US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a Victory Tour Rally, on December 8, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Steve Pope/Getty Images/AFP)
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump “remains firmly committed” to moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his transition team said.
“This is a commitment that the president-elect made numerous times on the campaign trail, that he remains firmly committed to,” Jason Miller, a transition team spokesman, said Friday on the daily briefing call for reporters.
The prior evening, Trump nominated longtime adviser David Friedman to be the US ambassador to Israel, and in the campaign’s release, Friedman said he looked forward to working from the embassy in Jerusalem.
JTA asked Miller on the briefing call whether that meant Trump has a timeline for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv, and he said it did not. But he reiterated Trump’s commitment to such a move, noting that he chose as an ambassador someone who is on the record backing the move. Miller said it was too soon, with 35 days until inauguration, to schedule such an action.
Congress recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 1995 and mandated the embassy move, but successive presidents have exercised a waiver on the move, citing national security considerations.
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The US Consulate in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood, adjoining a possible site for the US Embassy (Raphael Ahren/Times of Israel)
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