اقرأ باللغة العربية Mass demonstrations continue to rage in most cities of the West Bank and Gaza in response to US President Trump's decision, 6 December 2017, to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Israeli occupation forces have met almost daily protests with brute force, using teargas, rubber coated bullets and live ammunition at the major flashpoints in the West Bank and near the border fence between Gaza and Israel. At least 14 Palestinians have been killed and 3,000 wounded in the clashes, and hundreds have been arrested. Trump's decision departs from the policy of his predecessors which had been in line with the unanimous view of the international community that the status of Jerusalem should be left to negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. His unilateral action sparked profound anger throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds and a general sense of alarm worldwide. The only countries to side with the US in the General Assembly were those that receive US financial aid, such as Guatemala, or countries that are barely specks on the global map. Trump's action also cast a dark cloud over the peace process that has been stalled since 2014 due to Israeli intransigence. Palestinian officials hold that Washington is no longer an “honest broker” and diplomatic agencies have set into motion a campaign to prevent other countries from moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem while pursuing efforts to promote a multi-party sponsored peace process instead of the US-sponsored version. On 31 December, in an unprecedented move, Palestinian Foreign Minster Riyad Al-Maliki recalled the head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) mission in the US, Ambassador Hossam Zomlot, “for consultations”. The foreign ministers of six Arab states plus Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Abul- Gheit will meet in Jordan 6 January to discuss the Trump decision. The Assistant to the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Hossam Zaki, told a press conference that the meeting would be attended by the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Morocco. These are the members of the ministerial delegation formed in accordance with a resolution adopted by the Arab Foreign Ministers Council during its emergency meeting 9 December. The Arab foreign ministers in that meeting called on Trump to revoke his decision, which they said “hampered efforts to realise peace”. Ahead of the UN General Assembly vote, 21 December, on the resolution opposed to the American decision, Trump threatened to halt financial aid to those countries that voted in favour of the resolution. “They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we're watching those votes… Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care,” Trump told reporters at the White House. On the day of the vote, 128 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly voted in favour of the resolution demanding the US rescind its decision regarding Jerusalem. Thirty-five countries abstained from the vote and another 21 were absent. Apart from the US and Israel, seven countries voted against the resolution: Guatemala, Honduras, Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Marshall Islands. Following the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley announced on her personal Twitter account that she would host a dinner banquet to express the US's gratitude to the representatives of 65 countries for their stances during the General Assembly emergency session. She was referring to those who either voted against the resolution or that had abstained or were not present for the vote. Other US officials have chimed in with Washington's relentless attempt to defend Trump's universally censured decision. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman described Palestinian rhetoric as “ugly, needlessly provocative and anti-Semitic”. The Palestinian reaction, he said, was “largely emotional”. The Palestinians “unfortunately overreacted”, he said, because Trump had made it clear that the US was “not taking a position on any final-status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem”. Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. In 1980, it declared the Holy City its eternal capital, but this step was not recognised by the international community, including the US. The Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of an envisioned independent Palestinian state. In a strong gesture of support for the Palestinian position, South Africa's ruling African National Congress Party voted unanimously to instruct the South African government to immediately and unconditionally downgrade its embassy in Israel to a liaison office. The decision “sends a clear message to Israel that there is a price to pay for its human rights abuses and violations of international law”, the ANC said in a statement. The Fatah Movement, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has called on Arab nations to sever relations with countries that move their embassies to Jerusalem. In a statement aired on the official Palestinian broadcasting station, Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki said the Palestinian government has contacted a number of governments that might contemplate such a move in order to counsel them against it because it would violate international law and relevant UN resolutions.
IMPACT ON THE PEACE PROCESS: Following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on 22 December, President Abbas said the Palestinians could no longer accept a plan from Washington because of its bias and its violation of international law. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas politburo, charged that the Trump decision was “part of a grand battle that aims to eliminate the Palestinian question”. Haniyeh further stated that the US administration was in the process of recognising the Jewishness of the Israel state, approving annexation of Israeli settlements to Jerusalem and denying the right of return for Palestinian refugees. He added that Hamas had received information regarding an American offer to Palestinian leaderships “granting a capital for an entity in the area of Abu Dis” — a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. “The plan is to create a bridge connecting Abu Dis and Al-Aqsa Mosque to provide for freedom of movement to perform prayers at the mosque,” he continued. “There is also talk about dividing Al-Aqsa Mosque into three sections,” and about regional movements seeking to “create a political entity in Gaza with certain prerogatives”.
PALESTINIAN RECONCILIATION FALTERS: Although Washington's decision compels Palestinian unity in order to counter its repercussions on the Palestinian cause, the reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas has run up against a sharp difference of opinions over implementation of the agreement signed in Cairo 12 October. Tensions were manifested in criticisms recently levelled by Hamas against President Abbas and the national unity government, holding them fully responsible for tragic conditions affecting life in Gaza. Fatah spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi responded, “Some Hamas officials long to return to the period of media mudslinging, heedless of what is taking place in Jerusalem.” Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and head of Fatah's delegation in the reconciliation negotiations, said that in a recent meeting with Egyptian officials tasked with monitoring progress on the agreement between Fatah and Hamas, he presented “the obstacles and pitfalls” that had emerged in connection with the Cairo agreement. Haniyeh, who met with tribal leaders and mukhtars in Gaza on 26 December, warned that undue slowness in carrying out the reconciliation agreement would have “grave consequences, not just for Gaza but also for the Palestinian cause as a whole”. Speaking at the same meeting, Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar held that his movement had “come a long way in the reconciliation process”. He added: “We now have a single government and it has duties that it should perform immediately… The obstacles to the reconciliation, such as those concerning the payment of salaries to civil servants in Gaza or lifting sanctions, electricity reductions and salary cuts, strike at the heart of the society's ability to remain steadfast and continue on the road [of resistance].” According to various Palestinian news reports, the basic source of dispute between the two sides is that the process of “empowering” the Palestinian government to undertake its responsibilities in Gaza is taking far too long. The national unity government has not been able to fully assert its administrative authority in Gaza in spite of the fact that the handover process should have been completed by 10 December in accordance with the stipulated timetable. A second source of dispute, according to the reports, is the “Gazan civil servants,” referring to some 40,000 government employees engaged by Hamas following its takeover of Gaza in 2007. They have yet to receive a portion of their withheld salaries that should have been paid to them already in accordance with the reconciliation agreement. The remainder would be paid after the administrative and legal committee completes its work regarding the process of assimilating these employees into the government workforce. That should be complete before 1 February.
