Jenna Johnson, Loveday Morris and Carol Morello | Washington Post, mercurynews.com
Image from article, with caption: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, shake hands with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem on Monday.
Excerpt:
The United States will open its embassy in Jerusalem next year, Vice President Mike Pence said Monday, accelerating plans that have sparked fury from Palestinians and widespread condemnation in the region.
Speaking in Israel’s parliament, or Knesset, Pence looked notably more at ease than during earlier meetings in Egypt and Jordan, where he has been forced to defend the controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He voiced his wholehearted support for Israel...
Trump appeared to be comfortable with a timetable stretching into 2019 and as recently as Friday, a senior State Department official told reporters that designing and building a permanent embassy would be “a matter of years, and not weeks or months,” though the official acknowledged that an “interim” facility was being considered. The official said the decision was Tillerson’s to make, and he had not done so yet. ...
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said construction could take several years, because of security requirements put in place after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Now, Embassy buildings must be set back at least 100 feet from the street as protection against truck bombs. Consequently, many new missions are built far from the center of congested capitals.
“The secretary and the vice president are on the same page regarding the importance of security,” said Steven Goldstein, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. “I wouldn’t expect any announcement to suggest security elements will be rushed.”
For weeks, the administration weighed whether to build an entirely new embassy, which could take as long as a decade and be very expensive, or whether to retrofit one of the consulate buildings in Jerusalem, at least temporarily.
According to a person close to the administration who spoke anonymously to discuss private deliberations, the focus recently was on how much time it would take to retrofit an existing building permanently so that the embassy could be moved more quickly.
One faction believed that the construction would take until next year to complete. Another, which included presidential adviser Jared Kushner and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, pushed for it to be done before the end of 2018.
Trump appeared to be comfortable with a timetable stretching into 2019 and as recently as Friday, a senior State Department official told reporters that designing and building a permanent embassy would be “a matter of years, and not weeks or months,” though the official acknowledged that an “interim” facility was being considered. The official said the decision was Tillerson’s to make, and he had not done so yet.
Goldstein, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, said that while Tillerson has not signed off on the plan yet, he will approve it once he is assured it will be safe for those who work in and visit the facility.
He said the plan is that a consular building will be retrofitted and will become the embassy, not a temporary facility.
“We don’t have a plan at current to build a new embassy,” he said.
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