[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] MOVING THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN ISRAEL TO JERUSALEM: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ NOVEMBER 8, 2017 __________ Serial No. 115-44 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov http://oversight.house.gov __________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 28-071 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office, http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected]. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland, Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee Blake Farenthold, Texas Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Thomas Massie, Kentucky Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Mark Meadows, North Carolina Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey Ron DeSantis, Florida Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Dennis A. Ross, Florida Val Butler Demings, Florida Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland Jody B. Hice, Georgia Peter Welch, Vermont Steve Russell, Oklahoma Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Mark DeSaulnier, California Will Hurd, Texas Jimmy Gomez, California Gary J. Palmer, Alabama James Comer, Kentucky Paul Mitchell, Michigan Greg Gianforte, Montana Sheria Clarke, Staff Director Robert Borden, Deputy Staff Director William McKenna General Counsel Ari Wisch, Professional Staff Member Kiley Bidelman, Clerk David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on National Security Ron DeSantis, Florida, Chairman Steve Russell, Oklahoma, Vice Chair Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts, John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Ranking Minority Member Justin Amash, Michigan Val Butler Demings, Florida Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Peter Welch, Vermont Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Mark DeSaulnier, California Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jimmy Gomez, California James Comer, Kentucky Vacancy C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on November 8, 2017................................. 1 WITNESSES The Hon. John Bolton, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Oral Statement............................................... 5 Written Statement............................................ 7 The Hon. Dore Gold, President, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Oral Statement............................................... 14 Written Statement............................................ 16 Mr. Morton Klein, President, Zionist Organization of America Oral Statement............................................... 24 Written Statement............................................ 26 Dr. Michael Koplow, Policy Director, Israel Policy Forum Oral Statement............................................... 49 Written Statement............................................ 51 Mr. Eugene Kontorovich, Professor of Law, Northwestern University Oral Statement............................................... 55 Written Statement............................................ 57 APPENDIX Statement for the record of Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, submitted by Ranking Member Lynch........................................ 88 MOVING THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN ISRAEL TO JERUSALEM: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES ---------- Wednesday, November 8, 2017 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National Security, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ron DeSantis [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives DeSantis, Duncan, Amash, Foxx, Hice, Comer, Lynch, Welch, and DeSaulnier. Also Present: Representatives Jordan, Zeldin, Ross, Mast, Grothman, Meadows, and Issa. Mr. DeSantis. The Subcommittee on National Security will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act, which states that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, that it should remain an undivided city, and that the American Embassy should be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Yet, for more than 20 years, U.S. Presidents have signed waivers for stalling the Embassy move. To this day, 50 years after the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem, the State of Israel, one of America's strongest allies, is the only nation in the world in which the American Government refuses to locate its Embassy in the host nation's chosen capital. Now, as a candidate for President, Donald Trump promised to move the Embassy to Jerusalem, and he has reaffirmed that commitment since taking office. And there are good reasons why the President will follow through with his commitment. For one thing, U.S. policy should recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital because Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years and is the beating heart of modern Israel. Why should we reject the chosen capital city of a close ally? Second, Israel's stewardship of Jerusalem's holy sites has been tremendous, especially regarding religious freedom. During the Arab occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem, between 1949 and 1967, Jews were systematically discriminated against and Christians were treated as second class citizens. Most of the Old City's synagogues were destroyed or desecrated. Under Israeli sovereignty, religious freedom is the rule, and the holy sites, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, are treated with care and respect. The disrepair that plagued Jerusalem under Arab occupation has given way to a flourishing city that is one of the world's crown jewels. Third, following through with the commitment to move the Embassy will demonstrate American leadership. Leaders in the Middle East respect the strong horse, and acting with decisiveness to defend American interests and to stand by a close ally is far more preferable to defaulting on a key promise like past leaders have done. Fourth, the Embassy can be relocated to one of the sites in Jerusalem that the U.S. already controls. This can be as simple as changing the sign on one of the existing consulates. For example, the consulate annex in Arnona combined eventually with the adjacent Diplomat Hotel can be a sizeable complex that provides adequate security. That the annex in Arnona straddles the 1949 armistice line also counsels in its favor as a potential site. The Trump administration has delayed moving the Embassy in light of its efforts to pursue a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, but there are incremental steps that the Trump administration could take in the meantime. The State Department should allow Americans born in Jerusalem to list Jerusalem/Israel on their passports. The U.S. Ambassador should make a point to conduct at least part of his workweek from Jerusalem, and the American consulates in Jerusalem should report to the American Embassy in Israel, not directly to the State Department. Now some say the U.S. can't move its Embassy to Jerusalem because that enrage elements of the so-called Arab street and provide a pretext for acts of terrorism. And who knows? That may be true, but does it make sense to shirk from doing what is right for fear of what our enemies might do? With the advent of the Trump administration, the U.S.- Israel relationship is probably stronger than it has ever been. Our countries have shared security interests, common cultural ties, and mutually beneficial economic relationships. Relocating the Embassy to Jerusalem, especially if done in 2017, the 50th year anniversary of Jerusalem Day, will make the relationship that much stronger. I want to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses here today. We look forward to hearing your testimony. And I'm happy to recognize my friend, the ranking member, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes. Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. It is my understanding that today's hearing will include the examination of the national security challenges related to the immediate relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And to this end, I would like to thank all of our witnesses for appearing before the committee today to help us with our work. Thank you, gentlemen. Our strong and enduring bilateral relationship with the State of Israel is founded on genuine bonds of friendship and indeed kinship that are unshakable. These profound and long- standing ties with our closest regional ally are reflected in our unwavering commitment to Israel's security, as well as robust U.S.-Israel cooperation on a range of critical issues, economic, intelligence, and defense matters. We also afford maximum respect to the historic and religious significance of Jerusalem and its holy sites to Israel. And I do join the chairman in my own experience and with many of our committee colleagues, having been to Jerusalem on many occasions, appreciate the religious freedom that is available now in Jerusalem. And we've taken full advantage of those opportunities to spend time with our friends in Jerusalem and enjoy the wonderful, wonderful benefits of that city. The proposal to unilaterally and immediately relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem instead presents a specific question of whether such action would truly protect and preserve U.S., Israeli, and regional security interests. I am strongly concerned that we must proceed with caution, that a decision unilaterally by the current administration to simply disregard the positions of other regional partners on this matter that had been expressed by the governments of Jordan and Egypt and other regional Arab nation partners, will prove ultimately detrimental to U.S., Israeli, and regional security interests in the near term. In February of this year, King Abdullah of Jordan reported to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem now, unilaterally, will threaten the two-state solution and could lead to a, ``violent escalation,'' in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Government of Jordan has also publicly warned that such action would have catastrophic ramifications on regional stability and would mark a red line for Jordan. I would note that we recall that Jordan is a key U.S. and coalition partner, including with Israel, in countering the Islamic State, whose cooperation has included aircraft missions in support of Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq, as well as the employment of Jordanian ground forces and special operators targeting Islamic State fighters along the Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi-Jordanian borders. We also are working with the Jordanian Government as it is accepting and continues to provide careful influx of over 660,000 Syrian refugees to date. In a cautionary note, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry of Egypt, another regional security ally protecting the interests of Israel and the United States and democratic interests in the region, has called the proposed immediate Embassy relocation, ``a very inflammable issue at this moment,'' and asserted that this is one of the final status issues that has to be addressed between the two sides, resolved through negotiations with respect to the Palestinians. Egypt is an official member of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State. Moreover, about 700 troops, I had a chance to visit them in the Sinai fairly recently, are currently stationed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as part of an international peacekeeping force that partners with the Egyptian military to stabilize the region against insurgents from the Islamic State affiliate in the Sinai Province group and other militant organizations, including Islamic Jihad. In a statement submitted to our committee for this hearing, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, Ambassador to Israel under President George Bush and Ambassador to Egypt under President Clinton, notes that the immediate relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would not only cross a red line for the Palestinians but also, ``for many Arab and Muslim states, including those with whom we share friendship and regional security interests.'' Ambassador Kurtzer additionally explains that if the United States were to engage in unilateral action on this central disputed issue, we would substantially undermine our ability to persuade the parties themselves or other third parties to avoid from doing so. I ask for unanimous consent that the statement of Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer be entered into the official record. Mr. DeSantis. Without objection. Mr. Lynch. So, in essence, I'm just advising caution that we consider the regional, including the Israeli security interest on this issue, and that we give respect to our allies in the region, again, moving forward but proceeding with caution. With that, I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair notes the presence of a number of our colleagues. We have the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan; the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ross; the gentleman from New York, Mr. Zeldin; the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mast; and the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman. I ask unanimous consent that these members be allowed to fully participate in today's hearing. Without objection, it is so ordered. I'm pleased to be able to introduce a really stellar panel of witnesses here today. We have Ambassador John Bolton, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and chairman of the Foundation for American Security and Freedom; Ambassador Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; Mr. Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America; Dr. Michael Koplow, policy director at the Israel Policy Forum; and Mr. Eugene Kontorovich, professor of law at Northwestern University. I want to welcome you all. Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. So if you could please rise. Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? The witnesses, all witnesses answer in the affirmative. And Ambassador Gold has affirmed that he will tell the truth as well. So you can be seated. Mr. Gold. We don't swear. Mr. DeSantis. I know, I know. In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire written statement will be made a part of the record. And as a reminder, the clock in front of you shows your remaining time. The light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and red when your time is up. Please, also remember to press the button to turn your microphone on before speaking. And, with that, I'd like to recognize Ambassador Bolton for 5 minutes for his opening statement. WITNESS STATEMENTS STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN BOLTON Mr. Bolton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lynch, members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the important subject of moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. I believe that recognizing Jerusalem is Israel's capital city and relocating our Embassy there on incontestably Israel sovereign territory would be sensible, prudent, and efficient for the United States Government. Indeed, fully regularizing the American diplomatic presence in Israel will benefit both countries, which is why, worldwide, the U.S. Embassy in virtually every other country we recognize is the host country's capital city. Relocating the Embassy would not adversely affect negotiations over Jerusalem's final status or the broader Middle East peace process, nor would it impair our diplomatic relations among predominantly Arab or Muslim nations. In fact, by its honest recognition of reality, shifting the Embassy would have an overall positive impact for U.S. diplomatic efforts. Over the years, as with so many other aspects of Middle Eastern geopolitics, a near theological and totally arid to scholasticism has developed here and abroad about the impact of moving the Embassy. Now is, in fact, the ideal time to sweep this detritus aside and initiate the long overdue transfer. It stands to reason that America's diplomats posted abroad should be located near the seat of government to which they are accredited. Proximity to host government political leaders, major government institutions, and representatives of domestic political, economic, and social interests all argue for the commonsense decision that U.S. representatives to a foreign state should be at that state's center of government. There may be logistical reasons for temporary deviations from this principle, but there is no compelling diplomatic business reason to wait nearly 70 years, as has been the case in Israel. Given Israel's geography, certain key national security institutions, such as the Ministry of Defense, are located in Tel Aviv, which means that legitimate considerations will dictate that a U.S. Embassy annex should remain there. But cost, efficiency, and effectiveness considerations also compel the conclusion that the bulk of our Embassy's personnel should follow the example of their colleagues and virtually the entire rest of the world and be moved to Israel's capital. Modern transportation and telecommunications capabilities notwithstanding, distance still imposes cost, both in time and resources, not to mention aggravation on our diplomats in Israel. Moreover, there is still no substitute to personal contact, face-to-face communication, and easy accessibility, especially in times of crisis, with key host government officials and political leaders. Moreover, security concerns, especially in the volatile Middle East, are always major factors and decisions to move existing diplomatic facilities to new locations within existing capitals where physical conditions are better suited to address contemporary risks assessments. So, while I think the overwhelming diplomatic and managerial advantages to the United States argue for relocation, there are obviously a number of political arguments to the contrary. I think there are three, basically. And I think it's important to take these arguments seriously, because many are made in good faith, but let's be honest, many are argued for precisely the opposite reason, to continue to deny to Israel the acknowledgment that it is a legitimate state with a legitimate capital. The three arguments basically are that moving the Embassy, even to West Jerusalem, would somehow affect final status negotiations about that city. I think this stems from U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, which contemplated an international status for Jerusalem. That resolution was rejected by the Arab State shortly after it was passed. And let's face it, 181 is a complete dead letter today. Jerusalem will never be an international city, and we need to move on from it, as indeed the Russian Federation acknowledged earlier this year. The second argument is that it will break the broader Middle East peace process. And I have to say, if the peace process is such a delicate snowflake that moving our Embassy would destroy it, you have to ask what its viability is to begin with. And it's also to mistake pretext for cause. If somebody wants to demonstrate against the United States or Israel, can pick a lot of other pretexts as well, not just moving the Embassy. And, finally, to conclude, Mr. Chairman, we hear over and over again that we want to move the Embassy but the time is just not right. As they say in the Near East Bureau of the State Department, they only have to press one key on their computers to spit out the phrase ``at this particularly delicate point in the Middle East peace process.'' In diplomatic circles, Mr. Chairman, ``not now'' too often means ``not ever.'' We should reject that counsel and move the American Embassy to Israel's capital city. Thank you. [Prepared statement of Mr. Bolton follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Ambassador Bolton. Ambassador Dore Gold, you're up. STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DORE GOLD Mr. Gold. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch, and members of the subcommittee, I commend you for holding this hearing. It is my view that President Donald Trump has made a commitment regarding the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and I believe he will stand by what he has said. Indeed, on June 1st, the White House released a statement stressing that, with regard to moving the Embassy, ``the question is not if that move happens, but only when.'' The U.S., of course, will have to consider many factors in making that decision. What is often overlooked in the debate about the location of the U.S. Embassy is why it matters. The Embassy question is a subset of a much more important issue: the need for Western recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. That recognition is vital for several reasons. What I'd like to discuss is the international interest. That interest concerns the protection of holy sites and assuring complete freedom of access to them. Religious freedom and pluralism are core values which both our countries share. Protecting Jerusalem's holy sites is the responsibility the State of Israel assumed in law back in 1967 when Jerusalem was reunited after the Six-Day War, for etched into the collective consciousness of all of us is what happened to Jerusalem when we were absent and when we were barred from that city, and what has happened to the holy sites since 1967, since Israel unified Jerusalem and protected access for all peoples and faiths. What is clear from a brief survey is that only a free and democratic Israel will protect the holy sites of all the great faiths in Jerusalem. Let me stress, to the extent the U.S. reinforces Israel's standing in Jerusalem, it is reinforcing core American and Western values of pluralism, peace, and mutual respect, and it is reinforcing the position of the only international actor that will protect these sites. Even today, it is surprisingly argued in certain diplomatic circles that the point of reference for any political solution on Jerusalem should be, or could be, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 from 1947, also known as the Partition Plan. This resolution called for establishing an international entity around Jerusalem, which it called the corpus separatum. I think Ambassador Bolton made the point well. This resolution is a dead letter because after, for example, in 1949, after the U.N. failed to protect the Old City of Jerusalem from invading armies, our Prime Minister in December of that year stood in front of the Knesset and talked about the corpus separatum. David Ben-Gurion reminded his listeners that the U.N. did not lift a finger during 1948. And he said that Jewish Jerusalem could have been wiped off the face of the Earth had it not been for the newly created Israel Defense Forces, Tzahal, and the prestate of--military formations. Ben-Gurion then addressed internationalization. And I'm quoting him from 1949: ``We cannot today regard the decision of 29 November 1947 as being possessed of any further moral force since the United Nations did not succeed in implementing its own decisions. In our view, the decision of 29 November about Jerusalem is null and void.'' Internationalization was not an option. Fast forward several years after the signing of the Oslo agreements. In July of 2000, Yasser Arafat and the PLO launched what became known as the Second Intifada. Religious sites were specifically targeted. In December 2000, in Bethlehem, Fatah operatives and Palestinian Security Services assaulted Rachel's Tomb. Two years later, 13 armed Palestinians from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah Tanzim forcibly entered the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus and one of the holiest sites in Christianity. Violent attacks on Joseph's Tomb in Nablus were common in the same period. In Jerusalem, the key organization that represented radical Islam was called the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement under Sheikh Raed Salah. It was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its leader falsely accused Israel of endangering the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and it convened rallies under the banner ``Al-Aqsa is in Danger,'' inciting violence and hatred with this lie. Let me conclude with the following remark. Jerusalem must not be left to the vagaries of the Middle East. What we see is that religious sites are under attack across the entire region, from the famous attack of the Taliban on the--on the Buddhas, 2000 year-old Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan to Coptic Orthodox churches in Egypt to the religious sites of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis in Iraq. There is a regional assault going on against holy sites. It is under way across the whole area. Israel deserves your support as it defends Jerusalem from these kinds of assaults. As I said earlier, only a free and democratic Israel will protect Jerusalem for all the great faiths. