31 August 2006
The government of El Salvador has decided to follow the move of Costa Rica of its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. This will leave the Israeli capital bereft of any foreign embassy. El Salvador and Costa Rica, which originally established their embassies in Jerusalem in the 1980s, were ostracized by the Arab world as a result, and the diplomatic and economic impact has now apparently outweighed the support they had garnered among supporters of Israel. Israel criticized Costa Rica's decision last week, saying it could be interpreted as a "surrender to terror," and then called El Salvador's subsequent decision "regrettable." It has repeatedly lobbied allies such as the United States to move their diplomatic representation to Jerusalem. In a recent address, the former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said that no US president would move the country's embassy to Jerusalem except as part of a final peace agreement with the Palestinians that it was unrealistic to expect such a move. The archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, welcomed the decision by his country's government as "very appropriate" and said that the Holy See had always insisted in the international status of Jerusalem, which as a Holy City had to be open to followers of all faiths and cultures.
