Trump's Jerusalem Declaration Triggers Violence

Updates added on December 9 / 10.



U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, under siege of protesters on December 10.

Palestine - Days of Rage

After president Donald Trump's declaration to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and such recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, riots have broken out all over Palestine and Gaza, leaving a violence toll of two deaths and more than 750 wounded up to now. Protests emerged as well in Berlin, Istanbul, London, Kairo and Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Indonesia and which is the most populated Islamic nation.

While the Arab world is showing its embarresment and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas refuses to meet with U.S. vice-president Mike Pence on his coming visit to the Middle East, Hamas and Hezbollah leadership are calling for a new Intifada or violent uprise against Israel.

Furthermore, United Nations Security Council is holding an emergency meeting on the subject. At that meeting U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is standing alone to defend the Jerusalem decision of her boss. [Summary of news from Al-Jazeera الجزيرة published on December 8, 2017]




14 out of 15 council members voted against the change of position made
by U.S. president Trump in his Jerusalem decision. [CTV News, Dec. 8]




شومان: فلسطين ليست ميراثا لأمريكا وممتلكات «ترامب» لا تشمل القدس

Shouman: Palestine is not the patrimony of America and
Jerusalem doesn't belong to the possessions of "Trump".

Editor's Note:
Dr. Abbas Shouman is deputy director of the famous and influential Islamic University Al-Azhar in Kairo and a partner of the movement United Against Violence in the Name of Religion (UVNR). - By the way, the above quoted Arabic word ممتلكات can be used with the meaning of "colonial possessions".

The quoted Arabic source added in another article that Egypt's government officially rejects the ‘illegal’ US embassy move to Jerusalem.

[El-Balad البلد, Egypt, on December 8, 2017]







وزراء الخارجية العرب يرفضون قرار ترامب حول القدس

Arab foreign ministers reject Trump resolution on Jerusalem.

[Al-Quds Al-Arabi القدس العربي, Palestinian Daily on December 9, 2017]


The head of the Arab League has called US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital "dangerous and unacceptable" and a "flagrant attack on a political solution" to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

The statement by Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the regional bloc's secretary-general, came at the start of an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from 22 Arab states in Egypt's capital, Cairo, on Saturday.

Aboul-Gheit said Trump's decision was "against international law and raises questions over American efforts to support peace" between Palestine and Israel.

The shift in US policy "undermines Arab confidence" in the Trump administration and "amounts to the legalisation" of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, he added.

[Quotation from an Al-Jazeera الجزيرة article published on late December 9, 2017]

Last Exit from War Track

The following news were published only some hours ago on late December 7, 2017.



Reuters news agency report from December 6, updated on late December 7, 2017.



U.S. foreign secretary Tillerson and Russia's foreign minister Lavrov meeting each other
at the Vienna conference on Thursday, December 7, 2017. [The Guardian]



Senator Tammy Duckworth, a decorated veteran of the Iraq War, is scared — scared that the Trump administration may be getting the US into a devastating war with North Korea without much of the public noticing or seeming to care.

“Most Americans,” she says, “don’t realize how close we are to this war.”

Duckworth, who lost both of her legs after her helicopter was shot down by insurgents, has closely followed both aggressive rhetoric from the White House and the way the US military has been approaching the Korean Peninsula. She believes the events of the past six months indicate that President Trump might be willing to actually launch a preventive strike on North Korea, despite the real chance that it could trigger a nuclear exchange.

[VOX on late December 7, 2017]