Kushner Avoids Upstaging Trump on Jerusalem Embassy Decision

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's chief negotiator for brokering a Middle East peace agreement said he doesn't want to upstage his father-in-law by prematurely announcing a decision on moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

“He's still looking at a lot of different facts and when he makes his decision he'll be the one who'll want to tell you, not me,” Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump, told Israeli billionaire Haim Saban at a conference in Washington on Sunday. “So, we'll make sure he does that.”

Trump may declare that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital during a speech on Wednesday, according to a report by Axios on Dec. 1, citing two unidentified sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Saban suggested lightheartedly -- at the Brookings Institution forum that bears his name -- that he call Kushner on Thursday to confirm the news.

Kushner's comments were his first public remarks on his work to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Those efforts have included talks with Saudi Arabia that have cut out Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and key State Department personnel, according to people familiar with Tillerson's concerns.

QuickTake Q&A: Why U.S. Embassy Move to Jerusalem Is So Fraught

Earlier on Sunday, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said he didn't know whether Trump would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, while adding in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that doing so could be used to create “momentum” to broker a peace agreement in the Middle East “and a solution that works both for Israelis and for Palestinians.”

McMaster said that he and his team have presented Trump with various options, and that he's not sure what the final decision will be. The president signed a waiver in June to keep the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

Previous U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, pledged to move the Israel embassy in their campaigns, only to abandon the promise in the face of political reality.

Despite McMaster's comment about creating “momentum,” Middle East experts have said that moving the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem would make it harder for Israelis and Palestinians to reach a final peace agreement.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and formally annexed those portions of the city to form one municipality under Israeli law. Palestinians want part of the city for their future state.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Flatley in Washington at dflatley1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Bruce Rule

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