Following World War I, the victorious Principal Allied Powers recognized these as "a sacred trust of civilization", and stipulated that the existing rights and claims connected with them should be safeguarded in perpetuity, under international guarantee.

[17][18] On September 21, 1922, the US Congress passed a joint resolution stating its support for a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people but not at the expense of other cultures present at the time.

These competing nationalist claims led to increasing civil violence during the inter-war period; following World War II, the "Question of Palestine" was placed before the United Nations, as the League's successor agency.

The relevant Armistice Agreement with Jordan was signed on April 3, 1949,[22] but it was considered internationally as having no legal effect on the continued validity of the provisions of the partition resolution for the internationalization of Jerusalem.

[29] Advocacy for the Jerusalem Embassy Act reached a zenith during particularly critical times in negotiations for the Oslo Accords of the peace process, despite opposition from both the Israeli and American administrations.

However, on December 6, 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the US recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and instructed the State Department to begin preparations to move the embassy.

The act notes that "the city of Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's President, Parliament, and Supreme Court, and the site of numerous government ministries and social and cultural institutions."

Section 3 of the Act outlined the U.S. policy and set the initial parameters for the secretary of state to report in order to receive the full funding — again, with a May 1999 target deadline for the appropriations.

The major roadblock has been the question of what effect, if any, the relocation may symbolize for other interested parties or neighboring nations involved in the ongoing and sometimes quite contentious Mid-East diplomacy and foreign relations.

[34] The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the provisions of the Embassy Relocation Act "invade exclusive presidential authorities in the field of foreign affairs and are unconstitutional.

Even from the Embassy Act's legislative beginnings, the question of Congress' over-reach, and whether it somehow usurped the Executive's authority or power over matters of foreign affairs, had played a subtle role in shaping the debate at the time.

Clinton's non-action reinforced this sticking point between the branches of the Federal government, without the potential public fallout from taking a "negative stand" on what appeared to be favorable, veto-proof legislation on the surface at the time.

[37][38][39] This constitutional question was apparent while the legislation was working its way through both chambers; Sen. Dole's amendment adopted into the introduced language included a provision that, in part, returned to the Executive Branch the power over foreign affairs that it already had.

Every six months from 1998 to 2018, every president invoked the waiver provision under section 7 of the Act, based on national security grounds, to defer the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv.

[40] Since this provision went into effect in late 1998, all the presidents serving in office during this period have determined moving forward with the relocation would be detrimental to U.S. national security concerns and opted to issue waivers suspending any action on this front.

In response, members of Congress have begun to include language to do away with the president's exclusivity in making the determinations or flat-out remove the waiver provision completely from the Embassy Act altogether.

On February 23, 2018, Trump announced that the US Embassy in Israel would reopen at the Arnona consular services site of the current US Consulate-General in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

[51] However, the announcement was condemned by Palestinian officials, including Hanan Ashrawi and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, as the embassy's reopening will also coincide with the 70th anniversary of the "Nakba".

[54] In early March 2019, the consulate-general was formally merged into the US Embassy in Jerusalem; ending the US practice of accrediting separate diplomatic missions to the Israelis and Palestinians.