The U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday that it will fold its Office of Palestinian Affairs into the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, repeating a move from the first Trump White House.
“This decision will restore the first Trump term framework of a unified U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel’s capital that reports to the U.S. ambassador to Israel,” Tammy Bruce, the State Department spokeswoman, told reporters.
The former U.S. consulate in Jerusalem served Palestinian interests for decades before it was shuttered in 2019. The diplomatic status of U.S.-Palestinian relations was downgraded when the consulate’s operation was renamed the Palestinian Affairs Unit and merged into the U.S. embassy, which moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv the prior year.
The government of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas secured a pledge from the incoming administration of former President Joe Biden to reverse the decision, but Israel, which has jurisdiction over credentialing foreign missions, refused to grant consent and withstood reported pressure from the Biden administration over the issue.
Critics, including Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, noted that establishing a second U.S. diplomatic mission in Jerusalem would violate the Jerusalem Embassy Act and signal a potentially divided Jerusalem as a matter of U.S. foreign policy.
In an attempted compromise in 2022, Biden created the Office of Palestinian Affairs and removed it from direct oversight by the Israeli ambassador. He also hired an administrator of the Israeli-Palestinian file at the State Department who would manage the office with a chief of mission in Jerusalem.
The Trump State Department is also set to eliminate the special envoy to the Palestinians position, which was created under the Biden administration.
The Office of Palestinian Affairs drew fierce criticism in the hours after the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when it appeared on social media to draw an equivalence between the terror group and the Israeli military. “We unequivocally condemn the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred,” it wrote at the time. “We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”
The office deleted the post later that day.
Mike Huckabee, Washington’s newly installed ambassador in Jerusalem, will oversee the Office of Palestinian Affairs directly.
The envoy “will take the steps necessary to implement the merger over the coming weeks,” Bruce told reporters. “The United States remains committed to its historic relationship with Israel, bolstering Israel’s security and securing peace to create a better life for the entire region.”