Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the United States could move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem within a year, Israeli media reported.
“The embassy will be moved to Jerusalem faster than you think, within a year from now,” the media quoted Netanyahu as saying.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would probably not take place at least two years ago
Trump decided on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, prompting firm condemnations from the Arab and Islamic worlds and the international community.
Israel praised the resolution as “historic.”
Trump’s decision sparked a series of protests and confrontations on the ground in the Palestinian territories that killed 17 Palestinians.
An Israeli settler was killed without any apparent motive for his killing, apparently carried out by Palestinians.
Trump’s decision put an end to decades of US diplomacy that was reluctant to make the decision to recognize Jerusalem a reality.
Jerusalem is at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem and annexed it in 1967 and declared in 1980 that Jerusalem as a whole was an “eternal capital” in a move not recognized by the international community.
The Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem the capital of their desired state.
The international community stresses that the final status of Jerusalem must be negotiated between the two sides.
