Congress Calls Clinton to Task on Embassy Waiver

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 30, 1999 | by Amy R. Gershkoff

The Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed in 1995 with overwhelming bipartisan support, required that the U.S. Embassy in Israel be moved to Jerusalem no later than May 31 -- with a presidential waiver serving as the only optout. Such a waiver was supposed to be exercised only if President Clinton formally were to determine that moving the embassy would jeopardize the "national-security interests of the United States."

In June, Clinton used the presidential waiver to avoid moving the embassy. He defended this action by explaining that peace in the Middle East is a "fundamental and overarching ... national-security goal," but members of Congress believe that such broad foreign-policy objectives do not qualify as national-security considerations.

"Since the day the legislation [to relocate the embassy] passed the Senate 93 to 5, the administration has shown contempt for the law's purpose," says Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican. The president's actions "make a mockery of the good faith that Congress normally presupposes when it grants waiver authority to the executive branch."

Many in Congress contend that the "national-security interests of the United States are not threatened" by moving an embassy, according to House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman of New York. He sees invocation of the waiver in the name of national security as "inappropriate" and a violation of federal law.

Clinton also stated that relocating the embassy before peace negotiations are concluded could jeopardize the peace process. Gilman found this justification completely unacceptable: "U.S. policy on Jerusalem has changed both before and after the onset of the peace talks in 1991 without any negative repercussions," says Gilman.

State Department officials defended the president's actions, citing a lack of funding for construction of the new embassy as the reason for issuing the waiver. Congress' authorization of $1.2 billion in fiscal 2000 for the construction and relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem makes that argument specious, according to Gilman.

Why is Clinton unwilling to relocate the embassy? Moving it would indicate the United States has accepted Israeli control of Jerusalem -- a step Arab interests have been unwilling to accept since the city was reunited and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Accepting unilateral Israeli control would remove Jerusalem from the list of items to be discussed at the forthcoming peace talks, a move the Clinton administration fears would alienate the Palestinians. Instead, Clinton has preferred to classify/Jerusalem as a "final status issue," stating that "Jerusalem [is] something the parties [still] have to work out."

Some senators, however, say that classifying Jerusalem as such may be detrimental to the peace process. As Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told Clinton in a letter: "Unrealistic expectations on the Palestinians' side about Jerusalem [could be] ... harmful to prospects for peace."

Following issue of the waiver, 78 members of the Senate signed a letter to the president in which they expressed "deep disappointment." Plans are under way to tighten or remove the waiver and force Clinton to move the embassy, according to a spokesman for the House International Relations Committee.