to the article below, which was written by Mark Meadows, chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, and David Milstein, who served as special assistant to the US ambassador to Israel.
A Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem violates the Jeruslem Embassy Act that Trump activated in 2017. The Act recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and calls for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city.
Although Biden stated that Israel has a right to defend itself, his administration has bent over backwards to send the message to Palestinians that America under Biden supports the Palestinian cause — which is jihad for the eradication of Israel.
“Biden’s plan for a diplomatic mission to the Palestinians blatantly violates US law,” by Mark Meadows and David Milstein, New York Post, May 26, 2021:
As presidential candidate, Joe Biden was asked if he would reverse President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Biden promised, “I wouldn’t reverse it.”
But candidate Biden also proposed re-opening the US diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which had merged with the Jerusalem embassy in 2019.
Now Team Biden is moving forward with the latter initiative. On May 25, Secretary of State Antony Blinken formally told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington would seek to reopen this diplomatic mission. The move contradicts Biden’s campaign promise not to renege on the recognition of Jerusalem, since a pair of missions in the same city undercuts Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital. It also breaks the Jerusalem Embassy Act that sought to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem no later than 1999 — a law Biden voted for along with 92 other senators.
The 1995 law states that “Jerusalem should remain an undivided city, in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected. … Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel.” In 2017, on the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification in the Six Day War, the Senate unanimously voted to reaffirm the act and called upon the US to “abide by its provisions.”
Former President Donald Trump fulfilled the will of the American people, as expressed by Congress, by relocating the embassy in 2018. In February 2021, the Senate also adopted an amendment by a 97-3 vote to “make the US Embassy in Jerusalem permanent, effectively preventing it from being downgraded or moved out of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.”
The Biden administration’s intent to reopen a separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital and the location of the US Embassy, would be a violation of US law, wrongly signaling that Washington supports dividing Jerusalem.
If implemented, this could signal the return to a misguided diplomatic arrangement, under which the US ambassador to Israel historically lacked jurisdiction over the eastern part of Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza. Instead, a US consul general led a separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians, who had jurisdiction over those geographic areas. The consulate general didn’t even report to the US ambassador to Israel, but directly to the State Department, often sending conflicting reports to DC.
The diplomatic mission included the US consulate general’s official residence, located in the western part of Jerusalem, thus resulting in the US having a diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, despite that the fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.
The Trump administration’s decision to merge the US diplomatic mission to the Palestinians into the US Embassy in Jerusalem remedied the prior arrangement and implemented a key aspect of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which requires that the US Embassy in Jerusalem include the ambassador’s official residence.
Reopening this separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians would therefore render the US government noncompliant with American law…..
Infidel says
Dems only believe in obeying laws that they either like, or approve of
LB says
If you think about it, the laws (hell, even the Constitution itself!) are just letters on a piece of paper. Why should the Dems obey the laws that they don’t like if they are in control of absolutely every governmental branch–executive, legislative and judicial–that introduce and enforce them. Who is there to punish them for breaking existing laws?
The answer to that question should be: the American people, because this is what the 2nd Amendment was created for. Sadly, any opposition to leftist tyranny is viewed as “far right domestic terrorism” and swiftly crushed in the ground. Jan 6th protests and unpersonning of President Trump is all the evidence you need to know it’s true. It’s not looking good.
somehistory says
It breaks U.S. Law…so what else is new? Taking guns from law-abiding American citizens, restricting free speech about a stolen election under threat of arrest and prosecution, allowing illegals…demanding that they not be called what they are…to cross the border without so much as asking them any real questions, spying on non-criminal citizens without a warrant or due process or even a suspicion of criminal activity, helping his son hide evidence of crimes, …biden is on a roll when it comes to violating U.S. Law.
wpm says
The Biden is a criminal enterprise
mortimer says
Yes, taking guns from law-abiding patriotic citizens and then handing financing for weapons to Pallly terrorists. I would say the Dems hate Israel and are no friends of Jews.
CogitoErgoSum says
Biden would say relax and enjoy a chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream cone – compliments of those still paying taxes in America.
James Lincoln says
somehistory,
You hit on one of the biggest problems in the United States right now:
Lack of enforcement / or unequal enforcement of US laws.
Unless something changes, this will lead to even more lawlessness and anarchy…
PRCS says
“Reopening this separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians would therefore render the US government noncompliant with American law…..
