Washington’s plea over
US asks Israel to show restraint amid condemnation
World leaders have joined Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East in condemning the United States’ decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Arab and Muslim leaders said it was an incendiary move, while Palestinians said Washington was abandoning its leading role as a peace mediator.
The US, meanwhile, asked Israel to temper its response to the move because Washington expects a backlash and is weighing the potential threat to US facilities and people, according to a State Department document.
“While I recognise that you will publicly welcome this news, I ask that you restrain your official response,” the document dated December 6 said in talking points for diplomats at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to convey to Israeli officials.
The European Union and United Nations both voiced alarm at US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and its repercussions for any chances of reviving IsraeliPalestinian peacemaking.
Major US allies came out against Trump’s reversal of decades of US and broad international policy on Jerusalem.
France rejected the “unilateral” decision while appealing for calm in the region.
Britain said the move would not help peace efforts and Jerusalem should ultimately be shared by Israel and a future Palestinian state. Germany said Jerusalem’s status could only be resolved on the basis of a two-state solution.
Israel, by contrast, applauded Trump’s move. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a prerecorded video message that it was “an important step towards peace” and it was “our goal from Israel’s first day”.
He added that any peace accord with the Palestinians would have to include Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and he urged other countries to follow Trump’s example.
Trump upended decades of US policy in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risks aggravating conflict in the tinderbox Middle East.
Jerusalem is home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths. Its eastern sector was captured by Israel in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognised internationally.
Palestinians claim east Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek.
Israel deems Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital dating to antiquity, and its status is one of the thorniest barriers to a lasting IsraeliPalestinian peace.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a pre-recorded speech, said Jerusalem was the “eternal capital of the State of Palestine” and that Trump’s move was “tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator”.
The last round of US-brokered talks foundered in 2014 over issues including Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and Israeli accusations of Palestinian incitement to violence and refusal to recognise it as a Jewish state.
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since soon after Israel ended a 38-year occupation in 2005, said Trump had committed a “flagrant aggression against the Palestinian people”. Hamas urged Arabs and