The World Rebukes US Over Jerusalem Slur.

US President Mr.Trump hold up a proclamation to declare Jerusalem as Israel's capital.     UNITED NATIONS — T rump’s delirium decision h...

US President Mr.Trump hold up a proclamation to declare Jerusalem as Israel's capital.   

UNITED NATIONS — Trump’s delirium decision has drawn an universal condemnation, and the United States found itself being isolated at the Security Council session in New York. Friends and adversaries alike at the United Nations on Friday rebuked President Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and his plans to move the American Embassy to the highly contested holy city. The rebukes, made at an emergency Security Council meeting called over Mr. Trump’s announcement, constituted an extraordinarily public denunciation of American policy on the world’s most prominent diplomatic stage, leaving the United States alone on the issue among the council’s 15 members. 

In Palestine war has already broke out, some rockets fired into Israeli position and Israeli air strikes killed several Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Friday in violence linked to US President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and US President Donald Trump hold each others at Israel Museum in Jerusalem, 23 May, 2017. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

The ambassadors of Sweden, Egypt, Britain, France and Bolivia, among others, reiterated their view that President Trump’s announcement had subverted the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a longtime bedrock of the United Nations position on resolving it. Some, like Bolivia’s ambassador, Sacha Sergio Llorenty Solíz, demanded that the body take action, “otherwise the Security Council will become an occupied territory,” he said. It is unclear what the council members could do, however, except to voice their anger and frustration. 

The United States is one of the five permanent members and could veto any resolution seeking to condemn President Trump’s decision. After the meeting adjourned, however, the ambassadors of Britain, France, Sweden, Germany and Italy issued a joint statement outside the council’s chambers condemning their American ally’s change of position, saying it was “not in line with Security Council resolutions and was unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region.”

Ambassador Olof Skoog of Sweden said during the meeting that “the statement by the United States president goes against the plea of many friends of the United States and Israel.” Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta, the ambassador from Egypt which is one of the few Muslim-majority nations to have recognized Israel — recited a litany of Security Council resolutions aimed in part at preventing Israel from declaring sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. The Security Council considers East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, as occupied territory, and that its status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.

Pakistani protesters burn tires at a rally in Multan, Pakistan, Thursday 7 Dec 2017.   

“This is a dangerous precedent,” the Egyptian ambassador said. “These are the resolutions of the Security Council.” He said the resolutions constitute “the law that governs the status of Jerusalem. All countries have pledged, according the U.N. charter, to implement and abide by it.” Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador, defended President Trump’s decision, asserting that Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since its founding in 1948, “despite many attempts by others to deny that reality.” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador, who, along with the Palestinian ambassador, had been invited to address the council, was the Ms. Haley’s only supporter during the meeting. 

He called Mr. Trump’s announcement “a courageous decision.” The Palestinian ambassador, Riyad H. Mansour, urged the Security Council to reaffirm its position on Jerusalem in a new resolution and said that the United States decision “disqualifies its role as a just broker for peace.” Mr. Trump said in his announcement on Wednesday that the decision was “nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,” and was not intended to pre-empt a negotiated solution to the conflict or to take a position on the city’s boundaries. Critics have said that recognizing Israel’s claim to Jerusalem without acknowledging a Palestinian claim broke with international consensus and prejudged the outcome of any negotiations.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas hailed the international concern, according to a statement carried by official Palestinian news agency WAFA. Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, had called for a “day of rage” and its leader Ismail Haniya for the start of a new intifada, or uprising. “We call on our people in all factions and resistances to continue in this blessed intifada until we achieve all our just demands,” it said in a statement late Friday. The Israeli army said around 4,500 Palestinians “participated in violent riots” along the Gaza-Israel border. It said that troops shot at “dozens” of what it said were ringleaders of the disturbances along the frontier, but did not specify how many were wounded.

Palestinian women in Gaza protest against US plan to move its embassy to Jerusalem.   

The declaration risks to setting off another round of bloodshed in the turbulent Middle East. Muslim and Middle Eastern leaders, including key US allies, have expressed alarm over Trump’s decision to break with decades of precedent with unpredictable consequences. – ‘Not welcome’ – Palestinian leaders have been so outraged that they have argued it disqualifies the United States from its traditional role as peace broker in the Middle East conflict.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official who has been involved in past peace talks, questioned what was left to negotiate. “If these are the signs of the ultimate deal, God knows what the deal is going to be,” he said. The declaration is sure to weigh heavily on an upcoming visit by US Vice President Mike Pence. He was due to meet the Palestinian president later this month but a senior member of Abbas’s Fatah faction said this would not now happen. “The American vice president is not welcome in Palestine. 

And President Abbas will not welcome him,” Jibril Rajoub said, although the Palestinian leader himself has not made similar comments. A White House aide said Pence “still plans to meet with Abbas as scheduled”, and “believes it would be counterproductive for him to pull out of the meeting”.

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