Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Oh Jerusalem!” (December 7). US President Donald Trump’s decision “to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in contravention of international laws and UN resolutions came in for a chorus of condemnation across the world. Even close allies of the US spoke against the Trump Administration overturning decades of US policy on the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict just to placate the Jewish lobbyists and his ‘evangelical and conservative’ supporters in the US.
The issue of Palestine’s stake in Jerusalem is a red line that cannot be crossed. Still advised by his son-in-law of Jewish stock Jared Kushner, Trump did exactly the same and foreclosed the option of the city’s status as the capital of Palestine or at least as a ‘shared’ or ‘joint’ capital. The Palestinians believe in a “unified Jerusalem” and not in a bifurcated city. Washington described the ‘earth-shattering’ move as a ‘long overdue step’; but in one fell swoop it has undermined the two-nation solution and demolished all efforts to achieve peace.
By his unfair and provocative decision to favour the Zionist entity, which is tantamount to a declaration of war on Palestine, as Hamas leader Ismail Haniya put it, Trump has forfeited the moral authority to act as a ‘peace broker’ in the region.