Arab League urges recognition of Palestine after Trump's Jerusalem decision

Arab foreign ministers on Saturday urged the United States to rescind its controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, calling on the international community to recognise a Palestinian state.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

10 December, 2017

The Arab League called on the international community to recognise a Palestinian state. [Getty]

Arab foreign ministers have urged the United States to rescind its controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and called on the international community to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US decision - breaking with decades of foreign policy - has triggered concern and disapproval by US allies as well as protests around the world.

In a resolution after an emergency meeting in Cairo, Arab League member ministers said that the US had "withdrawn itself as a sponsor and broker" of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with its controversial move.

The ministers met at the league's headquarters in Cairo to formulate a response to the US decision, which has been roundly criticised in the Arab world and internationally.

The move by US President Donald Trump is "denounced and condemned", Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit told the ministers at the beginning of the meeting.

The ministers agreed on "demanding that the United States rescind its decision on Jerusalem...and the calling on the international community to recognise the state of Palestine...with east Jerusalem as its capital".

They also said they would head to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution condemning the US decision as a violation of international law.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, a total of four people have now been killed and dozens wounded since Trump announced the move.

The announcement drew criticism from every other member of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting on Friday.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has cancelled a scheduled meeting with the US vice-President Mike Pence in Ramallah later this month.

In Egypt, which Pence will also visit, the country's top Muslim and Christian clerics have both cancelled scheduled meetings with Pence in protest at the decision.

US President Donald Trump's decision "did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people", the Coptic Church's spokesman said in an online statement.

There have been fears of a much larger escalation of violence after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group both renewed that call on Saturday.

Abbas' Fatah organisation urged Palestinians to "keep up confrontation and broaden it to all points where the Israeli army is present" in the occupied West Bank.

Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

East Jerusalem is considered occupied Palestinian territory under international law.