The Jim Bakker Show

EU tells Netanyahu it rejects Trump’s Jerusalem move

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini brief the media at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium December 11, 2017.

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his case to Europe to ask allies to join the United States in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but was met by a firm rebuff from EU foreign ministers who saw the move as a blow against the peace process.

Making his first ever visit to EU headquarters in Brussels, Netanyahu said President Donald Trump’s move made peace in the Middle East possible “because recognizing reality is the substance of peace, the foundation of peace.”

Trump announced last Wednesday that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the ancient city’s status must be decided in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

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.

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 recognizing 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.

Several EU foreign ministers arriving at the meeting reiterated the bloc’s position that lands Israel has occupied since the 1967 war – including East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank and Golan Heights, are not within Israel’s borders.

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.”

VIOLENCE SUBSIDES

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.

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 recognize the Jewish state and also recognize 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.”

Trump’s announcement last week has triggered a war of words between Netanyahu and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, 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 bound for Gaza.

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.

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 recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States has become a partner in this bloodshed.”

The decision to recognize Jerusalem could also strain Washington’s ties with its other main Muslim ally 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.”

The Trump administration says it is working on a peace proposal being drawn up by Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

European leaders say the decision on Israel’s capital makes the need for a broader peace move more urgent.

“We’ve been waiting already for several months for the American initiative, and if one is not forthcoming then the European Union will have to take the initiative,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Peter Graff)

Two dead in ‘Day of Rage’ over Jerusalem, Palestinian president defiant

By Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – At least two people were killed in clashes with Israeli troops on Friday when thousands of Palestinians demonstrated against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Palestinian president said Washington could no longer be a peace broker.

Across the Arab and Muslim worlds, thousands more protesters took to the streets on the Muslim holy day to express solidarity with the Palestinians and outrage at Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy.

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man near the Gaza border, the first confirmed death in two days of unrest. Scores of people were wounded on the “Day of Rage”. A second person later died of their wounds, a Gaza hospital official said.

The Israeli army said hundreds of Palestinians were rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks at soldiers across the border.

“During the riots IDF soldiers fired selectively towards two main instigators and hits were confirmed,” it said.

More than 80 Palestinians were wounded in the occupied West Bank and Gaza by Israeli live fire and rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service. Dozens more suffered from tear gas inhalation. Thirty-one were wounded on Thursday.

As Friday prayers ended at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, worshippers made their way toward the walled Old City gates, chanting “Jerusalem is ours, Jerusalem is our capital” and “We don’t need empty words, we need stones and Kalashnikovs”. Scuffles broke out between protesters and police.

In Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, dozens of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers who fired back with tear gas.

In Gaza, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, calls for worshippers to protest sounded over mosque loudspeakers. Hamas has called for a new Palestinian uprising like the “intifadas” of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, which together saw thousands of Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis killed.

“Whoever moves his embassy to occupied Jerusalem will become an enemy of the Palestinians and a target of Palestinian factions,” said Hamas leader Fathy Hammad as protesters in Gaza burned posters of Trump.

“We declare an intifada until the liberation of Jerusalem and all of Palestine.”

Protests largely died down as night fell. Rocket sirens sounded in southern Israeli towns near the Gaza border, and the Israeli military said it had intercepted one of at least two projectiles fired from Gaza. No casualties were reported.

Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militant group linked to Abbas’s Fatah party, claimed responsibility for firing one of the rockets, and said it was in protest against Trump’s decision.

The military said another rocket hit the Israeli town of Sderot. No casualties were reported.

Israel’s military said that in response to the rocket fire, its aircraft bombed militant targets in Gaza and the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 25 people were wounded in the strikes, including six children.

The Israeli military said it had carried out the strikes on a militant training camp and on a weapons depot. Witnesses said most of the wounded were residents of a building near the camp.

At the United Nations, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Washington still had credibility as a mediator.

“The United States has credibility with both sides. Israel will never be, and should never be, bullied into an agreement by the United Nations, or by any collection of countries that have proven their disregard for Israel’s security,” Haley told the U.N. Security Council.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared defiant.

“We reject the American decision over Jerusalem. With this position the United States has become no longer qualified to sponsor the peace process,” Abbas said in a statement. He did not elaborate further.

France, Italy, Germany, Britain and Sweden called on the United States to “bring forward detailed proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement”.

“PROMISE FULFILLED”

Trump’s announcement on Wednesday has infuriated the Arab world and upset Western allies. The status of Jerusalem has been one of the biggest obstacles to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians for generations.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future independent state of their own.

Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East War, to be occupied territory. It includes the Old City, home to sites considered holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

For decades, Washington, like most of the rest of the international community, held back from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying its status should be determined as part of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. No other country has an embassy there.

The Trump administration argues that the peace process has become moribund, and outdated policies need to be jettisoned for the sides in the conflict to make progress.

Trump has also noted that Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all promised as candidates to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “I fulfilled my campaign promise – others didn’t!” Trump tweeted on Friday with a video montage of campaign speeches on the issue by his three predecessors.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday it would still be up to the Israelis and Palestinians to hammer out all other issues surrounding the city in future talks.

“With respect to the rest of Jerusalem, the president … did not indicate any final status for Jerusalem. He was very clear that the final status, including the borders, would be left to the two parties to negotiate and decide.”

Still, some Muslim countries view the Trump administration’s motives with particular suspicion. As a candidate he proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States, and in office he has tried to block entry by citizens of several Muslim-majority states.

“DEATH TO THE DEVIL”

In Ramallah, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, the leader’s religious affairs adviser said Trump’s stance was an affront to Islam and Christianity alike.

“America has chosen to elect a president who has put it in enmity with all Muslims and Christians,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash.

In Cairo, capital of Egypt, a U.S. ally which has a peace treaty with Israel, hundreds of protesters who had gathered in Al-Azhar mosque and outside in its courtyard chanted “Jerusalem is Arab! O Trump, you madman, the Arab people are everywhere!”

Al Azhar’s Imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, rejected an invitation to meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Large demonstrations also took place in Jordan, Tunisia, Somalia, Yemen, Malaysia and Indonesia, and hundreds protested outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin.

France said the United States had sidelined itself in the Middle East. “The reality is they are alone and isolated on this issue,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

(Additional reporting by Ammar Awad, Omar Fahmy and Maayan Lubell, John Irish in Paris and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and James Dalgleish)

Israeli strikes kill two Gaza gunmen, but anti-Trump protests subside

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed two Palestinian gunmen on Saturday after rockets were fired from the enclave, in violence that erupted over President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Gaza militants launched at least three rockets toward Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip – which is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas – after dark on Friday. The day had been declared a “day of rage” by Palestinian factions protesting against Trump’s announcement on Wednesday.

“IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft targeted four facilities belonging to the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip: two weapons manufacturing sites, a weapons warehouse, a military compound,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

A Hamas source confirmed the two men killed in the pre-dawn air strikes belonged to the group, which has urged Palestinians to keep up the confrontation with Israeli forces.

Palestinian protests on Saturday were far less intense on than on previous days.

About 60 Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers across the Gaza-Israel border and the health ministry said one bystander was wounded by Israeli gunfire.

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Palestinians set fire to tires and threw stones at Israeli troops, who used tear gas. In East Jerusalem about 60 people demonstrated near the walled Old City, where paramilitary border police and officers on horseback tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in protest and two Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza border. Scores more were wounded there and in the West Bank. Across the Arab and Muslim worlds, thousands more protesters had gathered to express solidarity.

Trump’s reversal of decades of U.S. policy has infuriated the Arab world and upset Western allies, who say the move is a blow to peace efforts and risks sparking more violence in the region.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday the United States could no longer broker peace talks.

Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is leading efforts to restart the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks, efforts that so far have shown little progress.

“A GIFT TO RADICALISM”

A senior United Arab Emirates (UAE) official said on Saturday that Trump’s move was a boon to radicals.

“These issues are a gift to radicalism. Radicals and extremists will use that to fan the language of hate,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said at the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.

The status of Jerusalem has been one of the biggest obstacles to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians for generations.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future independent state of their own.

Trump also said on Wednesday he was starting the process of moving the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Trump administration argues that the peace process has become moribund, and outdated policies need to be jettisoned for the sides in the conflict to make progress.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ammar Awad in Jerusalem and Stephen Kalin in Manama; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Iranians rally against Trump’s Jerusalem move, burn U.S. flags: TV

ANKARA (Reuters) – Hundreds of Iranians took part in rallies across the country on Friday to condemn U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision this week to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, state TV reported.

Leaders of Iran, where opposition to Israel and support for the Palestinian cause has been central to foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution, have denounced Trump’s move, including his plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

State TV aired footage of marchers chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, holding up Palestinian flags and banners saying: “Quds belongs to Muslims”, using the Arabic name for the city. In several cities protesters burned effigies of Trump, Iranian media reported.

