20 dec 2017
Hamas Movement on Wednesday said that the US threats sent to the UN member states that will vote in favor of a draft resolution against the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital are political terrorism and aggression on international institutions.
Hamas's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on Twitter on all states to challenge the decision of the US president Donald Trump.
US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has sent a letter to the ambassadors of a number of UN member states saying that president Trump will be watching the vote carefully and that he asked her to report back on the countries that will vote against the US.
Haley followed that letter by tweeting that the US will be taking the names of the states that will vote against the US decision.
The UN General Assembly has called for a vote on Thursday on a draft resolution rejecting the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The 193-member UN General Assembly will hold an emergency session on Thursday at the request of Yemen and Turkey on behalf of the bloc of Arab countries at the UN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to vote on a draft resolution similar to the Security Council resolution vetoed by the US.
Hamas's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on Twitter on all states to challenge the decision of the US president Donald Trump.
US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has sent a letter to the ambassadors of a number of UN member states saying that president Trump will be watching the vote carefully and that he asked her to report back on the countries that will vote against the US.
Haley followed that letter by tweeting that the US will be taking the names of the states that will vote against the US decision.
The UN General Assembly has called for a vote on Thursday on a draft resolution rejecting the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The 193-member UN General Assembly will hold an emergency session on Thursday at the request of Yemen and Turkey on behalf of the bloc of Arab countries at the UN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to vote on a draft resolution similar to the Security Council resolution vetoed by the US.
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US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has sent a threatening letter to members of the UN General Assembly ahead of a vote on a draft resolution against the US recognition of Occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In the letter, obtained by Haaretz newspaper, Haley wrote that US president Donald Trump "will be watching [Thursday's] vote carefully" and "requested I report back on those who voted against us…" The warning came after the US was outnumbered 14 to 1 as it vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Monday against Trump's decision on Jerusalem. |
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Trump announced on December 6 that the US formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will begin the process of moving its embassy to the city, breaking with decades of US policy.
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Dozens of governmental employees along with municipality staff of al-Khalil governorate on Wednesday afternoon take part in a protest sit-in that was held at Ibin Rushd Square in al-Khalil city. The event was staged in protest at the US recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.
The PIC reporter said that governmental institutions and departments were shut down at 11 a.m. so the employees can participate in the protest.
The protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners condemning Trump’s unjust decision.
The mayor of al-Khalil, Sheikh Taysir Abu Esnaineh, along with heads of local councils in the governorate as well as directors of governmental departments and other national and Islamic figures take part in the protest.
The PIC reporter said that governmental institutions and departments were shut down at 11 a.m. so the employees can participate in the protest.
The protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners condemning Trump’s unjust decision.
The mayor of al-Khalil, Sheikh Taysir Abu Esnaineh, along with heads of local councils in the governorate as well as directors of governmental departments and other national and Islamic figures take part in the protest.
The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a majority in favor of a resolution reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
176 member states voted in favor of the resolution. Only seven countries voted against it, including the United States, Israel, and Canada, while seven countries abstained.
The sweeping vote comes one day after the United States vetoed a Security Council draft resolution on Jerusalem.
According to observers, Tuesday’s vote shows that the world rejects the U.S. unilateral position on Jerusalem, which increases its isolation.
On Monday, the United States blocked an Egyptian-drafted Security Council resolution at the United Nations that would have rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Egyptian proposal calls on the international community to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem in accordance with Security Council Resolution 478 of 1980.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and start lengthy preparations to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city has been criticized by all the Arab countries and many U.S. allies, including fellow Security Council members France and Britain.
176 member states voted in favor of the resolution. Only seven countries voted against it, including the United States, Israel, and Canada, while seven countries abstained.
The sweeping vote comes one day after the United States vetoed a Security Council draft resolution on Jerusalem.
According to observers, Tuesday’s vote shows that the world rejects the U.S. unilateral position on Jerusalem, which increases its isolation.
