The U.S. on Wednesday signed an agreement to build a new embassy compound in Jerusalem, a move that Israel said reflected the “unbreakable alliance” between the countries.
President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, during his first term, and ordered the relocation of Washington’s diplomatic mission from Tel Aviv.
But the services were spread across several locations in Jerusalem until a single permanent site could be found.
“The United States not only recognizes Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people, but also that the United States says that we’re going to do something about it,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said during a signing ceremony at Israel’s foreign ministry Wednesday.
“I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along,” he added.
Huckabee said in February that Israel had a right to much of the Middle East, telling Tucker Carlson, “it would be fine if they took it all,” prompting condemnation from the governments of numerous Arab and Muslim majority states.
The embassy will be built at the Allenby compound in southern Jerusalem.
Trump’s 2017 decision broke with decades of U.S. policy, under which Jerusalem’s final status was expected to be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jerusalem has long been one of the most contested cities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, it declared the city its undivided capital, a claim that has not been widely recognized internationally.
Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Because of these competing claims, most countries established their embassies in Tel Aviv.
