On 4 March 2019 the US merged its consulate dealing with Palestinian affairs and embassy in Jerusalem into one diplomatic mission. Speaking to Sputnik, Israeli researcher Mark Heller and American historian Daniel Pipes shared their views on how Washington’s move may affect the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Donald Trump’s “peace plan”.
The Trump administration’s decision to merge the US Consulate, which has long served as diplomatic mission for Palestinians, and the embassy in Jerusalem, has prompted criticism from Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Saeb Erekat, who called it “the last nail in the coffin of the US administration’s role in peacemaking”.
The move came ahead of Donald Trump’s announcement of his yet veiled Middle Eastern “peace deal”. Previously, Washington moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem which caused discontent among Palestinians and much of the international community.
For his part, Daniel Pipes, an American historian, writer, commentator, and president of the Middle East Forum, suggested that the US decision to merge the consulate with the embassy in Jerusalem had sent “a message of displeasure to the Palestinian Authority (PA) which has broken relations with the Trump administration”.