Before taking off for Israel to inaugurate the new US Embassy building in Jerusalem scheduled for May 14, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of US President Donald Trump, would do well to study the Talmudic adage that roughly translated means, “The pot calling the kettle black.” The saying will help her explain to her father that no one who violates international law can expect others — Iran, for instance — to adhere to it. A leader who expects his rival, such as North Korean President Kim Jong Un, to abide by United Nations resolutions should serve as a shining example of adherence to those resolutions.

In case the president does not understand what his daughter is getting at, her husband, Jared Kushner — Trump's special envoy to the Middle East — could probably whip out UN Resolution 478 of August 1980. The Security Council’s resolution determines that Israel’s Basic Law, stating “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel,” enacted by the Knesset three weeks earlier contravenes international law. The council expressed “deep concern” about what it described as the change in the character and status of the city, “with its implications for peace and security.”

The resolution, adopted by a 14-0 vote and a US abstention, declared that all measures adopted by Israel altering the “holy city” of Jerusalem are null and void. It even called on countries that maintain diplomatic missions in the city to withdraw them.

Until Israel took over the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it, almost 40% of the 54 foreign diplomatic missions in Israel, most of them from Latin America and Africa, were located in the city. Within less than a month after this UN resolution, 13 countries shut down their missions and moved out. Turkey closed its consulate general in the city. The United States did not implement its veto power to quash Resolution 478, arguing that the issue of Jerusalem must be resolved in peace negotiations rather than a unilateral declaration by one side.