On Monday, the United States blocked an Egyptian-drafted Security Council resolution at the United Nations that would have rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Egyptian proposal calls on the international community to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem in accordance with Security Council Resolution 478 of 1980.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and start lengthy preparations to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city has been criticized by all the Arab countries and many U.S. allies, including fellow Security Council members France and Britain.
19 dec 2017
The bloc of Arab countries at the UN has submitted a request with the General Assembly to hold an emergency meeting to adopt a resolution that overturns the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
This came after Washington vetoed a UN Security Council resolution rejecting the US move.
For his part, the president of the General Assembly, Miroslav Lajcak, confirmed on Monday evening that he had received the request and said that the emergency session will be conducted as soon as possible.
The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, expected it to be held on Wednesday or Thursday and pointed out that the request was also filed on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Non-Aligned Movement.
Mansour added that the request stipulated that the session be held in accordance with the principle of "Uniting for Peace" in reference to the General Assembly resolution No. 377 which allows a chance to circumvent a Security Council veto.
The Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said on Monday that the Palestinians will call for an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly after the US vetoed the Security Council resolution.
Maliki added that the member states will also demand the resolution challenged by the US to be passed.
The US on Monday vetoed a draft resolution, filed by Egypt at the request of Palestinians, that rejects the US president Donald Trump's recognition of Occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his plan to move the US embassy there although the resolution won the support of 14 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council.
This came after Washington vetoed a UN Security Council resolution rejecting the US move.
For his part, the president of the General Assembly, Miroslav Lajcak, confirmed on Monday evening that he had received the request and said that the emergency session will be conducted as soon as possible.
The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, expected it to be held on Wednesday or Thursday and pointed out that the request was also filed on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Non-Aligned Movement.
Mansour added that the request stipulated that the session be held in accordance with the principle of "Uniting for Peace" in reference to the General Assembly resolution No. 377 which allows a chance to circumvent a Security Council veto.
The Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said on Monday that the Palestinians will call for an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly after the US vetoed the Security Council resolution.
Maliki added that the member states will also demand the resolution challenged by the US to be passed.
The US on Monday vetoed a draft resolution, filed by Egypt at the request of Palestinians, that rejects the US president Donald Trump's recognition of Occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his plan to move the US embassy there although the resolution won the support of 14 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council.
The US Vice President Mike Pence postponed his trip to the region until mid-January after senior religious and political leaders refused to meet him after the US recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pence’s office claimed that the postponement decision was made because he is needed to preside over the Senate on a sweeping tax overhaul.
"Pence will instead travel to the Middle East mid of January so he can be in the Senate for Tuesday’s expected tax vote", the statement elaborated.
High-level personalities and religious figures including Sheikh of al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, and Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church Tawadros II, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet with Pence who was scheduled to travel to Egypt and Israel on Tuesday.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pence’s office claimed that the postponement decision was made because he is needed to preside over the Senate on a sweeping tax overhaul.
"Pence will instead travel to the Middle East mid of January so he can be in the Senate for Tuesday’s expected tax vote", the statement elaborated.
High-level personalities and religious figures including Sheikh of al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, and Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church Tawadros II, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet with Pence who was scheduled to travel to Egypt and Israel on Tuesday.
With the deftness of a bull in a china shop, Donald Trump has ignored the advice of several close advisers, disregarded the fervent pleas of several of Israel’s closest Arab neighbors, ignored warnings of America’s traditional allies in the Middle East and Europe, and ruptured a key element of an international consensus that had long prevailed at the UN, by going ahead to proclaim formally Washington’s view that Jerusalem is and will be the capital of Israel.
Such a declaration serves also to rationalize the prior pledge to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv, the city where every other country in the world insists on maintaining its government to government relationship with Israel, to the city of Jerusalem, sacred to all three of the monotheistic religions.
The most obvious question to pose is one of motivations: Why? Strange as it may seem to those living in the Middle East, the most persuasive explanation is that Trump saw this act of recognition as an opportunity to show his most fervent supporters at home that he was being true to his campaign promises. Trump has been frustrated during the first year of his presidency by his embarrassing inability to carry out the program that helped get him elected in 2016. It is true that by taking this further step toward relocating the American embassy Trump’s popularity in Israel spiked and as he has pointed out he is actually doing what his predecessors and Congress has long proposed.
