EUROPE’S NO TO NETANYAHU
EU rebuffs Israeli leader’s request to recognise Jerusalem as capital Regional powers reject invitations to meet with US vice-president Protests at Trump’s inflammatory move spread across the region
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met Egyptian and Jordanian leaders yesterday as key states co-ordinated positions ahead of a visit to the region by the US vice-president to confront the backlash against Washington’s Jerusalem policy.
Mr Abbas met president Abdel Fattah El Sisi of Egypt and King Abdullah II as the region faced a wave of demonstrations after Donald Trump ordered America’s embassy in Israel to move to Jerusalem.
The emergency Cairo meeting came hours after Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a rebuff on a trip to Brussels as he demanded European states follow America’s lead. Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign affairs representative, said Mr Netanyahu needed to hear the only realistic solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine was Jerusalem could serve as the capital of both.
“He can keep his expectations for others, because from the European Union member states’ side, this move will not come,” she said.
In response, the Israeli leader declared Trump’s decision as historic and reiterated that Jerusalem “has always been our capital and it has never been the capital of any other people”.
The Czech Republic, which had been the only European nation to follow America’s lead, backed away from its pledge to shift its embassy from Tel Aviv.
Lubomir Zaoralek, its for- eign minister, repudiated an earlier announcement after Mr Trump’s declaration. “I’m afraid it can’t help us,” he said. “I‘m convinced that it is impossible to ease tension with a unilateral solution. We are talking about an Israeli state, but at the same time we have to speak about a Palestinian state.”
Mike Pence, the vice-president, travels to the region with Mr Abbas and senior religious figures having rejected invitations to meet him. Washington lashed out at the announcement overnight, telling Mr Abbas he was “walking away from an opportunity to discuss the future of the region”.
Regional displays of anger shifted to Beirut where tens of thousands marched through the suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Hizbollah supporters marched chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in protest at the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Egypt detained eight protesters in central Cairo. Authorities accused the men of “association with a terrorist organisation” after they took part in the small gathering targeting Donald Trump.
Mr Abbas flew from Cairo to Turkey last night to press his case for a unified response from leaders there.
Meanwhile an interfaith group from Bahrain was undertaking an unprecedented friendship mission to Israel to promote “tolerance and coexistence”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged European Union leaders yesterday not to put forward any new initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling on them to wait for a US plan.
It comes after US president Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last week – a move that prompted Jordanian MPs on Sunday to order a parliamentary committee to review the country’s peace treaty with Israel.
On a visit to Brussels yesterday, Mr Netanyahu met foreign ministers from the EU’s 28 member states and said the US should be allowed to advance its Middle East peace plan that Mr Trump’s adviser and son-inlaw, Jared Kushner, is leading.
“I think we should give peace a chance,” he said.
While EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and other bloc leaders have been critical of the US move, Mr Netanyahu said it made peace possible “because recognising reality is the substance of peace, the foundation of peace”.
Mr Netanyahu said he believed most EU countries would now recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
But Ms Mogherini, speaking at a press conference with Mr Netanyahu, took issue with the Israeli and US positions. “We believe that the only realistic solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is based on two states with Jerusalem as the capital of both the state of Israel and the state of Palestine along the 1967 lines,” she said.
Menachem Klein, a political scientist at Israel’s Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said that the prime minister had been emboldened by Mr Trump’s rejection of international law
It is our role to review it and to take a position against this treaty, which we believe is null and void KHALED RAMADAN Jordanian MP
during his speech that recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
“Recognising reality also means recognising the settlements,” Mr Klein said. “This is a game changer and not only in Jerusalem. The US administration doesn’t think international law is binding, only the facts on the ground. And this is Netanyahu’s position.”
In Mr Klein’s view, Mr Netanyahu wants negotiations with the Palestinians based on Mr Trump’s statement, which said the US would support a two-state solution only if it was agreed to by the two parties. The current Israeli government opposes such a solution.
“Netanyahu wants negotiations based on this statement. He wants the other side to surrender, to accept his terms and he expects this to happen with US backing.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was headed to Cairo yesterday for talks with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi, a day after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman. Mr Abbas wants to know if the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders can influence the Trump administration.
Speaking to The National, Jordanian MPs said they believed Israel had breached the Wadi Araba peace treaty signed in 1994, and that the reviewing of Jordan’s agreements with Israel should be seen as the country taking action against the US move.
By tasking the judicial affairs committee with reviewing such agreements, “our goal is to discuss the legality of the peace treaty since the one who signed it [the Israelis] and the Americans in their capacity as a witness have violated it”, said MP Nabil Ghishan.
“So why should we remain committed to it? This is a serious step on our part in our attempts to take action.”
Khaled Ramadan, another member of parliament, said: “Since the peace treaty was signed 23 years we believe that the Zionist entity [Israel] has violated it as well as the Oslo Accords and Camp David [Accords]. Subsequently, it is our role to review it and to take a position against this treaty, which we believe is null and void.”
He said MPs were also demanding the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman and the withdrawal of the Jordanian ambassador to Tel Aviv and for Amman to cancel a US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) gas deal it signed last year with Israel.
Meanwhile, Mr Abbas, the Palestinian president, is the biggest loser from Mr Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. For the past decade, Mr Abbas has staked everything on a US-mediated negotiations process that would lead to an independent Palestinian state. But now he faces the grim reality that the US peace plan, when proferred, will probably be in line with Mr Netanyahu’s vision.
Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops over the US move continued in the West Bank and Gaza yesterday. Twenty-five Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets or tear gas at the West Bank city of Al Bireh. Four people were wounded by gunfire along Israel’s border with Gaza.