Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, said on Tuesday that if elected, the U.S. embassy in Israel would remain in Jerusalem “because it’s moved,” reported CBS News.
However, he said, “I wouldn’t have moved the embassy without getting something out of it,” and that the move from Tel Aviv made the prospects of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians “much more difficult because of the actions of this administration.”
In addition to Bullock, other candidates who said that, if elected, they wouldn’t move the embassy back to Tel Aviv include South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg; spiritual guru and author Marianne Williamson; former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
“The capital of Israel is Jerusalem; it is the location of their Knesset, or Parliament building, and no one disputes that,” Williamson told JNS. “Countries such as the United States kept their embassies in Tel Aviv as a sign of the deference to the ongoing process of negotiations—or potential for negotiations—regarding parts of Jerusalem as related to any final plan for a two-state solution.”
“By moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, President Trump was making an unnecessarily aggressive statement, symbolically supporting the idea that Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a reality open to no negotiation whatsoever,” she continued. “Moving it back at this point, however, could create an unnecessary and unhelpful drama.”
Regarding the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Bullock has said he wouldn’t re-enter “word for word,” the candidate, who has been struggling in the polls, remarked: “Look, maybe you could’ve struck a better deal in Iran, but you know what, Iran was allowing inspections. And maximum pressure has made it so our allies are even walking away from us.”
Bullock added that Iran is “a threat not just to the United States, but to the security of the entire region.”