In essence, Trump seems to have taken this internationally controversial step because he cares about pleasing the Christian Zionists and the Israeli Lobby in America more than he does about ruffling the feathers of UN diplomats, possibly inflaming the Arab masses, removing the last shred of doubt among Palestinians that the U.S. could ever be trusted to play the role of ‘honest broker,’ or even partisan intermediary, in the pursuit of a two-state solution, and perhaps most of all, connecting American foreign policy in the turbulent Middle East is some durable and coherent way with strategic national interests in regional stability.
From this perspective, Trump has once again demonstrated his extraordinary talent for choosing the worst possible alternative in delicate international situations where dire consequences could follow from the wrong policy turn, and the rewards of going it alone seem minimal and transient, at best.
This vivid instance of Jerusalem unilateralism parallels the geopolitical stupidity of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015 a few months ago. There also the Trump approach to foreign policy seemed perversely designed to burnish its already secure reputation as the first rogue superpower of the nuclear age. This global spoiler role is also dangerously evident in the apocalyptic threat diplomacy adopted by Trump in the Korean Peninsula as a response to Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons program, which include provocative bluster, weapons developments, and grave risks of mutual miscalculation.
Liberal opinion in the U.S. and abroad lamented the Trump initiative on Jerusalem for the wrong reasons. Especially prominent was the assertion in various forms that Trump had damaged, if not destroyed, the ‘peace process,’ and its special role as convening party. Such a concern presupposes that a peace process sufficiently existed to be susceptible to being destroyed. While promising ‘the deal of the century,’ Trump turned over his supposed peace offensive, to pro-Zionist extremists and settler fundamentalists (David M. Friedman, Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt) whose obvious goal was not peace, but putting the finishing touches on what they regarded as an Israeli victory that only needed a face-saving exit arrangement for the Palestinian Authority to complete the job.
Working in tandem with the Netanyahu leadership, the Trump effort has been so far focused on killing ‘the two-state solution,’ at least in its claim to satisfy reasonable Palestinian expectations of self-determination in the form of a viable and truly independent sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem. In its place, one supposes that the Trump ‘dream team’ will come up with a non-viable polity in what remains under Palestinian control in the West Bank, either tied to Gaza or separated in some enduring way, affronting reality by calling the plan a fulfillment of two-state expectations, and dismissing Palestinian objections as ‘rejectionism,’ a stubborn insistence on having it all, and in the end, a take it or leave it version of Hobson’s Choice.
As matters now stand, the status quo is also very unfavorable from the point of view of the Palestinian national struggle and the implementation of the international community’s version of a reasonable compromise. This status quo of occupation and dispossession facilitates the continuing conversion of the 1967 ‘occupation’ of Palestinian territory into a permanent reality that unlawfully blends the annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem with the maintenance of control over the Palestinian people by means of apartheid structures of subjugation. If this assessment is correct, then moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem can be seen as supportive of Netanyahu’s apparent conception of the end-game of this hundred year struggle between the national aspirations of these two embattled peoples. In this regard, the bluntness of the Trump approach exposes to the world an ugly reality that should have been obvious all along to anyone looking at Israeli behavior with a critical eye, or grasping the policy fallout from the ‘America First’ mantra.
What gives this regressive turn its plausibility, posing yet another challenge to the Palestinian movement, is the blind eye that the new look in Riyadh has turned toward even the Judaization of Jerusalem, which would seem to confirm the Saudi priority of geopolitical collaboration with the United States and Israel, even at the expense of fundamental Islamic concerns and the maintenance of solidarity in the Muslim world. In this sense, it is well to take some note of the declaration of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), endorsed by all 57 of its member states (including Saudi Arabia), that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, denying Israel any right to a formal governing process in the city.
