After Inauguration, Terror Groups Again Threaten on Embassy Move

Moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim will “set off a fire in the region” and “legitimize the annexation, Judaization and unilateral steps taken by the occupying power,” said the National and Islamic Forces organization, an umbrella group that encompasses all Palestinian terror groups, including Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The embassy move, being contemplated by President Trump’s administration, will “be the death knell for any just arrangement and remove Jerusalem from the negotiations, and force a single-state solution.”

In further threatening language, the group said that moving the embassy would “set off a regional conflagration in addition to the ones already burning. It will complicate the search for solutions for these problems, including the Palestinian problem.”

In recent days, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has increased his rhetoric against the move, warning that it would destroy the peace process and that there would be “consequences” if the embassy was moved. Speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro, Abbas said that such a decision would elicit a very negative response from the PA. “I wrote to President-elect Trump and asked him not to [move the embassy],” Abbas told the newspaper. “Not only will this action destroy America’s legitimacy to fill any sort of position in a solution to this conflict, it will also destroy the two-state solution.”

However, President Trump still plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, he told the editor of Yisrael Hayom Boaz Bismuth a day before his inauguration. On hand for the inauguration, Bismuth said that he managed to get a few minutes with Trump, and asked him if he remembered his promise to move the embassy. “I remember what I said about Yerushalayim,” President Trump responded. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. And you know I am not a person who forgets his promises.” President Trump added that he was looking forward to a forging a new American relationship with Israel. “I can’t wait to begin working with Israel. The official connection between us will begin on the weekend.”