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Prepared statement of Mr. Gold follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Ambassador Gold. Mort Klein, you're up. STATEMENT OF MORTON KLEIN Mr. Klein. Thank you, Chairman and members. First of all, I have to say I have Tourette syndrome. I may make sounds I can't control. It's a neurochemical disorder. My father had it. He gave it to me. I've always thanked him for it. The U.S. should move the Embassy to Jerusalem, not only because it's the just and moral thing to do, but because it's a law, passed with bipartisan, almost unanimous support, almost 22 years ago. Delaying implementation sends the message that Islamist threats and terrorism work, but moving the Embassy will strengthen American security and enhance worldwide respect for America by demonstrating the U.S. can be counted on to keep her commitments to her allies and will not, dare not, be intimidated by appeasing radical Islamic threats. If we allow U.S. policy to be determined by terror threats, we have only encouraged more such threats, more such terror, and undermined the U.S. campaign to eradicate radical Islamic terror. And Israeli control of Jerusalem is critical to security in all of Jerusalem and its surroundings. And moving the Embassy will not cause further Mideastern instability. Israel's relationship with Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia are strong today because of strong mutual concerns and interests and threats from Iran. Moving the Embassy will not change this. The Jerusalem Embassy Acts waiver provision has been inappropriately used for 22 years. The act's drafters made it clear that the waiver was not intended to be invoked repeatedly or for policy disagreements, but only for a serious security emergency. Senate Majority Leader Bob Doyle said then: The President cannot lawfully invoke this waiver because he thinks it's better to move it at a later date. The President dare not infinitely push off the establishment of the American Embassy in Jerusalem. ``If a waiver were to be repeatedly and routinely exercised by a President, I would expect,'' said Dole, ``that Congress should remove the waiver authority.'' And by the way, Dole and Kyl, who I spoke to at the time, told me the President should never use it, once or twice at the most. We haven't moved the Embassy for 22 years, yet we're further from peace today than we were 22 years ago. Not moving the Embassy did not help. Peace is impossible solely because of the Palestinian Arabs' refusal to accept Israel within any border, their refusals to even negotiate and outlaw terrorist groups, and refusal to end the promotion of hatred and murder and violence in their speeches, schools, and media. They are continuing to pay Arabs to murder Jewish people. It's an outrage. This is the regime we're talking about. In addition, they have now reconciled with the terrorist group, Hamas. This tells you their real intentions. This is the emblem that Abbas commissioned of the Fatah party of the Palestinian Authority. You see all of Israel there with a Kofia over it, a Kalashnikov rifle, and the arch-terrorist Arafat. These are the types of posters they put up in schools, universities, and high schools showing, honoring killers, murderers of innocent people when they commit their heinous crimes. We have to tell them the jig is up, that the only way for peace is if we hold them accountable and say there will be no more money, no more support to the Palestinian Authority, no more American money, unless they change. Remember, the greatest outbreak of Palestinian Arab violence occurred not after Israeli actions that the Palestinians disliked but occurred when Israel offered unprecedented concessions and a Palestinian state in 2000. The PA has used any excuse to promote violence against Israel. And the only place in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown is in Israel. And under Jordanian control, 70 percent of the Christians left because of oppression, and under Palestinian control, 80 percent of the Christians left Bethlehem. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the PA, made it clear that he would cut off access to religious sites by regularly making the astonishing racist statement, and I quote: In a final solution, we will never see a single Israeli civilian or soldier in our land. Jews and Christians have suffered greatly. Now their sites are under PA control. Jerusalem has been the capital only of Israel throughout history, never any other regime, country, or entity. I now turn to a rarely mentioned fact. Jerusalem is not very holy to Muslims. They have not treated Jerusalem as holy to them when they controlled it. During Arab Muslim control of Eastern Jerusalem, they allowed it to become a slum. There was virtually no water, electricity, or plumbing. Jordan built its royal residence and universities in Amman, not Jerusalem. They broadcast their Friday prayers from a mosque in Amman, not the Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. In the Holy Koran, Jerusalem is never mentioned. In the Jerusalem Holy Books, it's mentioned 700 times. But Abbas and others claim that Muhammad flew from a winged horse from Jerusalem to Heaven, and I don't have time to get into that. Let me just say, Jews face Jerusalem when they pray; Muslims face Mecca. When Jerusalem was under Arab control, not a single Arab leader, other than King Hussein and his father, visited. If it's so holy, why didn't others visit it? It belies their claim of holy status. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, has recently stated: Move the Embassy to Jerusalem now, an undivided Jerusalem. Senator Joe Biden, at the time future Vice President, said, quote: ``Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem will send the right signal, not a destructive signal. To do less would be to play into the hands of those who will try the hardest to deny Israel full attributes of statehood.'' ``The only way,'' Biden said, ``there will be peace in the Mideast is for the Arabs to know there is no division between the U.S. and Israel.'' None, zero, none. Thank you very much. [Prepared statement of Mr. Klein follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. DeSantis. All right. Thank you, Mort Klein. The chair notes the presence of our colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows. And I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to fully participate in today's hearing. Without objection, it's so---- Mr. Welch. Hold on now. Mr. DeSantis. I don't think he would want a recorded vote on that. The chair now recognizes Dr.Koplow for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF MICHAEL KOPLOW Mr. Koplow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear before you to discuss the important issue of moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As the title of this hearing aptly notes, there are both challenges and opportunities in moving the Embassy from its current location in Tel Aviv that make this issue particularly thorny. The basic calculus at hand is to balance issues of fundamental fairness against potential harm to American security and diplomatic priorities and U.S allies in the region. Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem would rectify the historic wrong of locating the American Embassy in a city that is not Israel's declared capital. Israel's controlling rights to the modern city of Jerusalem are not today in dispute. Yet Israel is the only country whose capital is unrecognized. The presence of foreign embassies in Tel Aviv fuels the fear among Israelis that the full legitimacy of their state will never be acknowledged. Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem supports the basic notion of fairness, and maintaining the Embassy in Tel Aviv to remain in line with the rest of the international community is not sufficient reason to do so. There should be no ambiguity about Israel's true capital. Nevertheless, there are potentially damaging national security implications if the Embassy is moved to Jerusalem. It is for these reasons that every President, including most recently President Trump, has declined to move the Embassy since the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed, and they should be weighed seriously. There are three primary national security considerations for keeping the Embassy in Tel Aviv. The first is to prevent unnecessary violence. Jerusalem is possibly the most sensitive geopolitical site in the world and sudden moves there often lead to chaos that damages Israel's security in fundamental ways. The most deadly violence committed by Palestinians against Israelis, including the First and Second Intifadas, and the 1996 Western War Tunnel riots are often sparked by fears, irrespective of whether they are unfounded, about a change in Jerusalem's status quo. There is no definitive way of knowing whether moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem will result in riots or violence, but the danger of mass demonstrations protesting the Embassy move in Israel, the West Bank, and Muslim majority countries around the world will be high. This could affect not only the safety and security of Israelis but also the safety and security of American Embassies and diplomatic personnel around the world. While extremists should not be granted a role as spoilers, the U.S. should do what it can to avoid unnecessary risks and harm to its own property and personnel. The second reason is to safeguard the interests of other regional allies. Jordan and Egypt, in particular, are sensitive to issues surrounding Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Jordan's peace treaty with Israel specifically recognizes its special and historic role in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Moving the Embassy risks unrest in these countries and will make it more difficult for their governments to cooperate with the United States on other regional issues. Moving the Embassy will also put further strain on the peace treaties that Israel has with Jordan and Egypt, which are constantly subject to pressure due to their unpopularity with the Jordanian and Egyptian publics. Finally, moving the Embassy now will damage any Israel Palestinian peace initiative that the Trump administration is planning to unveil, along with harming any future efforts in this arena by this administration or any successive ones. Moving the Embassy at the beginning of a renewed peace process rather than as the culmination of a successful round of negotiations will make a two-state solution, which has been longstanding American policy and is the stated policy of the Israeli Government, harder to achieve. It will sow Palestinian distrust of the United States as an honest broker and may lead the Palestinians to refuse to negotiate if they view one of the core final status issues as already being prejudged. Moving the Embassy should be done in the context of a successful negotiating process, in keeping with decades of American policy precedents, and should not be done in the aftermath of a failed or stalled negotiation. In this instance, what is fair policy is not the same as what is prudent policy. Any change in the Embassy status must be comprehensively weighed against the grave and unintended consequences that may occur should the Embassy be relocated to Jerusalem at this point in time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Prepared statement of Mr. Koplow follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Professor Kontorovich for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF EUGENE KONTOROVICH Mr. Kontorovich. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lynch, members of the committee, thank you for having me at the hearing today. My written testimony deals with issues involving the status of the corpus separatum, the structure of waivers under the act, but I'm going to forego those issues in my comments right now and focus on the objections to moving the Embassy because it seems, in a kind of diplomatic version of Augustine's prayer, everybody agrees that the Embassy should be moved, just not yet. And so I'm going to focus on those ``not yets,'' ``not right nows.'' The arguments focus on certain practical concerns, whose existence or realism can't really be proven while the waiver is issued, and so they are, in a sense, unfalsifiable. But one interesting thing about the arguments for not moving the Embassy, security arguments essentially, is that they have not changed in the 20-some years since the act's passage, despite the radical change in the security and political, geopolitical, situation in the region. In a sense, they are entirely unresponsive and invariant to political development. They can be summarized like this: Don't move the Embassy until the Palestinians, and maybe the Jordanians and the Egyptians, say it's okay. Don't move the Embassy until they agree. This holds American policy, this holds a statute subject to veto and waiver by third countries. In no geopolitical conflict, in no geopolitical dispute do we give parties, do we give neighbors, a waiver on where the U.S. Embassy should be. That is to say, maybe Pakistan and India would like the U.S. Embassies to those countries to be somewhere else, but we don't ask them. Now, it's not surprising that supporters of the Palestinians come and couch their arguments in national security terms, that is to say, implied threats of violence. Under the terms of the statute, the only reason for not implementing it is national security. The only permissible waiver is national security. Not surprisingly, we commonly hear national security threats from the Jordanians and the Palestinians, that they're in a sense shoehorning their foreign policy and political concerns into this justification. It's not surprising that such threats continue to be made because the Palestinian Authority finds that such threats work. They continue to keep the U.S. Embassy from being moved. This means that waiving the act based on such threats, in fact, invites further threats. Waiver creates its own predicate. I should point out that the security arguments have been significantly undermined by recent developments in the region. The security arguments were first made when the act was passed over 20 years ago, and they continue to be recited as if nothing has changed. One, the Sunni States, in particular Saudi Arabia, are--as of now--literally at war with Iran. They cannot afford a rift with the United States. The notion that Saudi Arabia would endanger itself--it just shot down yesterday an Iranian- provided missile with a Patriot missile battery--the notion that it would endanger the air security of Riyadh over the Embassy issue is preposterous. The notion that Jordan would expose itself to ISIS threat because of the Jerusalem Embassy issue is preposterous. So there has been a fundamental realignment in the Arab world. Twenty years ago, when people said that the Arab street is going to explode, that meant one thing. Now, I would point out, the Arab street has already exploded, principally internally. We need not fear riots against the U.S. in Damascus. The U.S. no longer has diplomatic representation there. Benghazi happened, not because of the Jerusalem Embassy. In other words, the people committed to keeping America out of the MiddleEast already, they are fully