State Department Matthew Miller struggled Wednesday to explain why the Biden-Harris administration wants to put a U.S. consulate to the Palestinians on sovereign Israeli territory, over the objections of the Israeli government.
Miller spoke to reporters at the department’s daily briefing, and indicated that the administration opposed a new Israeli law that passed Wednesday and which bans the establishment of new consulates in its capital city, Jerusalem.
The only diplomatic missions that Israel will allow in Jerusalem are embassies. (Countries that have existing consulates in Jerusalem will be grandfathered in, though Israel wants them to convert those to embassies as well.)
The Biden-Harris administration opposes the law because it has been trying to open a special consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem, on the site of the old U.S. consulate building in western Jerusalem. The consulate, which had been a hotbed of Palestinian activism in previous administrations, was closed during the Trump administration and became the annex to the new U.S. embassy, which is located in a modern building further south in the city.
Biden ran in 2020 on a promise to reopen the consulate, which he incorrectly identified as having been in “East Jerusalem,” which is predominantly Arab. Israel — even under the center-left government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid — objected to the Biden-Harris administration’s policy, which would have signaled U.S. support for dividing Jerusalem. Under international law, Israel has the authority to block such a consulate, and so Biden backed down.
On Wednesday, when Miller expressed the administration’s objection to the new Israeli law, Associated Press diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee asked Miller why the administration was trying to build a consulate on Israeli territory. “Where the consulate was, or the building still is, is in Israel. It’s not in the Palestinian territory. Would you consider opening a consulate in Ramallah for the Palestinians?” Lee asked.
“Why is it so important, other than the historical nature of this … is there a reason a consulate for the Palestinians couldn’t be someplace else?”
Miller at first said the historical reasons were important, then declined to talk about the administration’s position on a consulate in Ramallah. “We disagree with [Israel’s] decision to prevent us from opening one” in Jerusalem, he said.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.