The Jerusalem Retreat

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

President Trump’s retreat on his campaign promise in respect of our embassy to Jerusalem is an important moment in his presidency — more so, by our lights, than, say, his firing of James Comey or his blunder with the Russ foreign minister. It will complicate enormously the president’s own quest for a peace agreement, whether this agreement be between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs or between America’s own executive branch and the United States Congress.

In our view, the problem between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is the less serious of the two disputes. It’s hard to see a solution to it emerging in this generation. Despite the war, in which Israel bore an enormous burden, it has triumphed and built a democratically governed, Jewish state, with a capital at Jerusalem. It has enabled millions of Jews in the 20th and 21st centuries to stand up as Jews had never been able to do prior to the redemption of Zion.

The more serious defeat here is for America’s own effort at democratic self-government. The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which mandates moving the embassy, was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, 374 to 47 at the House and 93 to five at the Senate. It was no gimcrack of the right wing. Agitation for the law was led, in good part, by such Democrats as Senator Moynihan. Two of the last four presidents were elected on, at least in part, promises to move the embassy.

Hostility to these democratic decisions has emanated from a State Department still haunted by the shade of Loy Henderson. It is a department that has been blocking a democratic decision in respect of Jerusalem for, by a narrow measure, a generation. Longer if one defines this struggle in broader terms. The State Department postures as a defender of international law, but its officers are sworn to a Constitution that grants law making power to our Congress. And what has just happened is a retreat from the rule of law.

Mr. Trump is not forever ruling out an embassy move. Supposedly he doesn’t want to do it while he is nursing hopes for a wider peace agreement. Newspaper editors are taught rarely to say never, and it’s conceivable that he will come up with something. It’s less conceivable that this will be easier because of his default. In all his battles at home he will be weakened for having flinched not only on a campaign promise but on his constitutional oath of faithful execution.


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