incentivized. U.S. Embassies in the area are constantly under threat. There was a threat this year to the Embassy in Cairo. Indeed, in 1998, two U.S. Embassies in Africa were blown up, in Tanzania and Kenya. The response of the United States was not to cut and run and say: Wow, there are people who threaten violence to our presence here; we might as well leave. The response by Congress was to appropriate nearly $1 billion for embassy security and, of the executive, to hunt down the perpetrators and ensure that they come to justice. That's the American response. There is no other situation in which threats to embassies, especially to a major ally, are a reason for not having diplomatic representation in a country's capital. In particular, this has a very bad consequence for the peace process because it puts Israel in a special unique category where its existence, its sovereignty over its capital, is only provisionally recognized. It's recognized with a question mark. Israel is a country in a class of one. That undermines the peace process. Moreover, the Palestinians base their claims to a state to the Jordanian and Egyptian conquest of areas of the British mandate in 1949. Large parts of Jerusalem, including potential locations for the Embassy, are not in those areas illegally conquered by Jordan and Egypt, and the Palestinians have no conceivable claim to them. Waiting for a--tying this to the peace process makes the Palestinians' eyes bigger than their plate and gives them an appetite for that which they could not potentially have and fundamentally undermines the peace process. [Prepared statement of Mr. Kontorovich follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes. Ambassador Gold, sometimes in America, people will say: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we want to move the Embassy, but the Israelis really don't want the Embassy in Jerusalem. I've been to Israel recently. Left, right, center, they all said to move it. Is that accurate that Israel would welcome it? Not that Israel is dictating what President Trump does, but would it be welcome in Israel. Mr. Gold. A, I believe it would be welcome. B, this sounds like Act II of something we went through earlier in the year called the Taylor Force Act, where people were saying Israel doesn't really want it. Really? Is that true? Somebody went to Tel Aviv and had coffee in a coffee shop and came back as an expert on Israel? So let me reassure you: Our Prime Ministers have all sought, if we're asked, that the U.S. Embassy be moved. Yitzhak Rabin, who was the father of the Oslo Agreements in the 1990s, spoke about Jerusalem remaining united under the sovereignty of Israel. And our public opinion polls indicate support for that. That is not the same as the Embassy, but it's all part of the same complex. Support for Jerusalem, the U.S. position in Jerusalem is at an all-time high. Mr. DeSantis. And correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no Knesset located in Tel Aviv. The Prime Minister's residence is not there. Your Supreme Court, it's all in Jerusalem, the seat of your government, all the major players. The people that we would want to be dealing with are in Jerusalem. Mr. Gold. In December 1949, at the end of the first Arab- Israeli war, much of the world community advised Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion: Don't move--don't move--your capital to Jerusalem. And, of course, he gave some of the lines, which I shared with you earlier, that Resolution 181 has no moral force, and he declared that Israel was moving its Embassy to Jerusalem-- moving its capital to Jerusalem. The Knesset was moved to Jerusalem as a result of his decision back then in 1949. Mr. DeSantis. Israel, one of the remarkable things is just the archaeological wonders. I mean, you know, our country is just a blip on the map compared to the thousands of years of history. But how was that treated under the Arab occupation between 1949 and 1967, some of the destruction? Mr. Gold. Well, actually, since we weren't engaging in archaeology in a territory which Jordan claimed and their archaeological investigations were not particularly advanced, it wasn't affected. However, I will tell you this: Under our understandings with Jordan, we have said that the administration of the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount are in the hands of the Waqf, which is a kind of endowment for religious institutions in Jordan. The Waqf has been completely irresponsible with respect to the areas under its jurisdiction. So, for example, when the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel, engaged in illegal construction activities under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and then the Al-Aqsa compound, they removed hundreds of tons of archaeological rubble from the Temple Mount and threw it in a dump site outside, in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Since then, Israeli archaeologists have gone through that rumble and found precious items that have been saved. So I doubt, given that record, that these archaeological sites would be well taken care of if the management for East Jerusalem changed. Mr. DeSantis. Ambassador Bolton, the point was made by Professor Kontorovich that the Gulf States, these Arab states, they are worried about Iran; they have a President now in America who believes Iran is a threat, who thinks the nuclear deal was a bad deal. Are they all of a sudden not going to work with us and Israel simply because we move our Embassy to Jerusalem? Mr. Bolton. No, I think it would have no material effect at all either on the broader geostrategic in the Middle East or on the Middle East peace process involving Israel or really on anything significant. You know, there's a lot of rhetoric in public in diplomatic matters that suits the political needs of the people who are uttering the words, when behind the scenes you're hearing something completely different, which is, ``We understand.'' The issue for me is, what's in the best interest of the United States? How are our interests best served? How can our diplomats be most effective? And I think the argument there is incontestable. What hurts us is when we give in to unfounded pressure and intimidation because it says something about the United States that we won't do what's purely common sense. It's harmful to us. It's harmful to Israel. It's harmful to the stability in the region. Mr. DeSantis. Professor Kontorovich, the statement that was issued and entered into the record by Ambassador Kurtzer compared U.S. posture towards Jerusalem with Russia annexation of Crimea, that if we think Crimea was wrong, how could we possibly want our Embassy in Jerusalem. Do you think those two things are parallel to one other? Mr. Kontorovich. I think there's a lot to learn from our reaction to Crimea that's relevant to Jerusalem, but it goes exactly in the opposite direction of what Ambassador Kurtzer suggests, and I would refer you to my article and commentary on Crimea and Israel's borders. The reason America did not recognize Russia's seizure of Crimea is not because the people there are not Russian or they don't want to be part of Russia. It was because it was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until Ukrainian's independence. And under international law, when a new country is created, its borders are the borders of the last top-level administrative unit in that area. So, when Ukraine is created, Crimea is within its borders, even though how that came to be was not necessarily fair, democratic, or reflecting self- representation. We go by that doctrine. We say Crimea belongs to Ukraine. When Israel became a country, the last top-level administrative unit was the British mount--Mandate for Palestine. There was no corpus separatum. There was no West Bank. And thus the presumptive borders of Israel upon its birthday include all of Jerusalem, not to mention Judea and Samaria, and thus Jordan's invasion would be like Russia's invasion of Crimea, and it would have been an act that we can give no recognition to. Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Lynch. Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Dr.Koplow, the United States is currently relying on the cooperation of our Arab allies, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in cooperation to really stabilize the security interests in the region, including for Israel. Jordan, we've had unequivocal support from King Abdullah against ISIS. He said: We will root them--there's a quote here, he's quoted, ``a relentless war against ISIS,'' and ``hit them in their own ground.'' He's been in unequivocal support of our efforts there. I hearken back to, in Egypt, when the Morsy regime came in after Qadhafi's--Mubarak's removal, they actually were considering abrogating the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Agreement that was negotiated between Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin, for which they received the Nobel Peace Prize. Now with al-Sisi's regime in there, they have lived up to the letter of the law and secured the situation on Israel's southern border with respect to Gaza. In deciding if we should move the U.S. Embassy now, should the U.S. at least consider and engage these neighbors in terms of what that move would present to, you know, the monarchy in Jordan or al-Sisi's government in Egypt. Mr. Koplow. I think that absolutely the U.S. needs to consider the opinions of these other allies. Israel, of course, is our most stalwart and reliable ally in the region, but we do have our Arab allies as well with whom we work on a number of things. Take Jordan, in particular. Right now, Jordan is a vital partner of the United States in counterterrorism operations. It's a vital partner in the fight against ISIS. Jordan contributes troops in support to the U.S.- led coalition forces fighting ISIS. Jordan also has an enormous refugee problem, as we've noted from Syria. And staunching the flow of refugees is in American interest as well. And, of course, it is within Jordan's interest to continue these things, but there are ways in which they cooperate with the United States now that may be more difficult should we move the Embassy. We, this year, conducted the largest ever military exercises with the Jordanian Army than we ever had. That is the type of thing that public pressure can be brought to bear and have those cut off. And I would note that there are recent examples in Jordan and in other countries around the region where domestic politics, because of public pressure, indeed trumps national security interests. For instance, in the Israeli-Palestinians here, the Palestinian Authority in July stopped cooperating with Israel on security coordination, which is the biggest factor in preventing terrorism in Israeli cities, and security coordination certainly helps the PA in keeping the PA in power. That security coordination was not restored until only a few weeks ago. Now, that's something that it was in the PA's security interest to maintain, but public pressure over Israeli-Palestinian issues prevented it from happening. With Jordan as well, currently there is no Israeli Ambassador in Jordan. She was recalled due to an incident in the Israeli Embassy in Jordan. The Jordanian Government certainly has an obvious interest in continuing to cooperate with Israel on national security grounds, but again, public pressure can sometimes lead to consequences that are not good for either country. And so, in Jordan, in particular, I think it's something to worry about, and with Egypt as well. Of course, Egypt is a partner against ISIS in Sinai and elsewhere, but it's also important to note that, in the last 2 months, Egypt has taken on a much larger role in keeping things quiet in Gaza than they have before. Again, public pressure is brought to bear on these countries, even though they are not democracies. There are still audience costs that affect these things. And I think that if the United States moves the Embassy, it is going to put much of this cooperation at risk. And as I noted in my testimony, it's something that we should absolutely consider when weighing the balance of interests here. Mr. Lynch. Thank you. The members of this committee probably are in the Middle East, including very frequently to Israel, but to some of these neighboring countries on a frequent basis. The cooperation of Egypt in Gaza--I've only been into Gaza a couple of times--but such a proximate threat, Egypt's military cooperation is extremely, extremely important. The concerns raised by King Abdullah in Jordan about--you know, sometimes I think we take for granted that we've got a friendly administration there in Jordan. And is there, I mean, think about it: If we had a hostile government in Jordan, what would that mean? Is King Abdullah's concerns about his monarchy, his government being tipped over by the street, some of the more--not insurgent--but more radical elements of the population there, is that legitimate, or do you think it's overstated? Mr. Koplow. Certainly, I don't think anyone can predict whether it will happen, but I think that, to the extent that King Abdullah and the Jordanian Government expressed these concerns, we should certainly take them seriously. Jordan is a country that is majority Palestinian. Some estimates have it as large as 70 percent Palestinian. They are very sensitive to issues within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and these types of issues really, as I noted, create lots of pressure on the King of Jordan to either cease cooperating with Israel or to cut back cooperation with the United States. And Jordan, in particular, is sensitive to issues in Jerusalem, as I noted, given its historical role there and given the role that the Israeli Peace Treaty grants to Jordan over holy places in Jerusalem. And, really, any sudden moves, when it comes to Jerusalem, impact Jordan in a real way. As you noted, Jordan is as reliable an Arab ally as we have in the region. They are vital for our security on a number of fronts. I think that even risking the danger of the Jordanian Government being replaced or something happening to King Abdullah really would impact American national security interests in a fundamental way in the Middle East. Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you for your courtesy. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes Mr. Comer for 5 minutes. Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Bolton, the Trump administration has clearly stated that it intends to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and, quote, ``the question is not if that move happens, but only when,'' end quote. Ambassador Bolton, when is the appropriate time to make this move and why? Mr. Bolton. Well, I think the appropriate time to make the announcement is today. And let me just say, in respect of the comments that have been made about the strategic implications of a move, as I said in my prepared statement, I think we should take very seriously the concerns of countries like Jordan and Egypt. But I don't think that means they have a veto. I think it means we do what diplomats do. We consult with them in advance. We explain our reasons. We work with them to facilitate their ability to explain to their own citizens why it's happening. And let's be realistic; the construction of a new embassy is not something that happens in 24 hours. First, you have to announce it. Then you have to break the ground. I suppose you have to design the Embassy first. You have to build it. You have to dedicate it. You have to--this is going to take place over years. And so there's a long period of time involved. And if the decision to go forward floor by floor of the Embassy varied with the temperature of the Middle East peace process, this building could take forever to build. I think it's very important that we understand that the country in the world most sensitive to the regime in Jordan, most aware of the implications for security, is Israel. And it defies credulity to think that Israel would advocate a step that could cause King Abdullah to be overthrown and a terrorist regime to take power there. They're not going to do it, and neither are we. Mr. Comer. Thank you, Ambassador. With the stalled peace process and deteriorating security situation in the Middle East, what do you think the U.S. could do to best support Israel and stand by our ally? Obviously, you touched on moving the embassy, but what are some other things? Mr. Bolton. Well, beyond the embassy, I think the greatest threat to peace and security in the Middle East remains the Iranian nuclear weapons program, which has not paused, has not slowed down, has been camouflaged by the Iran nuclear deal. I have disagreed with the administration on the handling of that deal. I would break it immediately and establish a new reality. But I think specifically in terms of Gaza and the West Bank, I really think that the United States is taking advantage of a potential for a reopening of the peace process. I think it's significant that the Trump administration is moving at the beginning of its term, not at the end as happens so often in the past. And I don't know whether the chances for success are any better or any worse. But when it comes to the embassy issue, the administration's effort is going to have its ups and downs, like all peace processes. And if you said after a step forward in the peace process, well, we don't want to risk that by moving the embassy, or at a downturn in the peace process, well, we don't want to tank it entirely by moving the embassy, this is how not now becomes not ever. And I think that's a mistake. I think when the United States acts in a realistic way, recognizing a reality in a particular region, it enhances our credibility, it demonstrates that we are prepared to act on the basis of reality. That makes our efforts I think more likely to succeed, not less likely. Mr. Comer. Right. One of my colleagues had mentioned that when they were in Israel everyone that they had talked to, or the majority of the people in Israel supported moving the embassy. When I was in Israel this summer, that was my impression too, speaking to a vast array of Israelis there in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Getting back to the embassy, opponents of moving the embassy, opponents here in Congress, have cautioned that it could hinder the peace process. Do you believe peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, do you think that that would impede that in any way? And why or why not? Mr. Bolton. No, I don't think it would affect the overall Middle East peace process. I think the embassy move has been given a symbolic significance well in excess of its practical effects. If you believe, and some do, that the United States is fundamentally biased against the Arab side, that it's so much in the tank for Israel that we can't be an honest broker, and they cite the billions of dollars of military and economic assistance we have given to Israel since Camp David--and quite properly, in my view--they look at the world historical events that have affected the Middle East since the 1967 war at least, what possible effect can moving the embassy have in comparison to all of that? I mean this has taken a pebble and made it into a mountain. And the way to break through that, and I do think it is scholasticism, as I said in my testimony, is to move forward with actually relocating the embassy, acknowledging the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It's going to be in an area west of the green line that nobody except a proponent of eradicating Israel entirely would ever say would be in a Palestinian state. So putting it in a place that nobody's disputing cannot affect either final status or the broader peace process. Mr. Comer. Well thank you, Ambassador. My time is up. I just want to conclude by saying I look forward to working with the Trump administration as we change directions with our policy towards Israel, and hopefully strengthen the support that we have with our greatest ally in that region. I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Vermont for 5 minutes. Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and for calling this hearing. And I thank all of the witnesses for your testimony. I think all of us here are strong supporters of Israel, even if we have some disagreements about particular issues, including the wisdom of moving the capital. And I think all of us here supported the very significant 10-year aid package to Israel. Ambassador Gold, you mentioned that President Trump made a commitment to move the capital and as you--pardon me? Mr. Gold. The embassy. Mr. Welch. The embassy. Thank you. And as you know, around the time of his inauguration, I think at his inauguration, King Abdullah came here. And my understanding from press reports is that he personally requested the President not to do that. Was President Trump wrong in accommodating the request of King Abdullah? Mr. Gold. Well, I can't say what King Abdullah said to President Trump because I wasn't there and I don't know. Mr. Welch. No, let's be serious here. We know that King Abdullah was opposed to moving the embassy. Mr. Gold. Look, let's say he was. You have to decide on the basis of your own interests. How much would moving the embassy have an effect on your---- Mr. Welch. My question is was President Trump wrong in accommodating that request in not moving the embassy to Jerusalem, as he promised to do during the campaign? Mr. Gold. What I am saying is this: Whether you have a President who is a Republican or a Democrat---- Mr. Welch. This is a specific question, Ambassador. Mr. Gold. Okay. Mr. Welch. I am asking about was President Trump wrong in that decision? Mr. Gold. My view, and I can only speak for myself, is that we hail the decision of an American President to move the embassy to Jerusalem. We are not going to second-guess the timing. That's an American interest. Mr. Welch. So President Trump was not wrong? Mr. Gold. I am not going to second-guess the tactics, the timing of moving it. He gave his word in principle that he is going to move the embassy. And I believe that he is going to do it. Mr. Welch. I am going to interrupt. I just want to say something. I think President Trump is showing great energy in the Middle East and with Israel. I think what Mr. Greenblatt is doing and what Mr. Kushner are doing is good. Now, would you agree that King Abdullah is a very important and loyal ally of the United States? Mr. Gold. I believe King Abdullah is a loyal ally of the U.S., and he is an important partner to the State of Israel, and we have a peace treaty with Jordan as well. Mr. Welch. My understanding is that there is significant progress in the relationships between Israel and many of the Sunni Arab states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt. Is that your view as well? Mr. Gold. I fully agree with that view. I think what is happening in the Middle East---- Mr. Welch. I don't have a lot of time. So is it in the interests of the United States and Israel to maintain solid relationships with those Sunni Arab states? Mr. Gold. It is in the interests of the U.S. and Israel, in my judgment, to build on those relations and encourage them. And if you may give me one more sentence on that issue, the principal factor affecting the Sunni Arab world is what you do with Iran. That is---- Mr. Welch. So you would agree with Ambassador--I take it you would agree with Ambassador Bolton that we should rip up that Iran nuclear deal? Mr. Gold. No, I think you should upgrade it. I think you should take out the flaws and come up with a better agreement. Mr. Welch. I only have a little time. Ambassador Bolton, I just want to ask you a question. Is it your view that at the present time the holy sites in Jerusalem are secure with the Israeli security system? Mr. Bolton. Well, I think they are as secure as they can be under the circumstances. Mr. Welch. Would they be more secure---- Mr. Bolton. I would like to answer your question to Ambassador Gold. I think the President was wrong in accepting the recommendation of King Abdullah, if that's what he said, and if that's what the President did. Mr. Welch. Right. I appreciate your candor. Mr. Bolton. I couldn't wait. Mr. Welch. Let me ask you this. There is a question on the holy sites. And all of us want them to be secure. Will they be more secure, in your view, if the embassy is moved to Jerusalem? Mr. Bolton. It will have absolutely no effect on the security of the holy sites. Mr. Welch. Ambassador Gold? Mr. Gold. I said in my testimony that you should encourage the common values that we have. Mr. Welch. No, the question is will the security of the holy sites be enhanced if the embassy is moved to Jerusalem? Mr. Gold. If anyone thinks that Israel may under certain circumstances or pressures withdraw from the core of Jerusalem and withdraw from the holy sites, you will have an explosion of violence, not reduced violence. Mr. Welch. I see my time is up, but my questions are not answered. I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes Mr. Hice for 5 minutes. Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it can be reasonably and effectively argued that the Obama administration undermined actually Israel's claim to Jerusalem by allowing the U.N. Resolution 2334, which specifically stated that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity. That's bothersome to me personally. Ambassador Bolton, let me ask you this. What was the impact of the Obama administration's decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to pass that resolution? Mr. Bolton. I think it was very destructive. I think it was utterly uncalled for. I think it was profoundly wrong. And I hope that the Trump administration will bend every effort to find a way, as much as it can practicably be done, to reverse that resolution. I think the right position was that articulated by President George W. Bush, which is that Israel is entitled to live behind boundaries that provide for peace and security. And the notion that the 1967 lines have any-- which are really the 1949 armistice lines--have any binding juridical effect is completely wrong. And indeed, the armistice agreements of 1949 all expressly say that these are armistice lines with no political value. We can argue that for a long time. But let me just say I think it was gravely damaging to American interests for President Obama to allow that resolution to be adopted. Mr. Hice. I agree with you. Would you say that that resolution was consistent with past U.S. policy? Mr. Bolton. No, past U.S. policy, I think under Presidents Republican and Democratic alike, would have called for the veto of that resolution. Mr. Hice. So what motivated the change? Mr. Bolton. I think President Obama had demonstrated over 8 years that he thought Israel was responsible for much of the instability in the Middle East. Much as I think that he believed the United States and its views in the previous administration on Iran and other issues had caused instability. I think that motivated his decision. And I think he was 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Mr. Hice. So it was an anti-Israel policy? Mr. Bolton. I don't know any other way to characterize it. Mr. Hice. I don't either. Would moving the embassy to Jerusalem help rectify that problem? Mr. Bolton. I don't really think it would change the fundamental reality of the resolution. Indeed, the thrust of my argument here is that moving the embassy is simply a practical, efficient decision for the United States to make in the interests of greater effectiveness for its own diplomacy. The only politicization in this issue comes from those who say that somehow they can affect a decision that is properly made by the United States and Israel where our embassy goes. That's the politicization. That's the interference. That's what should be unacceptable to the United States. Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Klein, let me ask you, in light of this resolution that we are discussing, which quite frankly I totally agree is blatantly against Israel, can you discuss with the committee how the U.N.'s action impacted Israel? Mr. Klein. Well, this resolution was completely absurd in that it stated that the Jewish section of Jerusalem is occupied Arab territory, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, Judaism's two holiest sites, is occupied Arab territory. It had no practical impact on Israel because in Israel everyone realizes it's absurd. And even throughout the world most people realized that's absurd. It really only sent a message of astonishing, really breathtaking hostility that President Obama's administration had towards the Jewish State of Israel. Mr. Hice. And the entire U.N. I mean it seems there is a blatant anti-Israel sentiment in the U.N. across the board that needs to be addressed. What can the United States do to help prevent and change this anti--Israel sentiment? Mr. Klein. Well, Ambassador Haley is beginning to do that by calling them out on their irrational and absurd positions against Israel when they ignore truly evil and horrific regimes throughout the world. And I think one thing that can be done, and there is legislation moving in that direction, is to make it clear to the U.N. that America will stop apportioning its share of funding of the U.N. if they do not change this outrageous resolution. I think if that happened, that resolution would be changed immediately. As opposed to the embassy not being moved immediately, that resolution would be changed immediately. Mr. Hice. Thank you for the recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. And the chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan for 5 minutes. Mr. Jordan. I thank the chairman. Ambassador Bolton, how many countries are there in the world? Mr. Bolton. We have diplomatic recognition with over 190. There are 193 members of the U.N. There are---- Mr. Jordan. One hundred ninety-three countries. My guess is we are the United States of America, we are the biggest, strongest country on the planet. My guess is we have embassies in just about every one, maybe not Iran and North Korea and a handful. Mr. Bolton. A few we don't recognize. Mr. Jordan. Yeah, a few we don't recognize, right? So 180- some countries we have got an embassy in those countries. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. That's correct. Mr. Jordan. And in all those countries the embassy is in the capital or the seat of government except for one. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. Well, the only exception--the answer to that is yes, basically. The only exception to that is occasionally a country moves its capital city. Mr. Jordan. So it takes you a while to relocate. Mr. Bolton. I looked this up to be sure. For many years our embassy in Belize was in Belize City even though the capital was in Belmopan. But I see 10 years ago we finally moved our embassy. So we may be down to Israel alone. Mr. Jordan. So 188 countries that we recognize we have an embassy, every single one we put the embassy in the capital or the seat of government. Mr. Bolton. There must be something to that. Mr. Jordan. Except one. Now Israel, became a country in 1948. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. Pardon me? Mr. Jordan. Israel became a country, it became a state in 1948? Mr. Bolton. We were the first country to recognize its independence. Mr. Jordan. Exactly. My next question, and who was the first head of state to recognize the Nation of Israel? Mr. Bolton. Harry Truman. Mr. Jordan. Harry Truman, President of the United States of America. And then just a few years ago--well, I guess more than a few years ago--1995, we passed an act Jerusalem Embassy Act, that almost every single Member of Congress voted for. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. That's correct. Overwhelmingly. Mr. Jordan. I think it was a voice vote in the House, but in the Senate it was like 93 to 5, right? Mr. Bolton. Something like that. Mr. Jordan. And for this act to take effect and for the embassy to go to Jerusalem--this is amazing--Congress doesn't have to do anything, something we are actually pretty darn good at, right? And frankly the President. Doesn't have to do anything. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. That's correct. And it was a sign Congress was willing to pay for it too, which is also interesting. Mr. Jordan. So we don't have to do anything, the President doesn't have to do anything. Everyone has spoken. The President campaigned on this. The American people elected him, as this was a central issue of his campaign, we do it everywhere else except one country, which, oh, just happens to be one of our best friends in the entire world. Is that right? Mr. Bolton. That's correct. Mr. Jordan. This is what gets me. It is like this is real simple to me. This is about remembering your friends. This is about loyalty. This is about recognizing the fact that there is one country in the world who stands with us every single time. They happen to be the one country where we get our Judeo- Christian value system from, the State of Israel, and yet they are the one nation where we won't put the embassy where it's supposed to be. And particularly now when you think about what we went through the last 8 years with the previous administration, and more importantly what happened the last few months of that administration at the United Nations. This is the right time to do this thing. And that's why the President recognized it, campaigned on it, and one of the reasons I would say the American people elected him. Would you agree, Ambassador Bolton? Mr. Bolton. I think that's entirely true. Yes. Mr. Jordan. So let's just get it done. Let's just get it done. Right? Mr. Bolton. I am entirely persuaded. Mr. Jordan. All right. I kind of thought you would be. That's why I asked the questions of you. I think actually most of the panel is. I want to thank the chairman. He has worked hard on this. I want to thank all our witnesses who came here. Most importantly, I want to thank the President of the United States, who had the courage who said this was the right thing to do, the time is now, particularly in light of what we went through the last 8 years. Let's get this done. Let's get it done as quickly as possible. I understand there is some practical concerns. You have all outlined them. Ambassador Gold outlined them. That's fine. But let's get this done. It is the right thing to do, and when it comes--you got to remember who your friends are, who share your common set of values, the values that I think make the world a better place. Let's recognize all that and get this thing done. With that, I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields the rest of his time to the chairman. Mort Klein, the significance of Jerusalem obviously I think is self-evident to the Jewish people. But in America, you are involved in politics, you know folks from Jewish activists, the Christian activists. This city matters to people here in America, does it not? Mr. Klein. Yes. As a matter of fact, the most recent polls show that Americans support moving the embassy to Jerusalem and keeping it an undivided city by over 4 to 1. So it's really overwhelming. And by the way, even the liberal ministers, I just wanted to add like Yossi Beilin, extreme left wing ministers, said the embassy must be moved immediately. So that is really the consensus in Israel overwhelmingly. But yes, in America the overwhelming majority of people support this move and have supported it for 22 years, since it's been--if I may say, the fundamental premise of why there is a debate is that the Arabs claim that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims. That's the premise. If it was not holy to Muslims, if they said they want to move it, that Haifa was holy to them, nobody would even talk. But this is a fundamental falsehood. The majority of people living in Jerusalem since the mid-1800s have been Jews, second largest number of people, Christians. The Muslims are the third since the mid-1800s. And the Arabs say, well, our Koran says that Muhammad went from Jerusalem to heaven. But what does it really say? It says Muhammad had a dream--not an occurrence, a dream--that on his winged horse he flew from the sacred mosque to the furthest mosque. The evidence makes it clear that this claim that the furthest mosque in Jerusalem can't be. When Palestine is mentioned in the Koran, it's referred to as the closest land, not the furthest land. So Jerusalem, which is in Palestine, cannot be the furthest mosque when Palestine is the closest land. And listen to this. One more thing. Palestine then had not yet been conquered by the Muslims. There wasn't a single mosque in Palestine when the Koran was written. Mr. DeSantis. Great. The gentleman's time has expired, and the chair now recognizes Ms. Foxx for 5 minutes. Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank all of our witnesses here today. It is a very enlightening presentation. And I want to say I want to associate myself with the comments of some of my colleagues. That way I don't have to repeat the comments of my colleagues. Ambassador Gold, the first thing I want to say is I think you do a wonderful job when you present the many different cases that you present when I occasionally have a chance to see you in the media. But I want to follow up on your verbal testimony. You mentioned the topic of Israel's ability to preserve the integrity of the status quo of the holy land sites. I find this interesting given that detractors of moving the embassy claim that it would be inflammatory and inciting. Can you expand on the ability of Israel to prove as a stabilizing force for religious exercise and speech and ward off religious incitement? Do you think Israel's sovereignty with respect to Jerusalem would be a positive influence on religious pluralism throughout the region? Mr. Gold. First of all, Israel views itself as sovereign in Jerusalem today. That's the situation. Now, in terms of protecting stability and security in that area, just go on the major holidays to the area of the Temple Mount, come on Ramadan and see how many tens of thousands of Muslims are praying near the Al Aqsa Mosque because they can't even get into the Al Aqsa Mosque because it's so full. Come on the time of Christmas to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and see all the Christians who stream in for Christian holidays in the Old City. And then come to the Western Wall and see on the Jewish holidays, particularly the pilgrimage festivals like Passover, Shavuot, and others, come to the Old City and pray at the Western Wall. Jerusalem works. It operates well. And changing or expressing uncertainty of any kind about Israel's position only feeds radical elements who want to argue that the Jewish people have no connection with Jerusalem, or feeds all kinds of other baseless theories. Last but not least, I want to make this point, because it is an I think a current point that is very important. There is a sheik named Ra'ad Salah who heads the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which is basically part of the Muslim Brotherhood. He used to come to Jerusalem a lot. He has been running around Israel and the region saying Israel is undermining the foundations of the Al Aqsa Mosque. And this heats up the whole region, this lie. And by the way, he has faced prosecution in the Israeli legal system. But one of the things we have to do is expose this lie, because frankly, the only one who ever threatened the foundations of any of the Muslim shrines has been him when he led groups to dig out tons of archeological areas near the Al Aqsa Mosque and created all kinds of problems which I don't have time to go into. Israel is taking care of the holy sites, it has been taking care of the holy sites, and will continue to take care of them. And if you don't have a responsible power to protect the holy sites, you are setting up a recipe for the next regional conflict. Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Ambassador. And again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentlelady yields back. The chair notes the presence of our colleague, the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa. I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to fully participate in today's hearing. Without objection, it is so ordered. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ross, for 5 minutes. Mr. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the timing. You know, Ambassador Bolton, when you opened up you dispelled some of the myths with regard to the basis for not moving the embassy. And I guess one of them that concerns me the most was the second point about the fragility of the peace negotiations going on in the Mideast and how this may disrupt it. What impact did the U.N. Resolution 2334 have on the impact of the peace process in the Mideast? Mr. Bolton. Well, I think it was decidedly negative because it gave the false impression that the Palestinians and their supporters could win in the halls of the United Nations what they failed to win at the negotiating table. Mr. Ross. And we turned a blind eye to that with an abstention. Mr. Bolton. It was a catastrophic decision by the Obama administration. Mr. Ross. Would you agree that any successful peace negotiation has to have the United States at the table? Mr. Bolton. Anybody who doesn't understand that doesn't understand reality. Mr. Ross. And if we are going to negotiate, should we not negotiate from a position of strength? I mean if you are going to negotiate to win, I would suggest that that would be the way we would go about doing this. And then we allow tacit approval of the U.N. Resolution 2334, which shows our weakness to our greatest ally. And then we get resistance for moving an embassy because it's going to disrupt the peace process. The anomaly there is just illogical. Not that what we do here has any basis in logic or reason. But I guess my second point is that, and Ambassador Gold, you talked about this, about the sanctity of the holy sites. Who better than the Israeli people, who have been the protectorate of these holy sites, to allow them to continue to do so? And would it not, again in accordance with logic and reason, dictate that the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would give even a higher sense of security and a higher sense of clearance to allow for an even greater preservation of these sites? Mr. Gold. And I want to remind you between 1948 and 1967, when we lost the Old City, our holy sites were attacked. We have photographs. Actually, I was going to put them up, and I don't know what happened to our audiovisual, we had holy sites that came under attack, medieval synagogues blown up by shells of the invading armies that came in at that time. That's not something Israel did, that's something our neighbors did when they moved into Jerusalem. So our proven record in protecting holy sites is open for everyone to see. Mr. Ross. And in fact not only open for everyone to see, but open for everyone to see regardless of ethnicity, religious background, nationalism, anything. I guess my point is that here we are arguing over what I think are baseless arguments to not move the embassy, and yet we stand again in abeyance with the peace process that if we are going to deal with a peace process, it would seem to me that if the U.S. is going to be a partner to succeed in a Mideast peace that we should then show some strength. And that greatest sense of strength, now be it deliberate-- I don't mind waiting 6 months or a year to make sure that it's the right move and we make sure that we have reached out to our allies--that it would seem to me that our best position in order to effectuate a peace, if peace is sought by the Palestinians, that moving the embassy in and of itself would be a step in the right direction. Would you all agree with me? Mr. Bolton. I think that's certainly correct. And I think it goes to what I believe is the fundamental misconception about the potential impact of an embassy move, which assumes in part that the United States today is in equipoise between the Palestinians and the State of Israel, when in fact if you look at the imbalance in economic assistance, billions and billions to Israel compared to a relatively smaller amount through the U.N. and directly, nobody can believe that we are in equipoise on that. So the issue is not in the abstract would some people disagree with us to move the embassy, but what is the aggregate delta, what is the real change in the strategic reality in the region? And the answer is the change is de minimis. Mr. Ross. I agree with you. Mr. Gold. Let me just make one point. Mr. Ross. Ambassador Gold. Mr. Gold. When you are involved in negotiations, one of the strategies to make negotiations work is to get the parties into what I would call the box of realism. If people have wild-eyed fantasies that they can achieve goals that there isn't a chance in hell of reaching, you are never going to go forward. You move the embassy, you create a box of realism for our neighbors. Israel's not going to give up Jerusalem. Somebody better digest that. It's going to be the capital--it has been the capital of Israel and will remain the capital of Israel. Your moving the embassy reinforces that box of realism and brings us just that much closer to a negotiated solution. Mr. Ross. Thank you. I realize my time has expired. I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman. Mr. Grothman. Thanks. I am going to go down a little bit different path here. Anyone can answer this. Right now of course the United States maintains a diplomatic representative to the Palestinians. And that is in West Jerusalem. Is there any doubt, if you are familiar with where that diplomatic representative is, is there any doubt, does anybody dispute the fact, except the most extreme elements, that that diplomatic representation is in Israel? Mr. Bolton. Well, the location of the building is in West Jerusalem, but in actual fact, and this has been true for over a quarter of a century, even longer, that consulate has been perceived at the State Department as the de facto embassy to the Palestinian State. And that's a problem in and of itself. Mr. Grothman. Right. Just to compare the two as far as, you know, what we're dealing with here. Could you compare the idea that as a practical matter the Palestinian representative or embassy is in Israel, but we can't put the Israeli Embassy, the American Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem? Mr. Bolton. I think there is actually a consulate facility in--east of the green line that does things like provide visas for Palestinians. But honestly, this goes to a larger point that I don't think any of us perhaps covered except in the prepared testimony about rationalizing what our view is on a potential outcome of the peace process to begin with, and whether we think a two-state solution is still viable. I am not sure you can solve that all at once. And that's why the question of whether we should relocate our embassy into indisputably sovereign Israeli territory in West Jerusalem is actually the easiest part of it and the first thing we can do. Mr. Grothman. I really loved Ambassador Gold's comments, because he hit the nail on the head. You know, I think we move the embassy, it would put some realism into some discussions over there. I will bring up another matter, though. Since we are talking about where the Israeli Embassy is, we just spent a second here on where as a practical matter the American Embassy to the Palestinians is. Do you think it would introduce a dose of reality if we moved that embassy or representative, whatever you want to call it, to Ramallah, rather than put it in Jerusalem? Does that also, the fact that that building is in Jerusalem, does that also kind of encourage this lack of common sense or lack of reality in the region? Mr. Bolton. I think others will want to comment on this, but I think we need to revisit the entire concept of having a kind of permanent de facto embassy to a Palestinian state that doesn't exist yet. I mean that person, at least the last time I was in the State Department, the consul general in Jerusalem is instructed not to have contact with officials of the Government of Israel, that their job is to talk to the Palestinians. That's one reason why the consulate there has the authority, which a few other consulates do, to send cables back to Washington without the approval of the Ambassador in Israel, the country in which it's located. And I just think this has been in aid of perpetuating the myth that if you think about it hard enough, a Palestinian state will appear out of nowhere. I think that's a mistake from the U.S. point of view. It's not realistic. Mr. Grothman. Ambassador Gold, you care to comment? Mr. Gold. If we take some of the principles that Ambassador Bolton has put forward about where embassies are located, you know, I think he is right, we don't--Ambassador Bolton is correct, we don't have yet a political solution to the Palestinian side. We don't know where Palestinian self-governing institutions will be located. And it would make sense that in the future any embassy would be located near those institutions. You know, sometimes there are Palestinians and Jordanians who speak about a federation or confederation. Does that mean that the U.S. Embassy in Amman should be involved? Who knows? But we are not yet at a political solution. So it's a little premature to start saying where the U.S. Embassy representing U.S. interests to the Palestinians should precisely be. Mr. Grothman. Okay. On the status quo, just to reiterate what you said, in the status quo as long as the U.S. Embassy is not in Jerusalem, it kind of implies that that could become a permanent state of affairs. And as long as what is operating as the de facto American Embassy to Palestine is in Jerusalem, it also kind of leaves the idea out there that that could be a permanent state of affairs. Correct? Mr. Gold. So I think what you are implying, and I think it is true, it gives a net effect that the Palestinians have a leg up on the claim in Jerusalem, which is not fair, which needs to be remedied. Mr. Grothman. Correct. Thank you very much. Mr. DeSantis. We have one of our strongest allies, only democracy in the Mideast, and yet we act like Jerusalem's not their capital, Tel Aviv. But then you have Palestinian Arabs who have rejected states, have gone to war with Israel for years and years, and we have something in Jerusalem for them. I mean it really is maddening. Good questions. The chair now recognizes Mark Meadows for 5 minutes. Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. Obviously, as being members of the Republican Conference, there is always a very willing partner on behalf of the gentleman from Florida on issues that are pro- Jewish and pro-Israel, and I thank you for your leadership. Ambassador Bolton, let me come to you. Would you suggest that there are a number of people in the State Department that are vehemently opposed to moving the embassy to Jerusalem? Mr. Bolton. Absolutely. And look, this is a problem at the State Department. I wrote about it in my book that I wrote after I was at the U.N., that there are elements in the Department who are excellent civil servants who follow the direction of new Presidents. There are others who think they should run American foreign policy. And they have been running this issue for as long as anyone can remember. Mr. Meadows. So to your knowledge were any of those people at the State Department elected on November 8th? Mr. Bolton. No, strangely, and they are not mentioned in the Constitution either. Mr. Meadows. And to your knowledge, when the President ran on this particular issue, do you believe that there were a number of people who felt like there was a reset in terms of our relationship with the Jewish community, and finally the United States of America? Mr. Bolton. Yes. And I think it's a campaign promise that a lot of people paid a lot of attention to. I think it's very important. Mr. Meadows. So would you characterize this as a campaign promise that if the President failed to follow through on that would be a major disappointment to the Jewish community? Mr. Bolton. Well, I will just speak as a Lutheran, it would be a major disappointment to me. Mr. Meadows. As an Evangelical, it will be a major disappointment to me. And I can tell you that it is something that not only have we brought up with the President directly, I can tell you that he understands the commitment that he has made on this particular issue. Dr. Koplow, I am going to come to you. There is always one skunk at the party. And so as we look at this, obviously you don't believe that we should be moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Is that correct? Mr. Koplow. I believe that national security considerations at this time dictate that we should probably leave it in Tel Aviv at least for another 6 months. Mr. Meadows. All right. So what has changed over the last 20 years in terms of our national security interests? I mean because we continue to debate this over and over. Do you know who Erekat is? Mr. Koplow. I am sorry? Mr. Meadows. Do you know who Erekat is? Or Erekat? Mr. Koplow. Oh, Saeb Erekat, of course Mr. Meadows. So you know who he is. So how long has he had his job? Mr. Koplow. Certainly as long as I can remember. Mr. Meadows. Yeah. Well, the closest thing to eternal life here is an eternal job of being able to negotiate a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Wouldn't you agree? Mr. Koplow. Yes. Mr. Meadows. All right. So since he has not been successful in over 21 years, and the embassy has not been in Jerusalem, how could moving the embassy to Jerusalem have affected his track record? I mean so if we move it do you think he will be any less successful? Mr. Koplow. Do I think Erekat will be any less successful? Mr. Meadows. Yes. Mr. Koplow. I can't