Brussels/Cairo - Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu took his case to Europe to ask allies to join the
United States in recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but
met a firm rebuff from EU foreign ministers who saw the move as
a blow against the peace process.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, took his own
case to Egypt on Monday and was expected to fly to Turkey for a
meeting of Muslim countries this week, cementing support from
leaders who say the US move was a dire error.
President Donald Trump announced last Wednesday the United
States would recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking
with decades of US policy and international consensus that the
city's status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Netanyahu, on his first visit to EU headquarters in
Brussels, said Trump's move helped peace, "because recognising
reality is the substance of peace, the foundation of peace".
Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it in a
1967 war, considers the entire city to be its capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future
independent state.
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The Trump administration says it remains committed to the
peace process 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.
But even Israel's closest European allies have rejected that
logic and say recognising Israel's capital unilaterally risks
inflaming violence and further wrecking the chance for peace.
After a breakfast meeting between Netanyahu and EU foreign
ministers, Sweden's top diplomat said no European at the
closed-door meeting had voiced support for Trump's decision, and
no country was likely to follow the United States in announcing
plans to move its embassy.
"I have a hard time seeing that any other country would do
that and I don't think any other EU country will do it," Margot
Wallstrom told reporters.
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Israel's position does appear to have more support from some
EU states than others. Last week, the Czech foreign ministry
said it would begin considering moving the Czech Embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, while Hungary blocked a planned EU
statement condemning the U.S. move.
But Prague later said it accepted Israel's sovereignty only
over West Jerusalem, and Budapest said its long-term position
seeking a two-state solution in the Middle East had not changed.
On Monday, Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said of
Trump's decision: "I'm afraid it can't help us."
"I'm convinced that it is impossible to ease tension with a
unilateral solution," Zaoralek said. "We are talking about an
Israeli state but at the same time we have to speak about a
Palestinian state."
The Palestinian president, Abbas, met the head of the Arab
League in Cairo on Monday and was due to meet President Abdel
Fatah al-Sisi. Egypt is a key U.S. ally that has a peace treaty
with Israel and has brokered negotiations in the past between
the Palestinians and Israel as well as between Palestinian
factions.
"DUNGEON FOR MUSLIMS"
Moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would have
"dangerous effects on peace and security in the region", Sisi
said on Monday at an earlier meeting with visiting Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
Abbas was also due to fly to Turkey. Trump's announcement
has triggered a war of words between Turkish President Tayyip
Erdogan and Netanyahu, straining ties between the two U.S.
allies which were restored only last year after a six-year
breach that followed the Israeli storming of a Turkish aid ship.
On Sunday, Erdogan called Israel a "terror state". Netanyahu
responded by saying he would accept no moral lectures from
Erdogan who he accused of bombing Kurdish villages, jailing
opponents and supporting terrorists.
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On Monday Erdogan took aim directly at Washington over
Trump's move: "The ones who made Jerusalem a dungeon for Muslims
and members of other religions will never be able to clean the
blood from their hands," he said in a speech in Ankara. "With
their decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the
United States has become a partner in this bloodshed."
Trump's announcement triggered days of protests across the
Muslim world and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli
security forces in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in
which scores of Palestinians were wounded and several killed. By
Monday morning, violence appeared to have subsided.
In Beirut, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the
streets to protest at a march backed by Hezbollah, the
heavily-armed Iran-backed Shi'ite group whose leader called last
week for a new Palestinian uprising against Israel. An announcer
led the crowd in chants of "Death to America, death to Israel".
"STOP PAMPERING"
Netanyahu, who has been angered by the EU's search for
closer business ties with Iran, said Europeans should emulate
Trump's move and press the Palestinians to do so too.
"It's time that the Palestinians recognise the Jewish state
and also recognise the fact that it has a capital. It's called
Jerusalem," he said.
In comments filmed later on his plane, he said he had told
the Europeans to "stop pampering the Palestinians". "I think the
Palestinians need a reality check. You have to stop cutting them
slack. That's the only way to move forward towards peace."
The decision to recognise Jerusalem could also strain
Washington's ties with another of its major Muslim allies in the
Middle East, Saudi Arabia, which has sought closer relations
with Washington under Trump than under his predecessor Barack
Obama.
Saudi Arabia shares U.S. and Israeli concerns about the
increasing regional influence of Iran, and was seen as a
potential broker for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal.
But Saudis have suggested that unilateral decisions over
Jerusalem make any such rapprochement more difficult.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the
United States and veteran ex-security chief, published a
strongly-worded open letter to Trump on Monday denouncing the
Jerusalem move.
"Bloodshed and mayhem will definitely follow your
opportunistic attempt to make electoral gain," the prince wrote
in a letter published in the Saudi newspaper al-Jazeera.
"Your action has emboldened the most extreme elements in the
Israeli society ... because they take your action as a license
to evict the Palestinians from their lands and subject them to
an apartheid state," he added. "Your action has equally
emboldened Iran and its terrorist minions to claim that they are
the legitimate defenders of Palestinian rights."