United States and Madison You're listening to Bloomberg opinion on Bloomberg radio I'm June grosso The Biden administration is considering reopening the U.S. consulate in east Jerusalem which would serve Palestinians in the West Bank In his latest peace for Bloomberg opinion author and columnist zev chavis says the move could lead to a clash in Washington He joins me now So explain what the U.S. consulate in east Jerusalem stands for The Jerusalem consulate was originally founded in 1844 to when there was no Easter west Jerusalem It was just the old city And its job was to look out for American interests with the most church interest in Jerusalem In 1949 the jordanians captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in the next Jordan and the U.S. and embassy in Jordan in Amman And he put a consulate in 1967 after Israel conquered general S one and subsequently annexed it The conflict in east Jerusalem dealt with Palestinian affairs primarily And there was a conflict in Westeros and a U.S. embassy in utility Under president Trump America moved the embassies and the counselor to Jerusalem and it closed the consulate in east Jerusalem That is to say Arab Jerusalem And that's the genesis of that council So President Biden has a different take than president Trump on this He wants to reopen the consulate in east Jerusalem What's been the reaction to that Well the reaction in Israel official reaction is completely negative The government wants to make it clear that Jerusalem is one dividable city and that it's the capital of Israel The American government thinks that I believe it thinks that Jerusalem could be part of the Palestinian state Ever is such a state And that's the disagreement The problem that I pointed to in my column is a political problem largely which is that it represents understand that the Biden administration wants to undo as much of the Trump policies here as it can But on the other hand there's a wall to wall virtually a long wall support for keeping Jerusalem in letting any thing that might intervene interfere with that happen which includes the consulate in east Jerusalem And therefore what I wrote in the column and what I believe is that whether it's a good idea or a bad idea on some higher level on the political idea it's impossible It knows really government could possibly give back permission to account for the Palestinian oriented consulate in east Jerusalem And so it won't happen The U.S. needs the consent of Israel According to the State Department it does And certainly according to the Israelis it's just a certified Sign to look at the confident instruments The Senate as far as the Senate is concerned are both Republican senators and democratic senators of the same mind well they've been there was a letter of from I think 200 or slightly more Republican Congress members Asserting that is those positions correct is correct I don't know about the Senate And I assume that there will be a similar number of Republicans in the Senate and support Israel's position As far as Democrats are concerned it's interesting I don't know the answer to that There are certainly many Democrats in both the House and the Senate who I believe will have a very hard time trying to force Israel to accept a consulate that it doesn't want In its capital city But I don't have a vote count yet because it has an aura signature count because as far as I know that one hasn't taken place in the democratic House and Senate or for that matter in the Republican sense And so the prime minister of Israel is sort of counting on the fact that Joe Biden doesn't want to add this challenge to the many international challenges he already has Yeah I think that's fair to say We're putting in a different way The United States foreign policy now confronting a lot of issues starting with China and the Russian build up now on the Ukraine border The Iranian nuclear negotiations which seem to be stalled And on and on It's a very big agenda of things which are truly American major American infants And I think that for the United States while they would like to have that counselor and while they would like to do some peacemaking if possible the Israel Palestine question it's quite far down on their agenda For Israel it's a very topical at the very top of its agenda And that's why I think there's a power disparity Survive needs some nice thing to do And for Bennett it's absolutely essential for the premise to do it Absolutely essential for his political survival of the survival of the government or in fact any future government in Israel So then there's no contest There's not going to be an east Jerusalem consulate I don't think so I mean the United States can certainly pressure Israel into doing anything.