WASHINGTON _ For all the fanfare the Trump administration has planned _ and contrary to President Donald Trump's boasts _ the new U.S. Embassy to be opened in Jerusalem on Monday will be a decidedly modest affair, and probably a temporary one.
The staff will number about 50 or 60, compared with 800 at the compound in Tel Aviv where the embassy has been for years _ until Trump upended decades of international consensus to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Previous American policy called for the status of Jerusalem, which is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians, to be decided by a peace agreement between them.
The U.S. ambassador, David Friedman, said on Friday that he will continue to split his time between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He acknowledged that having a fully operational embassy in Jerusalem will take a long time. Government estimates have said up to seven years.
"We will start the transition as quickly as we can," Friedman told reporters in a telephone conference from Tel Aviv. "I think there'll be interim steps, probably a good number between now and the full transition."
Friedman said that nearly 800 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony amid stepped-up security, including private foreign delegations and a Washington contingent featuring Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner. Yet the "opening" will mainly consist of unveiling a plaque that says "U.S. Embassy," to be affixed to a building that has been a consular office in Jerusalem's Armona neighborhood for years.
The president will address the audience through a video link.
As he did Thursday evening in Elkhart, Ind., Trump at his political rallies has bragged that he got a Jerusalem embassy built within months for a fraction of the cost of those completed under recent presidents _ giving no clue that in fact an existing building was adapted for temporary use until a more costly embassy can be constructed years from now.
