KEEP THAT PLEDGE

Israel hawks tell Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem – and do it SECRETLY – as pressure builds to deliver on campaign promise

By Davis Martosko

Daily Mail
January 31, 2017

A trio of high-profile Israel hawks from both sides of the political aisle said Tuesday that the Trump administration should immediately relocate the U.S. embassy in the Jewish state from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – but do it stealthily.

'You can move the embassy by changing the name-plate on the consulate, and then build a permanent embassy in due course,' former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told DailyMail.com on Tuesday.

Bolton agreed that just as 'Air Force One' is a designation that applies to whichever airplane carries the President of the United State, any U.S.-owned building in a world capital cam be designated an 'embassy' if an ambassador lives and works there.

'The sooner they do it the better,' Bolton said.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told DailyMail.com that the State Department should 'do it – do it quickly, do it boldly. In fact, my advice to them is don't announce you're going to do it.'

'Do it and announce you just did it,' said Huckabee.

'You do it, and you just say, "Yesterday we moved the embassy." ... It would be totally unnecessary and counterproductive to say, "We're going to start laying a building cornerstone," and it just creates an environment for tension that's unnecessary.'

'Change the nameplate on the building over by the prime minister's home from "consulate" to "embassy," he advised.

'And announce that you did it last night, and the ambassador has taken up residence there.'

DailyMail.com interviewed the two Republicans before a luncheon panel hosted by the Gatestone Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on national security and defense issues.

Former Democratic Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of six speakers at the event, said moving the embassy as President Donald Trump has pledged to 'really must happen. And the sooner it happens the better.'

Lieberman, who ran for vice president with Al Gore in 2000, was a staunch Israel backer during his 24 years in the U.S. Senate.

He warned the White House on Tuesday not to listen to advisers who hold 'a kind of conventional wisdom about foreign policy.'

In 1990 Congress passed a resolution declaring: 'Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the State of Israel.'

Lieberman co-sponsored the Jerusalem Embassy Act five years later along with then-Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. The legislation threatened the State Department with the loss of half its operating funds for diplomatic missions until the U.S. flag was raised above an embassy in Jerusalem.

'Unfortunately, the Clinton administration said they wouldn't sign it unless we put a presidential waiver in,' Lieberman recalled Tuesday of the bill that passed with an overwhelming majority.

'And President Clinton waived it. And President Bush waived it. And President Obama waived it. And it's an outrage really, when you think about it.'

Waivers under the law must be renewed every six months; former president Barack Obama issued his last such order on December 1, 2016, saying he acted 'in order to protect the national security interests of the United States.'

Lieberman said Tuesday that America's embassy in Tel Aviv is the only one in the world that does not reside in a host country's declared capital city.

He brushed off concerns about international uproar if the White House were to make a change.

'If you don't do that based on the fear of protest, we're not the principal superpower that America is supposed to be,' Lieberman said to applause.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will continue the practice of the three most recent U.S. presidents – or if he will make the same sort of dramatic policy departure that has characterized his first seven full days in office.

But his pick to head the U.S. mission in Israel – David Friedman, a lawyer who has advocated to embassy move for decades – was seen as a signal that changes are coming.

'I intend to work tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region,' Friedman said in the Trump transition press release announcing his nomination, 'and look forward to doing this from the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem.'

Before Tuesday's event, DailyMail.com asked Huckabee if he had any inside knowledge about Trump's plans and how long they might take to unfold.

'If I tell you that,' he joked, 'I will have to have you killed on the street – shortly after this luncheon.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week that the administration is 'at the very beginning stages of even discussing the subject.'

Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said last month during a Hanukkah party at the Washington, D.C. embassy that moving the U.S. diplomatic mission would be a 'great step forward to peace.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Trump at the White House on February 15, both government's announced on Monday.