Retired general James Mattis declined to say he agreed with President-elect Donald Trump’s desire to move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The nominee for secretary of defense was being questioned by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Mattis about the controversial topic.
“What is the capital of Israel?” Graham asked Mattis.
“The capital of Israel that I go to, sir, is Tel Aviv, because that’s where all their government people are,” replied Mattis, who retired from the military in 2013 after serving most recently as commander of U.S. Central Command.
Trump has said he would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem – Israel’s undivided capital, but the international community sees as disputed territory. Palestinians want it to be the capital of a future state.
Graham asked Mattis if he agreed with the senator that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem.
“Sir, right now I stick with the U.S. policy,” Mattis replied.
Previous presidents have also pledged while campaigning that they would relocate the diplomatic facility to Jerusalem, but none have followed through on the promise. Ultimately, each one has decided that doing so would be too politically sensitive, aggravate Arab allies in the Middle East and be counterproductive to a future two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While the embassy sits in Tel Aviv, the U.S. maintains a consulate in Jerusalem. Every six months, every president since Bill Clinton has signed a waiver preventing the embassy from relocating as required under a bill passed by Congress in 1995. The legislation called on the facility to be moved from Tel Aviv, but the president can suspend that order if he deems it necessary “to protect the national security interests of the United States.”
President Barack Obama signed the last such waiver in December.
Graham asked Mattis if he supported moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
“I would defer to the nominee for secretary of state on that, sir,” Mattis said.
That nominee, Rex Tillerson, was questioned by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in his own confirmation hearing Wednesday. He spoke out against a recent decision by the Obama administration to allow a U.N. resolution to condemn Israeli settlements, but reaffirmed support for the two-state solution.
“I think that is the dream that everyone is in pursuit of,” he said. “Whether it can ever be a reality remains to be seen.”
(AP)
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10 Responses
This boy needs a little good ol’ fashion educatin’.
How can he say the capital is Tel Aviv. I understand how they say that they can’t recognise Jerusalem as the capital. But how can they decide an internal Israeli matter?
He should not be nominated
Who cares what he says? His job is to fight wars, not decide political matters.
What-ever.
He said that he goes to tel Aviv because that’s where the government and all the people he has to meet are there. Isn’t that so??
To No. 2
He was actually being very smart and reciting the current U.S. policy which treats TA as the “capital” of EY, as foolish as that sounds. He is under consideration for DOD, not DOS, so it would have been especially inappropriate to get out front on the issue.
Mattis also said that building settlements will lead to Israel becoming an apartheid state and that America pays a military security price for appearing to be biased in favor of Israel. Sounds a whole lot like the policies of Secretary Kerry and President Obama.
It is sad and sorry for all the Trump believers who decided to look past the man who doesn’t know who David Duke is, who made bigoted comments about Jews to the Republican Jewish Coalition and can barely bring himself to condemn Richard Spencer and his racist Trump supporters in the naive belief that Trump actually has any principles besides assuaging his over inflated ego.
to crazy: sounds like you’re a crazy, disillusioned Democrat. Let’s not forget that Trump has a Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren!
““The capital of Israel that I go to, sir, is Tel Aviv, because that’s where all their government people are,” replied Mattis”
So you move the govt people over to Jerusalem and voila! Jerusalem becomes the capital of Israel. What a nutcase!
It’s Israel who decides where their capital is, not the US nor the UN nor anyone else.
General Mattis has been going to Israel for years to meet with his Israeli counterparts in the IDF. IDF headquarters (their equivalent of the Pentagon) is in the Kiryah in Tel Aviv. Most other government agencies are headquartered in Jerusalem, the capital. So he is correct in responding that from his perspective as a military man, the “capital that I go to” is Tel Aviv. That does not conflict with the political capital and seat of government being in Yerushalayim.