While this substantive analysis helps us grasp the geopolitical context that makes recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital a kick in the groin of Palestinian delusions about a viable peace diplomacy while at the same time leading most Israelis to dance in the streets. It also underscores the hypocrisy of the international community’s call for reviving the peace process when it should long have been evident that Israeli settlement expansion as well as Tel Aviv’s approach to Jerusalem had passed the point of no return, and thus the occasion for abandoning an unworkable diplomacy, and facing with honesty the daunting question—‘What next?.’ Israel’s recent behavior makes it clear for all except hasbarists that the Israeli government has no current willingness whatsoever to end the conflict if this means creating an independent Palestinian state delimited by 1967 borders, thereby encompassing West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. For Israel the alternatives are perpetuating the apartheid status quo or allowing for the emergence of ‘Bantustan Palestine’ as the diplomatic price that the Netanyahu leadership is willing to pay for a certification of ‘peaceful solution.’
From the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to this historic moment acknowledging Israel’s claims to Jerusalem, Zionism and since 1948, the state of Israel, have disseminated a double-coded message to the world. In its public utterances, Israel’s public posture is one of a readiness for compromise and peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians, while its practices and actual objectives, can only be understood as the step by step consistent pursuit of the visionary ideal of Greater Israel or Our Promised Land. The present Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, in the course of thanking Trump for standing so strongly with Israel, told an American TV audience that Jerusalem has been truly the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years. No where has Israel’s double-coding been more evident than in relation to Jerusalem. It uses the grandiose claims of Jewish religion tradition when it can and the somewhat more constraining diplomacy of statecraft when it offers opportunities, and does its best to avoid altogether the precepts of international humanitarian law or the UN consensus.
On the public discourse side stands Israel’s public acceptance of the partition arrangements embodied in General Assembly Resolution 181, which included the internationalization of Jerusalem under UN administration. More critically viewed from a behavioral discourse perspective, Israel’s actual conduct flagrantly consistently defied international law by formally enlarging and annexing Jerusalem as ‘the eternal capital’ of the Jewish people and manipulating the demographics and cultural heritage of the city in ways that made it seem more credible to regard the whole of Jerusalem as a Jewish city.
It is difficult for even notorious Israeli apologists, such as Elliot Abrams or former American ambassadors to Israel to defend the actual Trump decision. Such apologists prefer to adopt a default position. Yes, the timing of the White House initiative was tactically questionable, but its international condemnation greatly exaggerates its importance and inappropriateness. They view criticisms and concerns as overblown, amounting to a display of ‘heavy breathing.’ In effect these apologists agree with Trump’s core contention that the acceptance of Israel’s claim to have its capital in Jerusalem, is an overdue recognition of reality, nothing more, nothing less, and that the rest of the world will have to learn to live with this recognition. Time will tell whether this downplaying of fears of renewed violence of resistance and anti-Americanism are anything other than a feeble attempt by apologists to reaffirm Israel’s legitimacy in the face of what should turn out to be a geopolitical fiasco.
What should dismay the region and the world the most about Trump’s Jerusalem policy is its peculiar mixture of ignoring law, morality, and the international consensus while so blatantly harming America’s more constructively conceived national interests and tradition of global leadership. This mixture becomes toxic with respect to Jerusalem because by humiliating the Palestinian national movement and ignoring the symbolic status of Jerusalem for Muslims and the Arab peoples, it makes violent extremism more likely while lending support to existing postures of anti-Americanism. How incoherent and self-defeating to proclaim the defeat of ISIS and political extremism as the top American priority and then making this Jerusalem move that is virtually certain to produce populist rage and an extremist backlash. No ISIS recruiter could have wished for more!
– Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He was also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. His article was published in the Palestine Chronicle.
Such a declaration serves also to rationalize the prior pledge to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv, the city where every other country in the world insists on maintaining its government to government relationship with Israel, to the city of Jerusalem, sacred to all three of the monotheistic religions.
