Angry worshippers across Muslim world rally against Trump
JERUSALEM (AP) — Large crowds of worshippers across the Muslim world staged anti-US rallies on Friday, some stomping on posters of US President Donald Trump or burning American flags in the largest outpouring of anger yet at the chief executive’s recognition of bitterly contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In the holy city itself, prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, dispersed largely without incident, but Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in several dozen West Bank hotspots and on the border with the Gaza Strip.
Dozens of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were hit by live rounds or rubber-coated steel or inhaled tear gas, health officials said.
Trump’s pivot on Jerusalem triggered warnings from America’s friends and foes alike that he is needlessly stirring more conflict in an already volatile region.
The religious and political dispute over Jerusalem forms the emotional core of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The ancient city is home to major Muslim, Jewish and Christian shrines and looms large in the competing national narratives of Israelis and Palestinians.
Trump’s decision on Jerusalem is widely seen in the region as a blatant expression of pro-Israel bias, but it was unclear if protests and confrontations would maintain momentum after Friday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and other groups had called for three “days of rage” this week.
Abbas, however, remains an opponent of violence, saying it is counterproductive and that he might at some point order his security forces to contain protests.
On Friday, demonstrators in the West Bank torched heaps of tires, sending columns of thick black smoke rising over the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.
Palestinian stone-throwers traded volleys in the streets with soldiers firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Along the GazaIsrael border fence, Israeli troops fired at stone-throwers.
Thousands of worshippers across the region — from Asia’s Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan to North Africa’s Algeria and Lebanon in the Levant — poured into the streets after midday prayers to voice their anger.
Some protesters burned US and Israeli flags or stomped Trump posters that showed the president alongside a Nazi swastika.
In Jordan’s capital of Amman, thousands marched through the center of town, chanting “America is the head of the snake.”
Pro-Western Jordan is a crucial US ally in the fight against Islamic extremists, but King Abdullah II cannot afford to be seen as soft on Jerusalem.