!'Jerusalem is Israel's capital, a fact that should have been recognized long ago by putting our embassy there' KK Eighty-four US senators have written to President Bill Clinton urging him to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, addressing one of the most sensitive issues in Middle East politics.

"Jerusalem is Israel's capital, a fact that should have been recognized long ago by putting our embassy there," said the letter, dated July 13 and signed by both Republicans and Democrats.

Congress passed a law in 1995 that called on the administration to move the embassy by May 31, 1999. But in June, Clinton used a security waiver granted to him in the legislation to delay the move.

During a visit last week to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Clinton reiterated a long-standing US policy on the sensitive issue, saying the location of the embassy and Jerusalem's status was subject to a final round of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

He said the United States had "no business trying to prejudge" the issue of Jerusalem's status.

However, that stance has increasingly come under fire.

"It is deplorable that the administration has not fulfilled the law and has not acted in good faith to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona said in a statement on July 23.

"Invoking the Act's waiver provision is inconsistent with the intent of Congress, which believes use of a national security waiver is justified only where there is a true security threat."

Kyl and Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut plan to introduce legislation to compel the administration to carry out the embassy move.

House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert last week assured Barak that Congress strongly supported his recent statement that "a united sovereign Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain so forever."

Even first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, considering a run for the Senate from New York, favors moving the embassy. In a July 2 letter to a New York-based Orthodox Jewish organization, she said she viewed Jerusalem as the "eternal and indivisible" capital of Israel and pledged to support establishing the American embassy there.

Reuters