Relaying an unusually pessimistic outlook on Middle East peace, a senior White House official said today the Trump administration and the Palestinian leadership have not spoken in nearly seven weeks, breaking contact after President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Palestine and it is not for sale for gold or billions,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas says after Donald Trump says he took Jerusalem “off the table” and will now strip Palestinians of 100s of millions in U.S. aid for refusing to negotiate.
The Israeli military said Sunday it has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of Ibrahim Abu Thraya, a paraplegic Palestinian man who was shot in the head during a demonstration along Gaza’s border with Israel. Abu Thraya is being hailed as a hero and his death has emerged as a rallying cry among Palestinians against Trump’s dramatic declaration, which they largely saw as siding with Israel. “We were telling him not to go (to the border), but he would not listen to us. He said ‘this is Jerusalem; if I don’t go to defend it, who will?’” said Raed al-Komi, Abu Thraya’s half-brother
American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says that recognition of Jerusalem is about ‘not picking sides’. Yes, she and Trump are behaving recklessly. But they are continuing a policy of pandering to Israel that has been going on for many decades, under the mask of ‘peace talks’ and a supposed ‘honest broker’, the US.
Whilst condemnation is coming from around the world concerning Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy there, Ehud Barak thinks it’s a non-issue. This is powerful evidence of the fact that Jewish Israeli society is fully behind the Zionist project of expansion and Palestinian removal, in violation of international law.
Yossi Gurvitz writes: “As these words are written, I have no idea just what sort of proclamation Trump will issue today regarding Jerusalem. But the signs are not good. My government is about to be given a surprise gift by Trump, and it does not care that dozens are likely to die.”
This morning President Donald Trump called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to notify him he of plans to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to a spokesperson for President Abbas. Abbas responded and “warned of the dangerous repercussions of such step on the [long-stalled] peace process, security and stability in the region and the world,” his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Palestinian outlet Wafa, adding that Abbas will seek out support from other governments “to prevent this rejected and unacceptable” action.
George Smith shares the history of Naomi Shemer’s song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold) which became Israel’s unofficial second national anthem soon after if debuted on the eve of the 1967 war. Smith writes, “In the case of Jerusalem of Gold, no matter who sings it, the taint of Jewish supremacism just can’t be avoided. It’s intrinsic to Shemer’s lyrics.”
“We in Jerusalem have just experienced an unprovoked terrorist attack, a murderous attack that claimed the lives of four young Israelis and wounded others”, said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement right after the car ramming attack in East Jerusalem two days ago. But is an attack on military personnel in occupied territory a terror attack? Jonathan Ofir writes, “By such rhetoric, Netanyahu blurs the distinction between military and civilian targets, a principle which is very important in the distinctions concerning terror. When we sum up the whole of the setting, what we actually have is a Palestinian under occupation, targeting a gathering which is rather exclusively manned by soldiers, military representatives of the army that is occupying him. All this falls, prima facie, within the distinctions regarding legitimate resistance to occupation. It does not matter how ugly it looks, we cannot without critical appraisal of the context just call it ‘terror.'”
Mohammed Alhammami shares the conversation he would like to have with an Israeli soldier who does not understand why Palestinians would be upset. The answer can be explained in one word: “occupation.”