Pence faces mideast boycott
ramallah — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will refuse to meet US Vice-President Mike Pence later this month following Washington’s controversial policy shift on Jerusalem, an Abbas aide said on Saturday, as protests gripped the Palestinian territories for a third straight day.
Retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas militants before dawn, as unrest simmered over US President Donald Trump’s controversial declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Four people have now been killed and dozens wounded since Trump announced the move, which drew criticism from every other member of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting on Friday.
“There will be no meeting with the vice-president of America in Palestine,” Abbas’s diplomatic adviser Majdi Al Khaldi said.
“The United States has crossed all the red lines with the Jerusalem decision,” he added.
Egypt’s Coptic Pope Tawadros II also cancelled a meeting with Pence with the church saying it “declines to receive” him in protest at Trump’s announcement which failed to take into account the “feelings of millions” of Arabs.
That decision came a day after Egypt’s top Muslim cleric, Ahmed Al Tayeb who heads Al Azhar, also scrapped plans to meet the US vicepresident over the “unjust and unfair American decision on Jerusalem”.
There were fresh clashes on Saturday as Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank hurled stones at Israeli troops, who responded with teargas, rubber bullets and live rounds.
In the Gaza Strip, mourners vented their anger at the funerals of two people killed by Israeli troops during clashes at the border fence on Friday and the two Hamas militants killed early on Saturday.
A woman was wounded by Israeli army fire during clashes at the border following one funeral attended by thousands in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis. —
This issue (Trump’s decision) is a gift to radicalism. Radicals and extremists will use this to fan the language of hate. Dr Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs
cairo — Egypt’s Coptic Church head Pope Tawadros II cancelled a meeting with US VicePresident Mike Pence in Cairo later this month in protest at Washington’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the church said on Saturday.
US President Donald Trump’s decision “did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people”, the church said in a statement, adding it decided not to receive Pence when his visits Egypt.
“The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church declines to receive American Vice-President Mike Pence,” it said, adding it would pray for “wisdom and to address all issues that impact peace for the people of the Middle East”.
Egyptian Coptic Christians make up about 10 per cent of the country’s 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region. — AFP washington — Hundreds of Muslims attended on Friday prayers in front of the White House to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Responding to the call of American Muslim organisations, worshippers laid out their prayer mats at a park in front of the president’s residence.
Wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarves or the colours of the Palestinian flag, protesters also held placards denouncing Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“Trump does not own a piece of soil of Jerusalem and Palestine. He owns the Trump Tower. He can give it away to the Israelis,” Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said.
The president is “empowering Christian religious extremism in the US”, he added.
Speaking alongside other prominent figures from the American Muslim community during the protest, Awad called upon Trump to “put the American interests first, not those of a foreign power and its lobbies in the US”. Another protester, Zaid Al Harasheh, said that Trump’s decision is “not for peace” and will “create more chaos”. Trump’s declaration sparked anger across the Muslim world.
On Friday, clashes between thousands of Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank and on the Gaza Strip left two people dead and dozens more injured. — AFP