Bethlehem - Ma'an - The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has praised US Senator Sam Brownback for his plans to introduce legislation that would remove a presidential waiver keeping the US Embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv.

"By moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the United States would be righting an anomaly by bringing the location of its embassy in Israel into conformity with its practice in every other country in the world in which the US has diplomatic representation whereby the US Embassy is located in the capital city of the country in question," said ZOA National President Morton Klein, in a statement.

However, moving the embassy would not bring the US into conformity with any other country in the world that maintains relations with Israel. Israel's claims on the city, which it unilaterally occupied and annexed in 1967, has never been recognized by the international community.

The US Congress, under pressure from pro-Israel pressure groups, in 1995 overwhelmingly passed the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law (Public Law 104-45) mandating that the embassy be moved to Jerusalem, which Israel says is its capital. At present, the law permits US presidents to cite national security considerations to waive its implementation for six months at a time. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all exercised the use of this waiver every six months since 1995.

"Senator Brownback's bill would provide the means to eliminate the current situation which encourages appeasement of violent Arab forces," Klein said. "When US presidents claim that national security considerations lead them to exercise the waiver, what are they really saying? The following – that terror attacks might be mounted against the US or US interests if the law is implemented. Yet on no other subject would any president decide not to implement the law because lawless and murderous extremists might target us as a result. Congress decides what the law is, not terrorists."

The US Embassy, like most others, remains in Tel Aviv because US diplomats to not recognize Israel's claim to the city. It is considered among the final-status issues, to be resolved through negotiations rather than unilateral measures by either party.

According to Klein, the waiver "has not in any way improved the possibilities of peace. In fact, we've only gotten the worst terror war in Israel's history and the terrorist group Hamas in power in Gaza. Moving the US Embassy would not... complicate our ability to advance towards peace – it is the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel's existence as a Jewish state within any borders and with any capital and their promotion of hatred and murder of Israelis in every organ of their culture."

"The US should not be appeasing these forces by refusing to move the US Embassy," he continued. "The refusal of US presidents to move the US [E]mbassy to Jerusalem actually harms the cause of peace by sending a message to Palestinian Arab and Islamist terrorists – that their use and threat of terrorism pays and even intimidates the United States into submission to their demands."

"This only encourages more terrorism. This policy is detrimental to our international war against Islamist terrorists. It also harms Israel’s long-standing position that Jerusalem is its capital," Klein concluded. "We strongly urge American Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to make their voices heard, loud and clear, in support of Senator Brownback's bill. We dare not be intimidated by and appease terrorists."