US Embassy in Israel moves to Jerusalem

Senior White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner spent three years working on the Trump administration’s newly released Israel-Palestine peace plan. Yet the main talking point he’s using to sell the proposal reveals the fundamental problem at the heart of the plan itself: the administration’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s continued illegal settlements in Palestinian territory.

In multiple interviews right after the administration released its proposal on Tuesday, Kushner said Israel’s rapid growth — in other words, the settlements — are precisely why Palestinian leaders should make a deal now.

President Donald Trump claims his peace plan for Israel and Palestine will prove to be a triumph that will last for the next 80 years. But it’s unclear whether it will be viable for even 80 minutes.

That’s because most analysts believe the deal — the political portion of which was finally released on Tuesday — is dead on arrival.

After much delay, President Trump has finally unveiled his Middle East peace plan — a plan he claims will lead to the “deal of the century.”

The problem? It’s likely dead on arrival.

Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace, is stepping down from his post — throwing even more doubt on whether the “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians that Trump has been teasing for months will actually work.

Multiple news outlets reported Thursday that Greenblatt, whose previous job was as a real estate lawyer for the Trump Organization, planned to step down later this month after releasing a draft of the long-awaited “political” portion of the Middle East peace plan following Israel’s upcoming elections.

On Monday, the US officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a new US Embassy opened there.

It’s a controversial move that breaks with decades of official US policy — and it comes at a particularly tumultuous time for Israel and the region.

President Trump’s attitude and policies toward Israel differ in many respects from President Obama’s — the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem is exhibit A — but their administrations have one thing in common: Both ignored the explosive issue of Gaza.

Now we are seeing the consequences of this neglect.

The mood in Jerusalem was festive. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were in town to attend the new US Embassy opening, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. President Donald Trump gave a televised speech from Washington, insisting that America’s “greatest hope” for Israel is “for peace.”

Just 60 miles away, in the starkest contrast imaginable, Israeli soldiers were firing on Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border to protest the embassy move, demonstrations that were part of a protest wave ongoing since March. Most of the protesters were unarmed, though some threw rocks and Molotov cocktails; the Israeli military reported at least one attempt to detonate a bomb at the border during a demonstration.

There was a striking moment in Monday’s White House press conference when deputy press secretary Raj Shah was asked about the Israeli military’s killing of dozens of Palestinian protesters in Gaza.

Shah said that Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs Gaza, was responsible for the Palestinian deaths. That’s true in part, in the sense that Hamas organized the protest, and because at least 10 of the dead were Hamas operatives, but it’s incomplete given that Israeli soldiers appear to have also shot civilians who did not pose an immediate threat.

Israeli security forces killed more than 60 Palestinians and injured another 2,400 on Monday during protests at the Gaza Strip over the US Embassy move to Jerusalem, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It was the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 war with Israel.

The White House, though, doesn’t believe Israel deserves any blame for that.

“Israel has blessed this world by pointing us to you, the one true God, through the message of her prophets, the Scriptures, and the Messiah.”

So Robert Jeffress, the same pastor who once made “Make America Great Again” into a hymn, prayed during his blessing of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday.

The US officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Monday when a new American embassy was opened.

The move is controversial and, as my Vox colleague Alexia Underwood noted, comes at an especially tumultuous time for Israel and the region.

TEL AVIV — In the early hours of April 9, Israeli fighter jets bombed the Tiyas air force base in central Syria, killing at least seven military personnel.

Israel wasn’t targeting Syria’s chemical weapons program, as the US would do four days later in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attack on civilians in the Syrian town of Douma.

Israeli forces shot and killed eight Palestinians and wounded at least 200 in the second week of mass protests at the Gaza-Israel border. A local Palestinian journalist covering the protest was also reportedly shot in the stomach, despite having been wearing a vest clearly identifying himself as a member of the press.

Last Friday, 18 Palestinians were killed and over 700 wounded at a rally — largely organized by the Islamist extremist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip — meant to kick off weeks of demonstrations calling for the “right of return” for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their descendants who fled or were displaced from their homes after the creation of the state of Israel.

When President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last week, his announcement was bracketed by a slew of dire warnings from around the globe that it would spark mass violence and widespread instability across the Middle East.

The Arab League, an organization of 22 mostly Arabic-speaking countries, warned on Sunday that Trump’s announcement “deepens tension, ignites anger, and threatens to plunge the region into more violence and chaos.” Hamas, the Islamist extremist group and political organization that controls the Gaza Strip, said Trump’s decision on Jerusalem “opens the gates of hell.”

President Trump just officially declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, upending decades of US diplomacy and threatening to spark massive unrest across the Muslim world.

Speaking in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, Trump also announced his plan to eventually relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and begin the difficult logistical work of building a new diplomatic facility in the contested city.