"France shunned the inauguration ceremony of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14. So did most other European Union countries, with the remarkable exception of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. The Czechs, the Hungarians and the Romanians went so far as to block, on May 11, a newly drafted EU statement reiterating the Union's condemnation of the American embassy transfer.
The French and mainstream European stand runs against plain logic. Both France and the EU claim that the 1949-1967 ceasefire lines between Israel and Jordan in the Jerusalem area (the "green line") are an international border. If this were indeed the case, those sectors in Jerusalem held by Israel during this period of time ("West Jerusalem") would be internationally recognized Israeli territory. Accordingly, Israel would have every right to turn them into its capital, and the United States, or any other country, to locate its embassy there.
Likewise, France and the EU countries recognize Jerusalem as Israel's de facto capital, since they routinely visit the Israeli government or the Israeli parliament there. Under international law, a de facto recognition is as valid as a de jure recognition...
Paris and Brussels point to Security Council Resolution 470, passed on August 20, 1980, which condemned the enactment by Israel's parliament of a constitutionally binding law enshrining Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and called on the governments that had already established embassies in that city to withdraw them. Resolution 470 was largely based on the previous Security Council's Resolution 252 of May 21, 1968, which in turn was based on the General Assembly's Resolution 303 (IV) of December 9, 1949.
Are France and the mainstream EU correct? Are these resolutions in particular, and other United Nations resolutions in general, coextensive with international law?
Hardly...
The General Assembly's decisions carry no authority at all: they just warrant some kind of consensus between the UN's members... Security Council resolutions lapse at the very moment one of the Great Powers decides not to abide by them. Which is precisely the case regarding the United States government's decision to disregard Resolution 470..."