Jerusalem of Controversy

Jerusalem, perhaps the thorniest issue dividing Israelis and the Palestinians, topped the headlines last week, living up to its role as the eternal capital of controversy.

On September 30th, President Bush signed into law legislation that seemed to signal a break with longstanding US policy regarding the status of Jerusalem.  While the Bush administration maintained that the new language would not actually alter U.S. policy on the ground, the language was strong enough to set off a minor earthquake in the Arab and Muslim world.

New Old Legislation

The controversy erupted over four paragraphs in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act which addressed U.S. policy "with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel."

The first provision, described as a congressional statement of policy, urged the President to immediately begin the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  The second provision blocked any funding for the existing Consulate in Jerusalem unless it operates under the supervision of the official US Embassy in  Israel.  (Currently, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem is responsible for all contact with the Palestinians and reports directly to the State Department.)

Third, the bill prohibited the publication of any government documents that fail to identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Until recently, official U.S. documents tended to refer to Jerusalem as simply Jerusalem, with no reference to country).  Finally, all United States citizens born in Jerusalem would have the option of listing Israel as their official place of birth.

Though the latter clauses are mainly symbolic, the ramifications of the section as a whole go considerably further.  Israel gained control of the eastern half of Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza, after the Six Day War in 1967.  Every peace treaty or agreement since then, including the Camp David agreement with Egypt and the Oslo accords, has relegated the issue of Jerusalem's final status to the back burner.  It is simply too volatile a subject, something that could only be discussed as part of a comprehensive final settlement between Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire Arab world.  The wisdom of saving Jerusalem for last was made  abundantly clear when failure to agree on who would retain sovereignty over the Temple Mount (home to both the Jewish Western Wall and the Muslim al-Aksa compound) helped scuttle Camp David II in 2000.

The new Congressional language sent a message to the Arab world that, without negotiations, the final status of Jerusalem had been prejudged by the United States. To Palestinians, in particular,  who hope to build their capital in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, this seeming new American policy on Jerusalem was a slap in the face.

The massive outcry in the Arab world was thus predictable.  Palestinian officials said the bill was a "flagrant violation" of agreements signed by the US and Israel to decide the final status of Jerusalem in negotiations.  Analysts and commentators across the Middle East angrily deemed the legislation an affront to the entire Arab and Muslim world.

A Qualified Signature

The most intriguing reaction to the bill came from the man who signed it. Although he did sign the bill into law, President Bush simultaneously released a strong statement on the Jerusalem clause, deriding it as interfering with the President's constitutional power to determine foreign policy.

"Section 214, concerning Jerusalem," the statement read, "impermissibly interferes with the President's constitutional authority to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs... the purported direction in section 214 would, if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states."

The message from the President, echoed in subsequent State Department statements over the past week, was clear:  "U.S. policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed." Furthermore, he viewed the Jerusalem language as "advisory" rather than "mandatory." He would simply ignore it.

Obviously, the White House would have preferred to kill the language - rather than accept it and then ignore it - but the President's people had no interest in waging a fight over this issue in the midst of the debate on Iraq.  The Administration also viewed the bill as the kind of election year sloganeering that they could not get deleted even if they tried, especially not a month before Election Day.

That Bush qualified his signing of the law did not go un-noticed in the Arab world.  Several Arab governments seized on the President's disclaimer to calm the popular uproar.  Ha'aretz quotes both Egyptian and Qatari government sources as being satisfied with the President's explanation of the bill as a proposal rather than policy.

For the time being, the President's assurances seem to have calmed official Arab anger.  But the flare up over even the most symbolic language on Jerusalem should remind onlookers of the city's potential as a deadly trigger for violence.  It evokes passions, both national and religious, throughout the Arab and Muslim world like no other aspect of the conflict.

This does not mean that Congress must avoid asserting its view that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. But there can be little doubt that the uproar over what is, essentially, symbolic legislation, would not have happened if the Congressional statement appeared in the context of support for President Bush's June 24th vision of  "two states, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully side by side."

But Congress has neither endorsed the Bush vision nor lent its support to the international efforts - now backed by the President - to implement the Bush vision with a "roadmap" to peace.  The Bush Administration seems to understand that to be effectively pro-Israel, one must advance and support diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. The same applies to Congress.

This issue of Forum Fax was edited and produced by MJ Rosenberg, Gilead Light, and the staff of Israel Policy Forum, The Washington Policy Center.