The US expects to open its Israeli embassy in Jerusalem in May, officials have said, bringing forward Donald Trump’s contentious plan forward by at least a year.



US officials said the move was to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel. The country declared independence on 14 May 1948, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned at the embassy in mid-May.

The US ambassador will move his office to a consulate already in the city, the officials said, followed by the gradual expansion of its premises. A new location may be chosen later on.

One official said plans for May were simple: “A sign will be put up identifying the facility as the US embassy.”

The decision comes despite overwhelming global opposition. It is widely feared that moving the embassy from Tel Aviv will push back already moribund efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and could result in renewed violence.

Trump, however, told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington that he had decided to go against the advice of other countries begging him not to relocate the embassy. “I said we have to do it. It’s the right thing to do.”

The accelerated plan contradicts recent statements by Trump’s secretary of state and vice-president. Days after Trump declared that Washington had officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Rex Tillerson said it was unlikely to happen before 2020. During a visit to the Holy City, Mike Pence said recognition would come by the end of 2019.

Q&A What will US recognition of Jerusalem mean for the peace process? Show The peace process has been at death’s door since the former secretary of state John Kerry’s peace mission ended in failure in 2014. But the international community – apart from the US – is united in saying recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is disastrous for any hopes of reviving meaningful talks. The status of Jerusalem is one of the pivotal issues that diplomats and peacemakers have said must be agreed between the two parties in negotiations. Palestinians will see Trump’s announcement as the end of their hopes and demands for East Jerusalem as a capital of a future independent state. While few want a return to violence, many will feel diplomatic efforts have got them no closer to a state of their own. The Israeli government will be thrilled. Ever since it captured (and later annexed) East Jerusalem in the 1967 six-day war, Israel has claimed the city as its “eternal and undivided” capital, and has longed for international recognition. Some 200,000 Israelis living in illegal settlements will also celebrate.

Administration officials have suggested that a longer timeframe may have helped to keep peace efforts alive while sparing the US the sensitive issue of choosing a site for the embassy.

The decision to move the embassy in May was not officially announced, but the Israeli minister of transport appeared to confirm the news by thanking Trump on Twitter.



The Associated Press cited four unnamed US officials on Friday saying that the Trump administration was also considering an offer from the major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson to pay for at least part of a new embassy.

Lawyers at the State Department were looking into the legality of accepting private donations, the report said. Adelson is a staunch supporter of Israel and his assistance would add further controversy to a plan that has been already been criticised as siding with Israel’s government.

Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate, also strongly backs Israel’s prime minister, financing a free newspaper friendly to Benjamin Netanyahu.

The current West Jerusalem consulate would have to be retrofitted with added security before it could house the ambassador, David Friedman, who worked as a lawyer for Trump and lobbied for the move.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as a capital of a future independent state, but Israel captured it in 1967 and claims the entire area as its “eternal and undivided” capital.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, decried the decision to move the embassy in May, an anniversary that Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled as villages were emptied of their residents or destroyed in areas that later became Israel.

Trump’s move, Erekat said, “shows the determination of the US administration to violate international law, destroy the two-state solution and provoke the feelings of the Palestinian people, as well as of all Arabs, Muslims and Christians around the globe”.

Jerusalem’s status has been a fundamental obstacle in past peace negotiations, and international consensus remains that sovereignty over the city is an issue to be agreed between the two sides.



Trump’s proclamation shocked the Palestinian leadership, which responded by rejecting the US as a peace broker, a position it had held for years. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, told Trump: “May your house be destroyed.”