Action Alert: ZOA Opposes Re-Opening a U.S. “Palestinian Arab” Consulate in Jerusalem
Action Alerts News Press Release
August 23, 2021

Consulate Would Be an Attack on Israeli Sovereignty, Unity of Jerusalem, and Rewarding a Terrorist Dictatorship

The Biden administration is reportedly pressuring the Israeli government to allow the U.S. to re-open a U.S. “Palestinian Arab” Consulate in Jerusalem that would liaise with the Palestinian Authority and service Palestinian Arabs. (Permission of the host country is required to open a diplomatic facility.) Also, in May, without Israeli permission, Secretary of State Blinken announced that the U.S. would be re-opening the consulate. The State Department reaffirmed Blinken’s “commitment” in June, still without consent.

Jerusalem’s former Mayor Nir Barkat has proposed legislation to bar such a consulate. The Biden administration is reportedly working to undermine passage of Mayor Barkat’s bill.

The Trump administration previously closed the consulate when it moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, in accordance with U.S. law – including the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 – which reaffirms that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and the spiritual center of Judaism, and must remain undivided. 

There are extremely important reasons to keep the consulate closed:

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.

Such 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 such a consulate would enable the PA to also violate this agreement.

Please take action now to try to prevent the U.S. “Palestinian Arab” consulate from re-opening in Jerusalem. Jerusalem must never be divided. Palestinian Arab terrorism and incentives to murder Jews must not be rewarded!

 Take Action/Contacts: 

Tell U.S. officials to stop pressuring Israel to open this insulting, dangerous consulate.

Tell Israeli officials to not give in to the Biden administration’s pressure to appease terrorists.

The White House email form: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

(Note: The White House comment line phone has been disabled.)

U.S. State Department email form: https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform

U.S. State Dep’t twitter: @StateDept

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s office: 202-647-4000.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s twitter: @SecBlinken

Your Congressperson in the House of Representatives: https://www.house.gov/

Your Senator: https://www.senate.gov/

Pro-actively post on social media, and write letters to your local newspapers.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s twitter: @naftalibennet

Center for Law & Justice
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