The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday said that he would keep the US embassy in Israel in Jerusalem if elected in the November election.
“The move shouldn’t have happened in the context as it did, it should happen in the context of a larger deal to help us achieve important concessions for peace in the process.
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“But now that is done, I would not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv,” Biden said during a virtual fundraiser.
The former Vice President also said that he would reopen a US consulate in East Jerusalem to engage the Palestinian leaders in talks about a “two-state solution”, which has been a long-standing view of Washington regarding the Palestinian issue, according to the reports.
On Tuesday, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton endorsed Joe Biden’s White House bid and said that he is the type of “leader” the United States needs during the current coronavirus crisis.
Biden, 77, is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party.
The former vice president has already been endorsed by Barack Obama whom he served beside, and one-time rivals for the Democratic nomination Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among others.
The Democratic National Committee has postponed the party’s presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to August 17, the week before the Republican Party’s convention, scheduled for August 24 to 27 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The deadly coronavirus pandemic has forced a suspension of all in-person political campaigning, as most of the nation remains under stay-at-home orders — including Biden and Sanders, who appeared online from their homes.
In December 2017, US President Donald Trump announced his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Washington moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May 2018, drawing condemnation and opposition globally.
Earlier, Trump’s re-election campaign said in a statement that Biden has “had to adopt most of Bernie’s agenda” — policies that Trump has branded socialist.
The 2020 US presidential election is scheduled for Tuesday, November 3.
