It’s hard to put a positive spin on President Trump’s decision to hold off moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. He said over the weekend that the idea is to give the peace process he’s launched a chance. The President disclosed this to Governor Huckabee in a broadcast interview. That the question was raised is evidence of Mr. Huckabee’s ardent support for the Jewish state. Mr. Trump’s reply is maddening because it gets the Jerusalem dynamic backward.

It is a version of the old idea that Jerusalem should be reserved for the final status agreement. Far be it from us to preach to the author of “The Art of the Deal.” Then again, we’ve been covering the Battle of Jerusalem since the President was in knee pants. What is the point of reserving the Jerusalem question for final status talks if, as both Likud and Labor politicians have maintained over the years, Jerusalem’s status as the sovereign, undivided capital of the Jewish state is non-negotiable?

The part of logic is would be to hold the peace talks in abeyance until Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem is accepted, including by the United States. After all, holding out the carrot of a compromise on Jerusalem is itself an incentive to the Arabs to hang back from a settlement on anything else. Plus there is the promise. The whole country watched as President Trump made his promise to move the embassy. It’s hard to recall a more emphatic or unambiguous campaign promise.

Finally, there is the law. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed by an almost unanimous congress. It is part of what the Constitution calls the supreme law of the land. The State Department has nonetheless suborned the law by convincing one president after another to waive it every six months. This started under President Clinton. That it has gone on for a generation is a mockery of the rule of law. Mr. Trump ought to be the right president to break this pattern.