[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12267-12268]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               JERUSALEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge that the 
administration immediately move forward to establish a United States 
embassy in Jerusalem. It has been 4 years since Congress passed the 
Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. That act requires that the U.S. embassy 
must be moved to Jerusalem from its current location in Tel Aviv no 
later than May 31, 1999. That deadline passed last week. It is most 
regrettable that the administration is in the

[[Page 12268]]

process of considering exercising its waiver option to again delay 
moving the embassy to Israel's capital city. Jerusalem is the capital 
of Israel. Around the globe, it is the policy of the United States to 
place its embassies in capital cities. But Israel is the glaring 
exception to this policy. There is no plausible reason for this glaring 
exception. It is vitally important that the administration act now to 
move the embassy, because the final status negotiations of the Middle 
East peace process which are in their initial stages will include talks 
about Jerusalem. It is imperative to establish now the U.S. conviction 
that realistic negotiations must be based on the principle that 
Jerusalem is the eternal, undivided capital of Israel and must remain 
united forever. If the embassy remains in Tel Aviv, it would encourage 
the Palestinians to persist in unrealistic expectations regarding 
Jerusalem and thus reduce the chances of reaching an agreement.
  I urge the administration to follow the lead of Congress and 
establish the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem where it rightfully belongs 
now.

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