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Haley: Tillerson tried to stop US Embassy move to Jerusalem

The secretary of state “declared” in a meeting, according to Haley, “that he wanted to be on record opposing the move.”

By World Israel News Staff 

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says that the previous secretary of state in the Trump administration, Rex Tillerson, opposed the president’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and tried to stop it from happening.

In her new book, With All Due Respect, Haley – who stepped down as U.N. envoy at the end of 2018 – says Tillerson was her biggest adversary in the administration.

Trump announced American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017. The dedication of the new embassy took place in May 2018.

Tillerson left as secretary of state at the end of March 2018. He was replaced by Mike Pompeo.

Haley writes of her own support for the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, arguing that it was “simply common sense” because  “in virtually every country in the world, the U.S. embassy is located in the host country’s capital city.”

She charges that Tillerson, among others in the administration “seemed to be thinking primarily about how the decision would affect their reputation.”

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The secretary of state “declared” in a meeting, according to Haley, “that he wanted to be on record opposing the move.”

Others in the cabinet argued that moving the embassy “would set off violence that would damage the peace process,” she writes in her book.

Haley also asserts that some top administration officials, including Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, wanted her help in acting against the president in order to “save the country,” but that she declined.

They said that the president “didn’t know what he was doing,” writes the former ambassador, and believed that it was “their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America,” adds Haley, who was interviewed by CBS ahead of Tuesday’s release of the book.

“Instead of saying that to me, they should’ve been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan,” said Haley in the interview which aired on Sunday.

“It should’ve been, ‘Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing.’ But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing,” according to the former U.N. ambassador.