Bill Also Stops the Path Toward Dividing Jerusalem
Sen. Biden (1995): Peace Will Come if U.S. Shows Arabs There’s no Division Between U.S. and Israel
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Government Relations Dan Pollak released the following:
The Zionist Organization of America strongly endorses the Bill introduced today by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and 34 Republican co-sponsors to prohibit any funding for a U.S. Consulate in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem serving the Palestinian Arab terrorist regime, which pays Arabs to murder Jews and refuses to recognize the Jewish state. Establishing the consulate would be a major step towards changing the existing U.S. policy that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the Jewish state, and would result in an unearned reward for intransigence to the terrorist Palestinian Authority (PA) regime. The “Upholding the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law Act of 2021” makes the point that existing law explicitly prohibits the opening of any other U.S. diplomatic post in Jerusalem, and denies funding for the proposed consulate.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said:
“A U.S. ‘Palestinian Arab’ consulate in Jerusalem is a discriminatory, diplomatic insult and an attack on Israel’s sovereignty. It is an attack on Israel’s rights to the Jewish people’s eternal holiest city, Jerusalem. The United States has no consulate serving another entity or group in any other country with which the U.S. maintains diplomatic relations.
“Such a consulate would also boost dangerous efforts to divide and claim Jerusalem for a Palestinian Arab terror state’s capital.
“Establishing a consulate would also reward the terrorist dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority for continuing to pay Arab terrorists huge rewards to murder Jews and Americans, for inciting hatred and murder against Jews and Christians, and for filing illegitimate, false claims against Israel in international bodies―all in violation of the PA’s signed Oslo agreements. The consulate would appease terrorism.
“The Oslo accords also prohibit the PA from carrying on foreign relations―and establishing this consulate would enable the PA to also violate this agreement.”
Recent remarks by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have implied that the U.S. might move forward with the establishment of a consulate even though Israel objects. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Israeli Minister of Justice Gideon Sa’ar, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Yair Lapid have explicitly opposed the idea. In fact, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) requires the explicit permission of the host country to open a consulate. See this Op-Ed by Morton Klein encouraging Israel to resist this pressure from the U.S. administration. (Zionist Organization of America | ZOA’s Klein J Post Op-ed – Israel Can’t Submit to Biden Pressure on Consulate, Settlements)
Sen. Hagerty said:
“President Biden continues to push forward his inflammatory plan to establish a second mission in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem—one for the Israelis and a second one for the Palestinian [Arab]s—despite the fact that this plan violates the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and is completely opposed by the government of Israel,” Senator Hagerty said. “It is regrettable that the Biden Administration insists on making moves that divide the United States and Israel when our two nations should be laser-focused on stopping Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime from going nuclear, on countering growing threats from Hizballah, Hamas, and other Iran-backed terrorist groups, and on strengthening and expanding the historic Abraham Accords that truly have increased peace in the Middle East. The Trump administration kept its promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state, and Congress must do everything in our power to strengthen our posture.”
In 1995, then Sen. Joe Biden in strongly supporting moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem said (Cong Record, Vol. 141, No. 165, Oct 24,1995):
“The only way there will be peace in the Middle East is for the Arabs to know there is no division between the U.S. and Israel, none, zero, none…It should be clear to all that the U.S. stands squarely behind Israel, our close friend and ally. Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem will send the right signal. To do less would be to play into the hands of those who will try their hardest to deny Israel the full attributes of Statehood.”
President Biden, ZOA urges you to live up to your great and powerful words and show the Arabs that there is no division between Israel and the U.S., none, zero, none. And support Israel’s strong position of not allowing any actions toward dividing Jerusalem by opening up an American consulate there for the terrorist dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority, against the strong opposition of the Israeli government and the Israeli people. Respect Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem as U.S. and Israeli Law requires. And don’t reward this regime that pays Arabs to murder Jews, names schools and streets and sports teams and children’s camps after Jew-killing Arabs, and incited murder and violence against Jews in their schools, speeches, sermons and media.
Original co-sponsors of Senator Hagerty’s “Upholding the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law Act of 2021” include: Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Braun (R-IN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), James Inhofe (R-OK), James Lankford (R-OK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Marshall (R-KS), James Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Rick Scott (R-FL), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Todd Young (R-IN).
The ZOA strongly thanks all the Senators who worked on this bill and urges Senators from both parties to support it.