TEL AVIV – President Donald Trump is still “seriously considering” moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday.
Speaking at an event in Washington marking Israel’s Independence Day, Pence said “the president of the United States, as we speak, is giving serious consideration to moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem” according to White House transcripts.
He noted Trump’s unwavering support of the Jewish state, citing as evidence of this the appointment of David Friedman – who was in attendance at the event – as U.S. ambassador to Israel as well as Nikki Haley’s appointment as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump first made the embassy transfer pledge during his election campaign, heralding a break from decades of U.S. policy.
Trump is slated to visit Israel at the end of May, coinciding with Jerusalem Day, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem in the 1967 defensive war.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported last month, the visit also comes ahead of the June 1 expiration of a congressional mandate to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which has been extended each year since 1995.
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on whether Trump would renew the waiver come June.
Trump refused to comment directly on whether he would use the visit to announce an embassy move, telling Reuters in a recent interview: “Ask me in a month on that.”
In his remarks on Tuesday, Pence called the founding of the Jewish state in 1948 “nothing short of a miracle.”
“The people of Israel have turned hope into a future of security and prosperity,” he said.
Pence added that “under President Donald Trump, let me assure you this, if the world knows nothing else, the world will know this — America stands with Israel. Her cause is our cause. Her values are our values. Her fight is our fight.”
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