CAMPAIGN ’88 : New Embassy Address?

Reiterating a pledge made during the primaries, Dukakis said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a shift the United States has long avoided in part due to objections in the Arab world.

“I can only state what I think has been traditional American policy on this issue and that is that we accept the determination of the host country as to what their capital is,” Dukakis said in the interview, which was published Friday.

For 40 years, it has been U.S. policy to keep the embassy in Tel Aviv. The official government view is that the status and control of Jerusalem is still up for grabs because, in the original United Nations resolutions on the creation of Israel, the city was destined to be administered internationally.

Israel controlled the western half of the city following its 1948 independence war, then occupied the eastern half and annexed the whole city after the 1967 Six-Day War. In Israel, all parties except the Communist Party support keeping control of the entire city.