Earlier on Monday Conor Powell, a Jerusalem-based reporter for the USA network, tweeted: "Everyone I've spoken to in DC that has been briefed on Jerusalem embassy move says Netanyahu told Trump not to move embassy at this time".
Fox News foreign affairs reporter Conor Powell tweeted: "Everyone I've spoken to in DC who has been briefed on Jerusalem embassy move says Netanyahu told Trump not to move embassy at this time".
The disagreement over the embassy has moved to Jerusalem, where two political hagglers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, are having yet another spat.
If so, Arutz Sheva notes, that contradicts what the prime minister's office has been saying publicly.
Netanyahu on Monday called again on Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem, on the same day that his controversial Israel envoy pick David Friedman arrives in Israel to begin his tenure. On the issues related to the peace process, the official sounded condescending, sayung, "Netanyahu is at his best when it comes to negotiating with the U.S. terms for a peace conference framework". A statement released yesterday argued that the move accelerate the peace process "by smashing the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel". The former US administration of Barack Obama was deeply opposed to Israel's expansion of the settlements and in December withheld its veto from a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the policy.
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A source said they expect that at some point Comey will respond to Trump - but it is uncertain when that would be. Spicer also said the tweets were "not a threat".
President Obama invoked the last such waiver on December 1 a year ago, so Trump will either have to follow suit on or before June 1, or set in motion steps towards moving the embassy from its current Tel Aviv beachfront location.
Officials are also considering a lesser announcement outlining a USA vision for the future of Jerusalem as Israel's capital without taking any immediate action, created to help Trump save face on his campaign pledge. But Tillerson linked Trump's deliberations directly to his aspirations for brokering Mideast peace.
The dispute arose when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the president was being "very careful to understand how such a decision would impact a peace process".
Many Israelis expected the Trump visit would bolster Israel's position on Jerusalem and the peace talks. Trump is planning on visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, the holiest Jewish prayer site. Friedman, who owns an apartment in Jerusalem, is expected to live in the US ambassador's official residence in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herziliya. "In Israel they're convinced that this statement is opposed to President Trump's policy as it was expressed recently in his behavior and in his firm resistance to the most recent Security Council resolution". Trump also caused some controversy when it appeared that he would not visit Yad Vashem during his trip, although it is now being reported he will spend 15 minutes at the Israeli Holocaust Memorial.
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