The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Palestinians angry over Trump move
Clashes break out in West Bank, along border with Gaza.
JERUSALEM — Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in the West Bank and along the border with the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as widespread predictions of unrest were realized a day after President Donald Trump took the high-risk move of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Israeli military said it was sending additional battalions to the West Bank in response to the protests, which took place at familiar flash points and followed a well-choreographed pattern at times of friction, and injuries were reported.
The Palestinian response appeared to be teetering between a limited wave of protests and a full-blown explosion of violence, as schools were closed, stores were shuttered and the public largely observed a general strike. The mood in the streets of downtown East Jerusalem, where there was a heavy presence of Israeli police, seemed tense.
In the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, the leader of Hamas, the Islamic militant group, called for a new intifada, or uprising, and said its armed foot soldiers were on standby.
The Palestinians have waged two major uprisings since the late 1990s, leading to hundreds of deaths on both sides but ultimately doing little to advance their cause.
“Jerusalem has always been the source of victory and the beginning of revolutions and the starting point of uprisings,” Haniya said. “Trump will regret this decision.”
Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, which upended long-standing U.S. policy and broke with international consensus, continued to draw condemnation from Arab and European leaders.
The U.S. president said recognizing Jerusalem as the capital was “the right thing to do” because it acknowledged the reality in the city.
Critics have argued that unilaterally recognizing Israel’s claim to the city prejudged the outcome of negotiations for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Palestinian aspirations for an independent state with East Jerusalem, which has holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, as its capital.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, and other officials in the West Bank said the United States had disqualified itself from any mediating role. Abbas and the Palestinian officials added that they were weighing their options.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Vienna that the United States was still committed to the peace process and that a two-state solution to resolve the conflict was still viable.