Eli Lake, Columnist

Israel Needs Its Arab Friends More Than U.S. Embassy Move

The big risk of relocating in Jerusalem isn't that it will anger the Palestinians, but that it will anger the Saudis.

December 21, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Not sure they could hate Israel or the U.S. more.
Photographer: Mahmoud Zayat/AFP/Getty Images

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For the last eight years the American president has approached the Jewish state the way a do-gooder deals with an alcoholic friend. You know the pose: Because we care so much about your long-term survival, we want to help you end your addiction to apartment construction in East Jerusalem.

To put it mildly, Donald Trump has a different perspective. It's not just that he has nominated his bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, an enthusiast of greater Israel, to be his ambassador there. Nor is it the elimination of language about a "two state solution" in the Republican Party's platform for 2016. It's that the incoming president's administration is promising to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem after the election.