US and “Israel” sign illegal agreement for permanent US embassy compound on stolen Palestinian land in Jerusalem

“Israel” and the US have signed a 99-year lease agreement to establish a permanent US embassy compound in Jerusalem. The move is deeply contentious. It not only reinforces Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Zionist state; it also involves land that was stolen from Palestinian families.

Stolen Palestinian land

On 1 July, Israeli occupation foreign minister Gideon Saar, US ambassador to “Israel” Mike Huckabee, and Jerusalem mayor Moshe Lion signed the agreement. But according to Adalah – the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – the land on which the embassy will now be built was owned by Palestinian families.

The land was leased temporarily to British Mandate authorities before the Nakba of 1948. The Israeli occupation then seized the land, by using the arbitrary and discriminatory 1950 Absentees’ Property Law.

In 2023, Adalah filed a legal objection on behalf of 12 of the descendants of the original Palestinian owners of the land. These were residents of East Jerusalem, Jordan, and four US citizens. The objection was rejected several months later by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee. It declared that the “state of Israel” owned this land.

In 2017, during Trump’s first term, the US formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In 2018, it then moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

US ambassador to “Israel”: an “unapologetic Zionist”

Huckabee is an Evangelical Christia, and an “unapologetic Zionist.” He believes in a “Greater Israel” and says:

God chose Jews 3800 years ago as his people, and gave them Israel.

On 1 July, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, Huckabee spoke at a ceremony allocating land for a permanent embassy complex in Jerusalem.

He said:

“The US not only recognises Jerusalem as the eternal indigenous and forever capital of the Jewish people. The US also says we’re going to do something about it, not just by recognising it openly and verbally. We are going to plant our flag, our American flag, on the soil of Jerusalem for a permanent and a brand new embassy compound.”

Huckabee claims this move represents an irreversible decision, as the embassy will be a “very expensive massive building.”

He added:

So, once and for all we will set our flag in a massive amount of concrete, so nobody will ever try and move that flag from Jerusalem and take it away from the proper capital.

US and “Israel” have “fought shoulder to shoulder”

Huckabee also talked about the US’ involvement with the Israeli occupation’s war crimes and crimes against humanity:

For the past year and a half, our military – the US and Israeli – have fought shoulder to shoulder, wing-tip to wing-tip, against the evil menace of international terrorism that, for 47 years, has been a threat, both to the state of Israel and to the people of America.

During the Six-Day-War in 1967, “Israel” illegally captured and occupied East Jerusalem. It applied “Israeli” law there and declared Jerusalem as its undivided capital. But most of the international community, including the United Nations, does not recognise Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. Instead, East Jerusalem is widely regarded internationally as occupied territory.

East Jerusalem: the capital of a future Palestinian state

Palestine claims East Jerusalem as the capital of its future state. This status is supported by the UN and most of the international community,

By moving its embassy, and recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the US endorses Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and its serious violations of international humanitarian law.

In response to the signing of the agreement, Adalah commented:

The agreement to construct the permanent US embassy compound in Jerusalem deliberately enshrines a profound, historical injustice. By proceeding despite documented, unlawful property claims, the United States validates the illegal seizure of land belonging to its own citizens.

By building on this land, the US also endorses the Israeli occupation’s dispossession and displacement of the original Palestinian owners and their descendants.

Featured image via Le Monde