Clinton to Defer Embassy Move to Jerusalem

WASHINGTON —  In a high-stakes showdown with Congress, President Clinton has decided to invoke a national security exception to suspend congressional legislation directing the administration to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by next month, administration officials said.

The dispute threatens to disrupt the Middle East peace process, open new religious splits among Americans and further sour Clinton’s relations with Capitol Hill, already strained by the war in Yugoslavia.

Even some of the American Jewish organizations that for the last half a century have been urging the U.S. government to establish its embassy in Jerusalem acknowledge privately that this might not be the best time to force the issue.

But a bipartisan group of senators is determined to hold Clinton’s feet to the fire. The legislation mandating the move, a symbolic act designed to reinforce Israel’s claimed sovereignty over Jerusalem, was passed in 1995 by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

White House officials and Capitol Hill staffers say it is unlikely that any definitive action will come before Israel’s vote Monday. But officials say Clinton is sure to use his authority to postpone for six months the effective date of the 1995 statute shortly after Israelis select a premier and parliament.

A group of lawmakers, led by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), is working on a joint statement demanding that Clinton agree to move the embassy--and threatening passage of new legislation if he does not.

A Kyl spokeswoman said details are still being worked out. A final plan could be ready within the next few days, although it might be held back until after the Israeli election.

Like many statutes dealing with foreign policy, the embassy act contains a clause authorizing the president to postpone the effective date if he determines that the measure would damage national security. In this case, administration officials say relocating the embassy now would undercut Washington’s attempt to serve as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and possibly end the Arab-Israeli peace process. Officials say the move would damage U.S. relations with Arab and other Islamic countries.

Capitol Hill sources say that one reason why the legislation drew such overwhelming support in 1995 was because lawmakers who had doubts about moving the embassy assumed that Clinton would block it. But Kyl, Lieberman, Schumer and their allies are preparing legislation that would not have a national security exemption.

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat wants to establish the capital of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, either by partition or, more realistically, by sharing sovereignty over the city. The Israeli government says it would never agree to such an outcome, but Washington says the issue must be decided at the bargaining table.

The issue appears deceptively simple. Israel maintains its capital in Jerusalem, for 3,000 years the focus of Jewish religious and political life. But only Costa Rica and El Salvador have embassies there.

Why not put the embassy in the capital, the way it is done in virtually every other country?

Administration officials say that under international law, Jerusalem is a disputed territory. Israel in 1967 seized the eastern neighborhoods of the city, including the walled Old City that includes sites considered holy by Christians, Muslims and Jews. The sector was wrested from Jordan, which had occupied it since creation of the Israeli state in 1948.

Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel annexed the captured sections of the city and proclaimed Jerusalem to be its “eternal and undivided” capital. But the United States and most other governments have insisted that the status of Jerusalem must be determined by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Under the Israeli-Palestinian framework agreement negotiated in Oslo and signed on the White House lawn in 1993, those negotiations were supposed to have been concluded May 4. But they have not even begun.

All sides in the dispute--Israelis and Palestinians, administration officials and lawmakers, Jewish, Muslim and Christian organizations--agree on one thing: Transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would be a strong endorsement of Israel’s claim to undisputed control of the city in advance of the “final status” negotiations that Washington hopes to mediate.

Israel’s supporters, in fact, say it is high time the United States showed its backing for Israel’s right to the city.

In principle, virtually all U.S. Jewish organizations say the embassy should be in Jerusalem. But substantial numbers--a clear majority, in the opinion of one Jewish leader--believe that it would be a mistake to disrupt the peace process.

“The embassy should have been in Jerusalem all along,” said Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs for the American Jewish Committee. “At the same time, we are great believers in the peace process and keeping that on track, and also believers in giving the president considerable latitude in the conduct of foreign policy. There are better times and worse times to advance this important objective. We will know the better time when we see it.”

American Muslim groups are adamantly opposed to moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Christian groups, despite some differences of opinion, generally oppose the move as well. For instance, a group called Churches for Middle East Peace recently called on Clinton to prevent the relocation. Its letter was signed by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline Protestant denominations.

The 1995 legislation mandating the move passed the Senate, 93-5, and the House, 374-37. Perhaps mindful of the veto-proof majorities, Clinton signed the measure. At the time, however, the mid-1999 deadline coincided with the schedule for Israel and the Palestinians to wrap up their negotiations on the final status of Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. If the negotiators had kept to that schedule, the embassy move would have been far less controversial than it is today.

The law would reduce by half the State Department’s budget for acquisition and maintenance of embassies and consulates worldwide unless the embassy is moved during the current fiscal year. Without Clinton’s expected waiver, there would be no money to run embassies and consulates for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

In an effort to craft a compromise, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) recently urged Clinton to declare his ultimate intention to move the embassy once the Israelis and the Palestinians have completed their final-status talks.

A White House official said Clinton has not yet decided his response to Moynihan’s plan, but other officials said the idea probably would not prevent damage to the peace process. And the compromise appears to fall short of the objectives of lawmakers who want to force an early relocation of the embassy regardless of the impact on peace talks.