The most obvious question to pose is one of motivations: Why? Strange as it may seem to those living in the Middle East, the most persuasive explanation is that Trump saw this act of recognition as an opportunity to show his most fervent supporters at home that he was being true to his campaign promises. Trump has been frustrated during the first year of his presidency by his embarrassing inability to carry out the program that helped get him elected in 2016. It is true that by taking this further step toward relocating the American embassy Trump’s popularity in Israel spiked and as he has pointed out he is actually doing what his predecessors and Congress has long proposed.
In essence, Trump seems to have taken this internationally controversial step because he cares about pleasing the Christian Zionists and the Israeli Lobby in America more than he does about ruffling the feathers of UN diplomats, possibly inflaming the Arab masses, removing the last shred of doubt among Palestinians that the U.S. could ever be trusted to play the role of ‘honest broker,’ or even partisan intermediary, in the pursuit of a two-state solution, and perhaps most of all, connecting American foreign policy in the turbulent Middle East is some durable and coherent way with strategic national interests in regional stability.
From this perspective, Trump has once again demonstrated his extraordinary talent for choosing the worst possible alternative in delicate international situations where dire consequences could follow from the wrong policy turn, and the rewards of going it alone seem minimal and transient, at best.
This vivid instance of Jerusalem unilateralism parallels the geopolitical stupidity of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015 a few months ago. There also the Trump approach to foreign policy seemed perversely designed to burnish its already secure reputation as the first rogue superpower of the nuclear age. This global spoiler role is also dangerously evident in the apocalyptic threat diplomacy adopted by Trump in the Korean Peninsula as a response to Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons program, which include provocative bluster, weapons developments, and grave risks of mutual miscalculation.
Liberal opinion in the U.S. and abroad lamented the Trump initiative on Jerusalem for the wrong reasons. Especially prominent was the assertion in various forms that Trump had damaged, if not destroyed, the ‘peace process,’ and its special role as convening party. Such a concern presupposes that a peace process sufficiently existed to be susceptible to being destroyed. While promising ‘the deal of the century,’ Trump turned over his supposed peace offensive, to pro-Zionist extremists and settler fundamentalists (David M. Friedman, Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt) whose obvious goal was not peace, but putting the finishing touches on what they regarded as an Israeli victory that only needed a face-saving exit arrangement for the Palestinian Authority to complete the job.
Working in tandem with the Netanyahu leadership, the Trump effort has been so far focused on killing ‘the two-state solution,’ at least in its claim to satisfy reasonable Palestinian expectations of self-determination in the form of a viable and truly independent sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem. In its place, one supposes that the Trump ‘dream team’ will come up with a non-viable polity in what remains under Palestinian control in the West Bank, either tied to Gaza or separated in some enduring way, affronting reality by calling the plan a fulfillment of two-state expectations, and dismissing Palestinian objections as ‘rejectionism,’ a stubborn insistence on having it all, and in the end, a take it or leave it version of Hobson’s Choice.
As matters now stand, the status quo is also very unfavorable from the point of view of the Palestinian national struggle and the implementation of the international community’s version of a reasonable compromise. This status quo of occupation and dispossession facilitates the continuing conversion of the 1967 ‘occupation’ of Palestinian territory into a permanent reality that unlawfully blends the annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem with the maintenance of control over the Palestinian people by means of apartheid structures of subjugation. If this assessment is correct, then moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem can be seen as supportive of Netanyahu’s apparent conception of the end-game of this hundred year struggle between the national aspirations of these two embattled peoples. In this regard, the bluntness of the Trump approach exposes to the world an ugly reality that should have been obvious all along to anyone looking at Israeli behavior with a critical eye, or grasping the policy fallout from the ‘America First’ mantra.
What gives this regressive turn its plausibility, posing yet another challenge to the Palestinian movement, is the blind eye that the new look in Riyadh has turned toward even the Judaization of Jerusalem, which would seem to confirm the Saudi priority of geopolitical collaboration with the United States and Israel, even at the expense of fundamental Islamic concerns and the maintenance of solidarity in the Muslim world. In this sense, it is well to take some note of the declaration of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), endorsed by all 57 of its member states (including Saudi Arabia), that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, denying Israel any right to a formal governing process in the city.