Maybe Myorkas can just repeat, over and over again, that it doesn’t.
somehistory says
Thank you, J.L, and I expect, seriously so, that we are seeing the fulfillment of one of the prophecies of Jesus Christ regarding when He would be about to “return,”….”Due to the increasing of lawlessness, the love of the greater number will cool,”
And the words of the Apostle Paul in one of his letters to Timothy, regarding the “last days,” when he said, “Critical times…when men will be lovers of themselves, fierce, without self-control, not open to any agreement….’
Things will continue to get worse before Christ returns when He will make everything so much better
mortimer says
Blinken recognizes the right of the Pally terrorists to annihilate Jews and destroy Israel as a country. This is double-minded.
If the US supports Israel, it should not at the same time support a contradictory goal of destroying Israel.
Phil Copson says
Who the hell does Blinken think he is – calming announcing that he intends to use a building in another country’s capital for the purpose of aiding that country’s sworn enemies ?
Israel should refuse to allow the Biden administration the use of any building in Jerusalem.
Jim says
The PALESTINIANS would not need 75 million dollars if they had not been firing the 4000 rockets and Israel and building the hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. Giving them aid to rebuild hospitals or schools is no different from paying for their rockets, tunnels and terrorist activities. Better to tell them they will get no money until they have stopped their attacks on Israel for a few years. Or until they hand over their rockets and blow up their tunnels. Or until they recognize the right of Israel to exist.
James Lincoln says
+1
Tzion says
Jim, you are exactly correct.
b.a. freeman says
“Reopening this separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians would therefore render the US government noncompliant with American law…..”
—
fascists, like our nazicrat “betters” currently running the nation into the ground, are nothing if not pragmatic. in fascist states, laws exist to benefit the rulers, and if they need to be bypassed to obtain the full benefit, then so be it. thus, nazicrats see no problem with ignoring laws they don’t like, especially if their is a racial target – jews, in this case; blacks some decades ago – whom they abhor who can be brought low.
Ray Jarman says
I would like to ask Blinken and Biden one question. Where in international law does a nation have the right to open a mission (consulate or embassy) within the state of another nation; especially when the the second mission does not recognize the legitimacy of the first? It would be similar to France having opened an embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1862 for the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. Also, Neither the PLO or Hamas are the leaders of nations recognized internationally.
Maybe the Israeli government of David Ben-Gurion should have forced all of the Arabs who started the war in 1948 to depart for Syria, Jordan, Lebanon or any other nation stupid enough to accept them as many of the states of Europe forced upon Germany and German people after Germany’s defeat after World War II. I know that people are myopic but they should remember that Israel offered full citizenship to the defeated which the Druze and a decent size number of Arabs accepted. There are many of those descendants fully participating in the Israeli military, courts and the Knesset itself. It is too bad that Biden installed a person to the position of Secretary of State that is too ignorant of history and international law to be the person that the entire world sees as the American representative who espouses our values.
DavidR says
Like an excited teenager with their parent’s high limit credit card who’s trying to impress his peers, commence spending.
ScienceABC123 says
The Biden administration is planning to close the Jerusalem embassy. They need a little bit of overlap between the consulate and embassy before they close the embassy.
owensgate says
Of course, a political entity that can manipulate an election process to victory, can create a “Consulate” for a non-existent country. Perhaps the “country” the consulate is for, is a co-located “shadow” country – a first in World history to be sure – but then who can argue with “Progress”? The concept of “Shadow Government” isn’t lost on them – not at all. It’s only “illegal” if we don’t re-write our LAWS, but these days WTF does it matter anyway. Laws are made to be broken.
Hank says
Biden should try poking his finger in the apple of his eye and while in immense pain think what would happen if he poked his finger in the Almighty’s eye. Busying yourself with the capital of Israel – Jerusalem, is risky business for any nation. Here’s why:
“…for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye— 9 I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them” Zechariah 2:8
“I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.” Zechariah 12:3
It’s smarter to be busy with your own nation, your economy, citizen safety and welfare, Islamization, etc. It will occupy all your time.
OLD GUY says
Please congress send that 75 million to small town America, where it will help the people who pay the taxes.
Andrew Blackadder says
75 Million Bucks of American taxpayers money going off to a people that openly hate the USA, the American people in it, and whom wish to destroy us,and they have told us this fact, and yet we see Americans living in cardboard boxes across the country… Excuse me, but am I missing something here????.
Inquiring minds want to know