Iran regards Palestine as comprising all of the holy land, including the Jewish state, which it does not recognize. It has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and backs several Islamic militant groups in their fight against Israel.

Describing the United States and Israel as oppressors, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Trump’s decision was a sign of incompetence and failure.

Opposition to Trump’s move has united Iran’s hardline and pragmatist factions, with both pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani and commanders of the hardline Revolutionary Guards urging Iranians to join nationwide “Day of Rage” rallies.

Some protesters burned pictures of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while chanting “Death to the Devil”.

Rouhani rejected Trump’s decision as “wrong, illegitimate, provocative and very dangerous”.

Senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University that Muslims around the world should unite against Israel, state TV reported.

“We will not leave Palestinians alone,” worshippers chanted at Friday prayers in Tehran, TV reported.

Iran’s army chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri said Trump’s decision on Jerusalem was “unwise” and could fuel tension in the crisis-hit Middle East, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)

Palestinians, Muslims worldwide hold ‘Day of Rage’ over Jerusalem

By Ali Sawafta

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Thousands of Palestinians protested in a “day of rage” on Friday in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and in East Jerusalem against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of the ancient city as Israel’s capital.

Across the Arab and Muslim worlds, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on Friday, the Muslim holy day, expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and outrage at the U.S. move.

As Friday prayers ended at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, worshippers made their way toward the walled Old City gates, chanting “Jerusalem is ours, Jerusalem is our capital,” and “We don’t need empty words, we need stones and Kalashnikovs”. Some scuffles broke out between protesters and police.

Trump’s decision to reverse decades of U.S. policy and recognize Jerusalem has been met by days of protests, although violence so far has largely been contained.

By midday Friday there had been no reports of deaths in two days of demonstrations in the Palestinian territories. Thirty-one Palestinians were wounded on Thursday.

Clashes began in some spots of the West Bank after Friday prayers, though the unrest appeared less intense than the previous day. In Hebron and Bethlehem dozens of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers who fired back with tear gas.

In Gaza, calls for worshippers to protest sounded over mosque loudspeakers and dozens of youths burnt tires on the main streets of the enclave, controlled by the Islamist Hamas group, and hundreds rallied toward the border with Israel.

Hamas has called for a new Palestinian uprising like the “intifadas” of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005 that together saw thousands of Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis killed.

ENMITY

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future independent state of their own. Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed, to be occupied territory, including the Old City, home to sites considered holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

For decades, Washington, like most of the rest of the international community, held back from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, arguing that its status should be determined as part of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. No other country has its embassy there.

The Trump administration argues that the peace process has become moribund, and outdated policies need to be jettisoned for the sides in the conflict to make progress.

In Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, the leader’s religious affairs adviser said Trump’s stance was an affront to Islam and Christianity alike.

“America has chosen to elect a President that has put it in enmity with all Muslims and Christians,” said the advisor, Mahmoud al-Habbash.

Israeli police increased their presence in Jerusalem but set no extra restrictions on access for worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, saying they had no indication of unrest there, a sign they anticipated confrontation to be limited. Police regularly impose age restrictions at the site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, when they anticipate major unrest.

In Iran, which has never recognized Israel and supports anti-Israel militants, demonstrators burned pictures of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while chanting “Death to the Devil”. Opposition to the U.S. move has united Iran’s pragmatist faction, which supports greater openness to the outside world, behind hardliners that oppose it.

The imam leading Friday prayer at Al-Azhar said the U.S. plan to move its embassy to Jerusalem was a “terrorist decision” that would add another settlement to those of Israel.

Thousands also took to the streets in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, where authorities tightened security around U.S. embassies.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ammar Awad, Omar Fahmy and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Peter Graff)

Turkey says U.S. ‘pulled the pin on bomb’ with Jerusalem decision

ANKARA (Reuters) – The United States has primed a bomb in the Middle East with its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Thursday.

Yildirim said Turkey’s stark differences with Washington, which have already strained ties between the NATO allies, meant that an overwhelming majority of the Turkish people were now unsympathetic toward the United States.

“The United States has pulled the pin on a bomb ready to blow in the region,” Yildirim told a conference in Ankara.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and promising to move the U.S. Embassy there.

Following the decision, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul; on Thursday, there was a heavy police presence with uniformed soldiers patrolling the roof.

“Today, more than 80 percent of our citizens are cold towards the United States and they are right to be so,” Yildirim said, without giving a source for the figure.

