Abbas casts out US as peace-maker
Jpost and The Guardian
President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkey, December 13, 2017. Photo by Kayhan Ozer / Reuters/Pool
Abbas to Muslim summit: US Jerusalem decision ‘greatest crime’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed an emergency summit in Istanbul in response to Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
By Reuters, posted by JPost
Decembe 13, 2017
ISTANBUL – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was the “greatest crime” and a flagrant violation of international law.
“Jerusalem is and always will be the capital of Palestine,” he told an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Turkey. He said the United States was giving away Jerusalem as if it were an American city.
“It crosses all the red lines,” he said.
Abbas said it was unacceptable for the United States to have a role in the Middle East peace process because it was biased in favor of Israel.
Muslim nations must press the world to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, Turkey said on Wednesday as it opened the emergency summit.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on world powers to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine on Wednesday and said the United States should reverse a decision recognizing the city as Israel’s capital.
Addressing a summit of Muslim leaders in Istanbul, Erdogan described Washington’s decision last week as a reward for Israeli “terror acts” and said the city was a red line for Muslims.
The meeting of leaders and ministers from more than 50 Muslim countries takes place a week after US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem, which triggered widespread protests in the Middle East and Islamic world.
“Firstly the Palestinian state must be recognized by all other countries. We must all strive together for this,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
“We must encourage other countries to recognize the Palestinian state on the basis of its 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam’s third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.
Turkey has said Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would plunge the world “into a fire with no end,” and called an emergency summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to urge Washington to change course.
Cavusoglu said this week Turkey would not call for sanctions in response to the US move, but would appeal for all countries that have not formally recognized Palestine as a state to do so, and to issue a strong rejection of the US decision.
He said the summit would declare East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and call for Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in a 1967 Middle East war. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in that war and later annexed it in an action not recognized internationally.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will address the summit, which will also be attended by leaders including Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Bashir over his alleged role in war crimes including genocide in Sudan’s Darfur province, but Turkey is not a member of the court and not obliged to implement the warrants.
The Trump administration says it remains committed to reaching peace between Israel and the Palestinians and its decision does not affect Jerusalem’s future borders or status.
It says any credible future peace deal will place the Israeli capital in Jerusalem, and ditching old policies is needed to revive a peace process frozen since 2014.
Palestinians protest in the West Bank town of Hebron on 13 December against Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of the Israel last week. Photo by Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA
Palestinians no longer accept US as mediator, Abbas tells summit
Palestinian president demands UN takes charge of peace process after Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel
By Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, The Guardian
December 13, 2017
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has formally declared that Palestinians will no longer accept the US as a mediator in the Middle East peace process following Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In his strongest public statement since Trump’s announcement last week, Abbas said Palestinians would go to the United Nations security council to seek full membership of the UN while asking the world body to take control of the peace process as Washington was no longer “fit” for the task.
The meeting took place a day after the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, suggested that the linked – and equally contentious – move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem might not actually take place during Trump’s current term in office.
Abbas was speaking at a hastily convened meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, where members were called upon to recognise a Palestinian state, amid strong condemnations of both the US and Israel.
“Jerusalem is and will forever be the capital of the Palestinian state,” Abbas told delegates. “We do not accept any role of the United States in the political process from now on, because it is completely biased towards Israel.”
The Palestinian president’s comments were echoed later in the summit’s official closing statement, which declared “East Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Palestine” and invited “all countries to recognise the state of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital”.
The statement said the OIC summit viewed Trump’s move “as an announcement of the US administration’s withdrawal from its role as sponsor of peace” in the Middle East, describing it as legally “null and void” and “a deliberate undermining of all peace efforts” that would give impetus to “extremism and terrorism”.
The summit was attended by King Abdullah of Jordan, the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait, and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, who called on all Muslim nations to unite to defend the rights of Palestinians.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, opened the meeting by denouncing the US move as a provocative “red line” for Muslims, describing Israel as an occupying and “terror” state. His remarks were echoed by other speakers.
But in a sign of cracks in the unity of Muslim countries – and reflecting the wider tensions in the region – Saudi Arabia and Egypt were represented at a relatively junior level, and took a back seat in the proceedings.
In comments pointedly aimed at Saudi Arabia, Rouhani said the only reason Trump had dared to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was because some in the region were seeking to establish ties to Israel.
Rouhani’s remarks – and the prominence of countries closer to Iran at the summit – suggested there is a risk that the contentious issue of Jerusalem will be sucked into the escalating confrontation between Riyadh and Tehran.
Away from the summit, however, King Salman of Saudi Arabia echoed its language, telling the kingdom’s consultative council that Palestinians had the right to establish the Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as their capital.
“The kingdom has called for a political solution to resolve regional crises, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue and the restoration of the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights, including the right to establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the king said.
Analysts raised doubts as to whether Turkey’s leadership could bridge gaps in the Muslim political community, which is divided along Shia and Sunni lines.
Despite the strength of the condemnations, the meeting appeared to have fallen short of Palestinian hopes for a display of unity.
There are fears that regional tensions may be fanned further by a visit by the US vice-president, Mike Pence, early next week, originally billed as focusing on the experience of Christians in the Middle East.
Abbas has already said he will refuse to meet Pence in protest, and Christian Palestinian leaders have also come under pressure to boycott his visit.
Trump’s announcement last week prompted an outpouring of anger in the Muslim and Arab world. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to denounce Israel and show solidarity with the Palestinians.
Firing aimed at Israel from inside the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza, which began after the announcement, continued on Wednesday morning. The Israeli air force – which has killed four Palestinians in Gaza in recent strikes – retaliated, wounding several Palestinians.
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is an international body founded in 1969 to represent the world’s Muslims, who number well over a billion.
Made up of 57 Muslim-majority countries, the OIC has long laid claim to being more representative of the diversity of global Muslims than the Arab League.
It was founded after a summit was called to protest against an act of arson at the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, in Jerusalem – a city again at the heart of controversy after Donald Trump recognised it as Israel’s capital.
It is supposedly neutral, but some members have complained that Saudi Arabia has tried to use the body in recent years to pursue its own agenda on issues such as Iran and Syria.
At an emergency summit held in Istanbul on 13 December to discuss Trump’s move, however, some of the loudest voices were Iran, Turkey and Jordan. King Salman of Saudi Arabia did not attend.