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Move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem
(U.S. News) James S. Robbins - Moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem should not be controversial. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated the move by May 31, 1999, passed with strong bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Bill Clinton. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that moving the embassy could lead to "the destruction of the peace process as a whole." But is there any peace process left to destroy? If anything, the move could revitalize the process by demonstrating to the Palestinians that history is going forward without them. The U.S. has been unwilling to recognize that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel since the UN partition in 1947. But much has changed in 70 years. Israel united the city in 1967 during the Six-Day War. Since then, Jerusalem has grown and modernized, sprouted suburbs and built a thriving economy. Recognizing the city as Israel's capital would simply be accepting an established fact. The writer is senior fellow for national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council.