Bilateral relations had already been hurt by Washington’s support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, seen by Ankara as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has for decades waged an insurgency against the Turkish state.

In addition, Ankara has been angered by the United States’ refusal to extradite U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of orchestrating last year’s attempted military coup.

U.S. officials say the courts have not been shown sufficient evidence to extradite Gulen, who has denied any involvement in the coup.

Turkey also says the case of Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is on trial in New York and cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, is an attempt to discredit it and undermine its economy. Zarrab has pleaded guilty to helping Iran avoid U.S. sanctions and detailed a vast international money laundering scheme.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Additional reporting by Mehmet Emin Caliskan; Editing by David Dolan and Kevin Liffey)

Hamas calls for Palestinian uprising in response to Trump’s Jerusalem plan

Trump's Jerusalem move will hasten Israel's destruction: Iran

By Dan Williams and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – The Islamist group Hamas urged Palestinians on Thursday to abandon peace efforts and launch a new uprising against Israel in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as its capital.

The Israeli military said it was reinforcing troops in the occupied West Bank, deploying several new army battalions and putting other forces on standby, describing the measures as part of its “readiness for possible developments”.

Medics said at least 31 people were wounded by Israeli army gunfire when Palestinian protests erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Thursday. They said 11 were hit by live bullets and 20 by rubber bullets. One person was in a critical condition. Some protesters threw rocks at soldiers and others chanted: “Death to America! Death to the fool Trump!”.

Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy on Wednesday by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, imperiling Middle East peace efforts and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies alike.

(For a graphic on possible Jerusalem U.S. Embassy sites, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2jIXIoq)

The status of Jerusalem – home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions – is one of the biggest obstacles to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

“We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada (Palestinian uprising) in the face of the Zionist enemy,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech in Gaza.

He urged Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs to hold rallies against the U.S decision on Friday, calling it a “day of rage”.

Naser Al-Qidwa, an aide to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and senior official in his Fatah party, urged Palestinians to stage protests but said they should be peaceful.

Asked on Israel Radio whether there might be another intifada, Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said: “In my estimate Abu Mazen (Abbas) will not wreck matters. It would not be helpful to him.”

Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally.

EMBASSY MOVE

Trump announced his administration would begin a process of moving the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step expected to take years, a move his predecessors opted not to take to avoid inflaming tensions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hailed Trump’s announcement as a “historic landmark”, said many countries would follow the U.S. move and contacts were underway. He did not name the countries he was referring to.

“President Trump has immortalized himself in the chronicles of our capital. His name will now be held aloft, alongside other names connected to the glorious history of Jerusalem and of our people,” he said in a speech at Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Other close Western allies of Washington, including France and Britain, have been critical of Trump’s move. Pope Francis has called for Jerusalem’s status quo to be respected, while China and Russia have also expressed concern.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said: “The European Union has a clear and united position. We believe the only realistic solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is based on two states and with Jerusalem as the capital of both.”

The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet on Friday to discuss the U.S. decision, diplomats said.

Trump’s decision has raised doubts about his administration’s ability to follow through on a peace effort that his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, has led for months aimed at reviving long-stalled negotiations.

Haniyeh called on Abbas to withdraw from peacemaking with Israel and on Arabs to boycott the Trump administration. Abbas said on Wednesday the United States had abdicated its role as a mediator in peace efforts.

“We have given instruction to all Hamas members and to all its wings to be fully ready for any new instructions or orders that may be given to confront this strategic danger that threatens Jerusalem and threatens Palestine,” Haniyeh said.

“United Jerusalem is Arab and Muslim, and it is the capital of the state of Palestine, all of Palestine,” he said, referring to territory including Israel as well as the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

EXPECTING BACKLASH

Israel and the United States consider Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2007, a terrorist organization. Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and its suicide bombings helped spearhead the last intifada, from 2000 to 2005.

Fearing recrimination could disrupt reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah and other Fatah delegates arrived in Gaza on Thursday to meet Hamas.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem, believing its status should be resolved in negotiations. No other country has its embassy in Jerusalem.

Trump’s decision fulfils a campaign promise and will please Republican conservatives and evangelicals who make up a sizeable portion of his domestic support.

He said his move was not intended to tip the scale in favor of Israel and that any deal involving the future of Jerusalem would have to be negotiated by the parties, but the move was seen almost uniformly in Arab capitals as a sharp tilt toward Israel.

