Romania Announces Israel Embassy Will Move to Jerusalem

Speaking at the annual AIPAC conference, the Prime Minister of Romania Viorica Dancila said she was “pleased” to announce that “the government that I run will move our embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel.”

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In addition, Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez also told the audience that “Honduras will immediately open our official diplomatic mission and this will extend our embassy to the capital of Israel, Jerusalem” which had been announced as an intent in December 2018, but was still being negotiated. 

The status of the city, holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is one of the central disagreement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Under the 1947 United Partition Plan for Palestine, historical Palestine was divided in two states: Jewish and Arab with Jerusalem given a special status, defined as "Corpus Separatum," an independent international entity, governed under a special international system. 

During the 1967 war, Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, which was under Jordanian control at the time, and proceeded to effectively annex it by extending Israeli law, bringing it directly under its jurisdiction, in violation of international principles. 

In 1980, the Israeli Knesset proclaimed a change in the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, stating that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel," and in this way formalized its annexation of East Jerusalem.

In response, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 478 in 1980, declaring the "basic law" on Jerusalem "null and void" and highlighting that an occupying power does not have sovereignty in the territory it occupies.

Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in Dec. 2017. He announced at the same time his unilateral decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a flagrant violation of international law. Other countries, like Brazil, have followed suit, though have not yet announced firm plans, and Austrialia announced that it would recognize West Jerusalem as the capitall of Israel. 

The recent Romanian and Hondurian declarations go against international law and make the negotiation of a peace process more difficult.