While this substantive analysis helps us grasp the geopolitical context that makes recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital a kick in the groin of Palestinian delusions about a viable peace diplomacy while at the same time leading most Israelis to dance in the streets. It also underscores the hypocrisy of the international community’s call for reviving the peace process when it should long have been evident that Israeli settlement expansion as well as Tel Aviv’s approach to Jerusalem had passed the point of no return, and thus the occasion for abandoning an unworkable diplomacy, and facing with honesty the daunting question—‘What next?.’ Israel’s recent behavior makes it clear for all except hasbarists that the Israeli government has no current willingness whatsoever to end the conflict if this means creating an independent Palestinian state delimited by 1967 borders, thereby encompassing West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. For Israel the alternatives are perpetuating the apartheid status quo or allowing for the emergence of ‘Bantustan Palestine’ as the diplomatic price that the Netanyahu leadership is willing to pay for a certification of ‘peaceful solution.’
From the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to this historic moment acknowledging Israel’s claims to Jerusalem, Zionism and since 1948, the state of Israel, have disseminated a double-coded message to the world. In its public utterances, Israel’s public posture is one of a readiness for compromise and peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians, while its practices and actual objectives, can only be understood as the step by step consistent pursuit of the visionary ideal of Greater Israel or Our Promised Land. The present Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, in the course of thanking Trump for standing so strongly with Israel, told an American TV audience that Jerusalem has been truly the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years. No where has Israel’s double-coding been more evident than in relation to Jerusalem. It uses the grandiose claims of Jewish religion tradition when it can and the somewhat more constraining diplomacy of statecraft when it offers opportunities, and does its best to avoid altogether the precepts of international humanitarian law or the UN consensus.
On the public discourse side stands Israel’s public acceptance of the partition arrangements embodied in General Assembly Resolution 181, which included the internationalization of Jerusalem under UN administration. More critically viewed from a behavioral discourse perspective, Israel’s actual conduct flagrantly consistently defied international law by formally enlarging and annexing Jerusalem as ‘the eternal capital’ of the Jewish people and manipulating the demographics and cultural heritage of the city in ways that made it seem more credible to regard the whole of Jerusalem as a Jewish city.
It is difficult for even notorious Israeli apologists, such as Elliot Abrams or former American ambassadors to Israel to defend the actual Trump decision. Such apologists prefer to adopt a default position. Yes, the timing of the White House initiative was tactically questionable, but its international condemnation greatly exaggerates its importance and inappropriateness. They view criticisms and concerns as overblown, amounting to a display of ‘heavy breathing.’ In effect these apologists agree with Trump’s core contention that the acceptance of Israel’s claim to have its capital in Jerusalem, is an overdue recognition of reality, nothing more, nothing less, and that the rest of the world will have to learn to live with this recognition. Time will tell whether this downplaying of fears of renewed violence of resistance and anti-Americanism are anything other than a feeble attempt by apologists to reaffirm Israel’s legitimacy in the face of what should turn out to be a geopolitical fiasco.
What should dismay the region and the world the most about Trump’s Jerusalem policy is its peculiar mixture of ignoring law, morality, and the international consensus while so blatantly harming America’s more constructively conceived national interests and tradition of global leadership. This mixture becomes toxic with respect to Jerusalem because by humiliating the Palestinian national movement and ignoring the symbolic status of Jerusalem for Muslims and the Arab peoples, it makes violent extremism more likely while lending support to existing postures of anti-Americanism. How incoherent and self-defeating to proclaim the defeat of ISIS and political extremism as the top American priority and then making this Jerusalem move that is virtually certain to produce populist rage and an extremist backlash. No ISIS recruiter could have wished for more!
– Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He was also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. His article was published in the Palestine Chronicle.
Hamas has condemned, in the strongest terms, Washington's vetoing of a UN Security Council's resolution aimed at voiding U.S. President Donald Trump's move to recognize Jerusalem (al-Quds) as Israel's capital.
