Jerusalem Embassy Act
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| Long title | An act to provide for the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and for other purposes. |
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| Acronyms (colloquial) | JEA |
| Enacted by | the 104th United States Congress |
| Effective | November 8, 1995. |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 104–45 |
| Statutes at Large | 109 Stat. 398 |
| Codification | |
| Acts amended | None |
| Titles amended | None |
| U.S.C. sections created | None |
| Legislative history | |
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The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999, and attempted to withhold 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the State Department specifically for "Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad" as allocated in fiscal year 1999 until the United States Embassy in Jerusalem had officially opened. The act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel. Israel's declared capital is Jerusalem, but this is not internationally recognized, pending final status talks in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The United States has withheld recognition of the city as Israel's capital. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate (93–5), and the House (374–37).
Since passage, the law has never been implemented, because of opposition from Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, who view it as a Congressional infringement on the executive branch's constitutional authority over foreign policy; they have consistently claimed the presidential waiver on national security interests.
Jerusalem holds unique spiritual and religious significance for the world's Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Following the World War I, the victorious Principal Allied Powers recognized these as "a sacred trust of civilization", and stipulated that the existing rights and claims connected with them should be safeguarded in perpetuity, under international guarantee. The terms of the British Balfour Declaration of 1917 were included in the Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations. The US government was not a party to these agreements; but stated official foreign policy in 1919 was to ‘acquiesce’ in the Balfour Declaration, but not officially support Zionism. On September 21, 1922, the US Congress passed a joint resolution stating its support for a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people but not at the expense of other cultures present at the time. This occurred virtually the same day the Palestine Mandate was approved by the League of Nations; although official government findings about the affected peoples' choices concerning self-determination were available in government circles, they were withheld from the public until the following December. US foreign policy remained unchanged. These competing nationalist claims led to increasing civil violence during the inter-war period; following World War II, the "Question of Palestine" was placed before the United Nations, as the League's successor agency.
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