Palestinians have expended a great deal of political capital to isolate the US after the embassy move was announced. They are threatening and cajoling other nations because as long as the US is considered an anomaly and Trump a crazy person, they can make that move look like a temporary move that will be reversed when the next president comes along.
But when other countries follow suit, it is much harder to paint it that way. And PLO officials are seething at not only the planned embassy moves but also the trial balloons being floated in other countries, with open support from prominent politicians supporting the move. Every new news story about someone supporting it makes the Palestinian threats look emptier and emptier.
The outgoing president of Paraguay said he supported relocating his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by mid-August, even though that seems unlikely.
And the rumblings are getting louder:
Earlier this month, the parliament of Honduras passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the country’s embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.As each nation considers it, the topic is no longer taboo. And that is what scares the PLO more than anything else.
Other countries have also stated they will relocate their embassies. The president of the Czech Republic on Wednesday announced the beginning of a process that will move the country’s diplomatic missions from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, though it remains unclear if and when Prague will actually open an embassy in the holy city. In private conversations, European and Israeli officials acknowledge that Milos Zeman’s announcement by no means prefaces the speedy relocation of the Czech embassy.
On Thursday, Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancilas and the head of the country’s Chamber of Deputies, Liviu Dragnea — both ardent proponents of the embassy move — were in Jerusalem for meetings with top government officials.