imagine that he personally will be less successful. Mr. Meadows. I agree. So from a national security standpoint, is the Knesset fairly secure? Mr. Koplow. Yes. Mr. Meadows. I have been there. It's very secure. So are you saying that we couldn't secure our embassy in Jerusalem? Is that what you are saying or you are just saying that geopolitically it makes national security less viable? Mr. Koplow. I have no doubt that we would be able to secure our embassy in Jerusalem the same way that we secure our embassy in Tel Aviv. Mr. Meadows. I agree. So what empirical data do you have that would suggest that this would create a national security incident? Because you were just talking, because I find your logic fascinating, you were just talking about how the Palestinians were pushing back against the security agreement, and yet the embassy is in Tel Aviv. So why would--I mean there is something to the logic that doesn't seem to mesh. Mr. Koplow. I think that there are a number of issues regarding Jerusalem that affect national security both for us and for Israel. The embassy is one of them. It's not the only one. But in general, as I note in my testimony, things that occur in Jerusalem tend to be the spark for---- Mr. Meadows. So you are saying the very presence of a building in Jerusalem is going to create a national security issue? Mr. Koplow. I think it very well may. Mr. Meadows. Okay. And you don't have any empirical data to support that. That's just your feeling being a doctor from Georgetown in political science, right? Mr. Koplow. Based on the fact that other violent incidents in Israel are generally sparked by changes in Jerusalem, I think that one can assume that this is---- Mr. Meadows. Could you possibly be wrong? Mr. Koplow. Absolutely. Mr. Meadows. Okay. Ambassador Bolton. Mr. Bolton. Just one quick point. On this question of physical security for American diplomats, I think anybody, probably many people on the committee, have been to Tel Aviv. You have seen our embassy. I can only imagine the heartburn that it causes in what we call OBO at the State Department, the Overseas Building Operations Bureau, the Diplomatic Security Bureau. It's very close to a main street. In contemporary terms, we would never build an embassy like that again. Obviously, building a new embassy in Jerusalem would give us ample opportunity to include the most advanced security techniques that we could. And I think our personnel would be safer in a new facility than in the embassy that they currently occupy in Tel Aviv. And we don't need to be reminded of the risks to our people overseas. None of us want to see those risks continued. So from that perspective, which involves American lives right on the front end, I think every consideration argues for moving the bulk of our personnel to Jerusalem. Mr. Meadows. Well, I agree. December 1st is a critical date because we have another waiver. It would be a great message that this President could send on the 50th anniversary of reunification that we go ahead and finally move the embassy to the eternal capital of Israel, Jerusalem. I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for 5 minutes. Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to pick up where my colleague from North Carolina left off. Dr. Koplow, and I will not describe you as anything other than a member of the party here, but since you seem to have concerns, let me run through a couple of quick questions. Do you know where the Ambassador spends most of--U.S. Ambassador to Israel spends most of his time while he is in Israel? Mr. Koplow. In the past, ambassadors have spent their time in Tel Aviv. And having met with Ambassador Friedman a few weeks ago, it was down in Tel Aviv. Mr. Issa. It's interesting, because I always see them at the King David, because as long as the Knesset is in session that's where they live, right? Mr. Koplow. In the past they have not lived in the King David every time the Knesset is in session, but I believe the State Department keeps a residence in the King David for the ambassador's use. Mr. Issa. Exactly. The State Department keeps a residence for the Ambassador at the King David, and has for decades. Ambassador Gold, would you confirm that from your experience, that if you want to meet the Ambassador in Jerusalem that's pretty much the digs he has to meet you at, isn't it? Mr. Gold. There has been an American facility in one of Jerusalem's hotels. Mr. Issa. So, I stay at the King David by choice, so we will just leave it as my favorite hotel in the city, Colony being a second. Now, having said that, the security at the King David is pretty good for a hotel. Ambassador Bolton, does it begin to meet the setbacks of safety, security for embassy personnel and the Ambassador that are the minimum standards of today's embassies? Mr. Bolton. No. It doesn't even come close. And I can tell from you my own personal experience when I was in New York, these security questions are extremely important. And we don't need Benghazi to remind us of it. These are Americans who are doing their jobs for us, are at greater risk because of the travel necessity between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem now, because of the insecure facilities, and because of the lost opportunity of building more secure facilities in Jerusalem. Mr. Issa. And Dr. Koplow, you have you been in the consulate, the full consulate that exists in East Jerusalem that services mostly Palestinians? Mr. Koplow. I have not. Mr. Issa. I have. It's a very large facility. Actually it's embassyesque in its setback and size. Have you been in the consul general's compound, which is separate, in West Jerusalem? Mr. Koplow. No. Mr. Issa. You know where the YMCA is over there? Mr. Koplow. Yes. Mr. Issa. It's a block and a half away. Now the interesting thing is the consul general does maintain a facility, and regularly mostly heads in and out of the West Bank, if you will. And I personally think it is a good location because it allows him a very safe location no matter what may be happening in the West Bank. But, in fact, they almost always on a daily basis go back and forth. What I find interesting is his facilities have significant setback considering it was once a private estate. The facility is permanent and has been expanded. The consulate that exists nearby is substantial and was built to modern standards. And yet today, as the Knesset meets in Jerusalem, the Ambassador stays in temporary rented facilities at some location in Jerusalem, and has no real proper place to conduct diplomatic business. So my question to you, Doctor, separate from the question of the term embassy for a moment, knowing that we have a facility for the consul general which is substantial, we have the actual consulate facility that does consular-type work, particularly, you know, visas and so on, is there any reason that we should not have proper safe facilities for the Ambassador when he or she is meeting--going in and out of meetings with the government, which is substantially normally located in Jerusalem, at least when the Knesset is in session? Mr. Koplow. I think that would be a question for the State Department to decide. I think in this case the security concerns aren't about the facility itself. I think the security concerns are more about wider geopolitical security and the overall security situation in Jerusalem for Israelis. Mr. Issa. Okay. So Congressman Juan Vargas, a former Jesuit priest, now a Congressman, and myself have a bill that calls on the State Department to build a permanent and substantial facility to house safely the Ambassador to Israel in or near Jerusalem for purposes of conducting the business of the American people before this Nation. Do you inherently have any problem with that portion, if you will, with that sub law? It doesn't say embassy. Do you have a problem with putting our Ambassador in a safe location and in proximity to the Government of Israel? Mr. Koplow. Without having seen the bill, I am reluctant to---- Mr. Issa. Just take my description and I will write it to match your agreement. Mr. Koplow. I would say certainly in general I support anywhere the Ambassador is that facility should be secure. Mr. Issa. Okay. So if I can summarize, with the chairman's indulgence, the one thing that this entire panel I think agrees, based on head shaking, is that the current Government of Israel, of the Israeli people, is located in Jerusalem. That that government regularly meets there. That the Ambassador-- U.S. Ambassador has an obligation to regularly be there, and is there regularly. That that Ambassador is not currently in facilities that meet the Inman or other common standards of security, nor does it have the ability to host people in the way that ambassadors normally do at the embassy. That the embassy in Tel Aviv, sitting on--by the way, the other side of is sitting on the ocean. It's beautiful but it's also not protectable. That that facility is dated, and by definition doesn't meet the standards. And so regardless of the President's decision on the question of moving the embassy, we have a facility deficit, a security deficit that needs to be corrected, and the logical place to secure the Ambassador for most of the time is in a city where he currently does not have permanent U.S. facilities. I think that's what I heard everyone shaking their head for. So as the President decides this question, he's really deciding the question of safety of diplomats and security and our country's ability to do business with the capital--I am sorry, with the Government of Israel. Is that one we can all agree on even though I---- Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Issa. I know, but I am going for that long agreement, Chairman. Can I get a yes? Mr. DeSantis. I gave you some indulgence. We got to go because I know Brian Mast has got to move on, so I want to recognize him for 5 minutes. Mr. Mast. Thank you, Chairman, for the invitation to join your committee today. This has been a much needed hearing. I am going to ask just some very self-evident questions because this is such a self-evident issue, at least in my opinion. So I will just start at the end down here. Mr. Kontorovich, you know, can you tell me, what is the capital of the United States of America? Mr. Kontorovich. The Capital is Washington, D.C., of course. Mr. Mast. Certainly. And Dr. Koplow, in what U.S. city does Egypt maintain their embassy? Mr. Koplow. Washington, D.C. Mr. Mast. That's exactly right. We maintain ours in Cairo. Mr. Klein, I am sure you know the city in which--the U.S. city in which Jordan maintains their embassy? Mr. Klein. It could have been in Jerusalem. They chose Amman. Mr. Mast. That's where we maintain our embassy. They maintain their embassy here in Washington, D.C. Certainly Ambassador Gold, I am sure you know where Saudi Arabia here in the United States maintains their embassy. Mr. Gold. They maintain their embassy in the center of American power and influence, the Capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. Mr. Mast. You better believe it. And we maintain ours in Riyadh. Ambassador Bolton, I am certain that you can say where Israel and 177 other nations maintain their embassies here in the United States of America. Mr. Bolton. Turns out to be Washington. Mr. Mast. That's exactly right. So I guess short of invasion, I really can't think of a bigger slap in the face to any nation's sovereignty, their right to self government, their legitimacy than not recognizing their capital or their center of government. I think that us not celebrating having an embassy in Jerusalem, having the presence there, our diplomatic mission in Israel, having it there, I think it's absolutely a slight to our greatest of allies every single day. So in that, you know, I am going to keep my remarks very brief and just say this. You know, we are the leader of the free world. That is an undisputed fact and rightly so. So we need to be calling on every person in this town, every person in this building to lead and establish our embassy in the center of freedom in the Middle East, and that is the true capital of Israel, Jerusalem. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, Chairman, and I yield back. Mr. DeSantis. Yield the balance of your time to me? Mr. Mast. Absolutely. Mr. DeSantis. I thank the gentleman. I just wanted to thank the witnesses for your testimony. I think we have gotten a lot of very good information. I think it was presented very crisply. And I just come away from the hearing more convinced than ever that we need to follow this 1995 law. I would love to do it before the end of the year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem's reunification during the Six-Day War. But I think from a security perspective it makes sense. I think from the religious freedom perspective, the endorsement of Israeli stewardship over those religious sites is something that is very important both here, there, and I think throughout the world. And I think geopolitically, people will see that America is standing with a close ally. And that's exactly what we need to be doing at this point in time. The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks for any member to submit a written opening statement or questions for the record. If there is no further business, without objection the National Security Subcommittee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] APPENDIX ---------- Material Submitted for the Hearing Record [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] [all]