Hamas said in a Monday statement that Washington’s vetoing of the resolution proves once again that any attempt to bet on its role as a peace broker is just a waste of time.
“Hamas Movement believes that today’s UN Security Council session has been an occasion to confirm Palestinians’ commitment to Jerusalem and rehabilitate international resolutions which have long been overthrown by Israel,” it said.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Palestine. No U.S. or Israeli decision shall change such a deep-rooted fact,” said Hamas. “To millions of Arabs and Muslims, Jerusalem and its holy sites are a red line.”
The group vowed to make every possible effort in response to such oppressive and biased decisions.
Hamas held the U.S. administration responsible for the repercussions of the move both in the occupied Palestinian territories and MENA region.
“The U.S. is adding fuel to fire,” said Hamas, calling on the international community to urgently step in so as to defend Occupied Jerusalem against malevolent agendas aiming to alter the city’s demographic and religious character.
“Israel will pay the price for its crimes against our people and holy sites,” the resistance movement added.
Hamas also urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) President, Mahmoud Abbas, to take advantage of the present situation to throw out the notorious Oslo Accords, which it said have been the main reason why the Palestinians are undergoing tragic conditions.
It also called on the PA to halt peace negotiations once and for all, cease security cooperation with Israel, and restructure home affairs in favor of national unity.
On Monday, the United States blocked a Security Council resolution at the United Nations that would have rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s vote marked the Trump administration’s first Security Council veto. All 14 other members supported the resolution, underscoring the U.S. isolation on the issue.
Haley claimed she cast the veto “in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process.”
The draft of the resolution, called for by Egypt, did not name the United States or Trump. It expressed “deep regret at certain decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem,” and asserted that “Jerusalem is a final status issue to be resolved through negotiations.” It further declared as null and void “any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition” of the city, and urged countries not to establish diplomatic missions in the city.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and start lengthy preparations to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city has been criticized by all the Arab countries and many U.S. allies, including fellow Security Council members France and Britain.
Hamas said in a Monday statement that Washington’s vetoing of the resolution proves once again that any attempt to bet on its role as a peace broker is just a waste of time.
“Hamas Movement believes that today’s UN Security Council session has been an occasion to confirm Palestinians’ commitment to Jerusalem and rehabilitate international resolutions which have long been overthrown by Israel,” it said.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Palestine. No U.S. or Israeli decision shall change such a deep-rooted fact,” said Hamas. “To millions of Arabs and Muslims, Jerusalem and its holy sites are a red line.”
The group vowed to make every possible effort in response to such oppressive and biased decisions.
Hamas held the U.S. administration responsible for the repercussions of the move both in the occupied Palestinian territories and MENA region.
“The U.S. is adding fuel to fire,” said Hamas, calling on the international community to urgently step in so as to defend Occupied Jerusalem against malevolent agendas aiming to alter the city’s demographic and religious character.
“Israel will pay the price for its crimes against our people and holy sites,” the resistance movement added.
Hamas also urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) President, Mahmoud Abbas, to take advantage of the present situation to throw out the notorious Oslo Accords, which it said have been the main reason why the Palestinians are undergoing tragic conditions.
It also called on the PA to halt peace negotiations once and for all, cease security cooperation with Israel, and restructure home affairs in favor of national unity.
On Monday, the United States blocked a Security Council resolution at the United Nations that would have rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s vote marked the Trump administration’s first Security Council veto. All 14 other members supported the resolution, underscoring the U.S. isolation on the issue.
Haley claimed she cast the veto “in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process.”
The draft of the resolution, called for by Egypt, did not name the United States or Trump. It expressed “deep regret at certain decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem,” and asserted that “Jerusalem is a final status issue to be resolved through negotiations.” It further declared as null and void “any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition” of the city, and urged countries not to establish diplomatic missions in the city.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and start lengthy preparations to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city has been criticized by all the Arab countries and many U.S. allies, including fellow Security Council members France and Britain.