The United States is asking Israel to temper its response to the announcement because Washington expects a backlash and is weighing the potential threat to U.S. facilities and people, according to a State Department document seen by Reuters.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah lawmakers said the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital constituted aggression against Palestinians and resistance was the only way to recover lost rights. Hezbollah and Israel fought a war in 2006.

Protests broke out in areas of Jordan’s capital, Amman, inhabited by Palestinian refugees, and several hundred protesters gathered outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on Wednesday after Trump’s announcement.

In Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, about 50 members of the Islamist movement Jamaat-ud-Dawa staged a protest on Thursday to denounce the U.S. decision. A few dozen people from a trade organization joined the rally.

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan said the United States was “exposing its colonial ambition in Muslim territory”.

Palestinians switched off Christmas lights on trees outside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born, and in Ramallah, next to the burial site of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in protest.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul, Kay Johnson in Islamabad, Ellen Francis in Beirut, Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Janet Lawrence)

Message from Pastor Jim Bakker “This is One of the Great Moments in Biblical History.”

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they that love thee shall prosper. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will say now, peace be within thee. For the sake of the House of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.

– Psalm 122

In a live message recorded shortly after the proclamation by President Donald Trump, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Pastor Jim Bakker spoke to Christians about this historic moment.

“Our President has stood up for Israel. He has stood up and fulfilled his promises. The press has said that ‘The President has changed the course of history today.’ He knows the authority of the Bible”

Please watch this compelling Christian view of this momentous and bold act by our President and what God says about Israel. Please continue to keep both Israel and our President in your prayers!

Posted by The Jim Bakker Show on Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Frustration and fury among Arabs at Trump’s Jerusalem declaration

By Mostafa Salem, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ellen Francis

CAIRO/AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Arabs denounced President Donald Trump’s plan to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as a slap in the face but few thought their governments would do much in response.

Trump phoned allies in the Middle East late on Tuesday to tell them the United States would acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday and prepare to move its embassy there.

“It incites feelings of anger among all Muslims and threatens world peace,” said Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, one of Islam’s most important institutions.

“The gates of hell will be opened in the West before the East,” he added, warning of the possible reaction.

Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem, which it seized in the 1967 war, is not recognized internationally, and under the U.S.-brokered Oslo accords of 1993 the city’s status was to be decided in negotiations with Palestinians.

Arab governments issued statements of concern or condemnation and emergency meetings of both the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have been called. But the U.S. decision has been taken.

In a bitterly divided region, backing for Palestinians is often seen as a unifying position, but it is also often a source of internal recriminations over the extent of that support.

A cartoon in al-Arabi al-Jadeed, a London-based Arabic news website, showed Trump raising a hand against an Arab as if to slap him, wearing a large glove marked with the Israeli flag.

In Lebanon, the Daily Star newspaper ran a full page photograph of Jerusalem on its cover with the headline “No offense Mr. President, Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”.

Around the Arab world – including Egypt and Jordan, its only two countries to recognize Israel – and across the bitter divide between allies of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, people denounced the move.

“Neither I nor my children nor my children’s children will give up our right to Palestine and Jerusalem,” said Hilmi Aqel, a Palestinian refugee born in Jordan’s al-Baqaa camp after his family fled the fighting that accompanied Israel’s creation.

“America does what it wants because it’s powerful and thinks it won’t feel the consequences … Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, not of Israel. It never can be,” said Nada Saeed, 24, a property broker in Cairo.

“This is a provocation for the Arabs,” said Mahdi Msheikh, 43, a taxi driver in Beirut’s Hamra district.

ETERNAL CAPITAL

However, few people Reuters interviewed on Wednesday expected their governments to take any real action.

“What saddens me most about this is that Palestine in the past was an ultimate rights cause for us as Syrians and Arabs … Palestine has retreated from our priorities,” said a lecturer at Damascus university, who asked not to be named.

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, pushed a plan in 2002 offering Israel peace with all Arab countries in return for a Palestinian state including east Jerusalem.

But a recent newspaper report suggested it was willing to compromise on several areas that are regarded by Palestinians and some other Arab countries as red lines. Riyadh has denied that and called on Trump not to move the embassy.

“The current events on the world stage and especially in the Gulf help Trump take this step because the most important thing is that Saudi Arabia is not against it,” said Adnan, a 52-year-old trader in Beirut.

The kingdom’s top clergy issued a mild statement saying Saudi Arabia supported Jerusalem, but did not explicitly denounce Trump’s move.

Many Saudi Twitter users posting under the hashtag “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine”, shared a film clip of the late King Faisal, who launched the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the West, pledging never to accept Israel.

But one Twitter user posting with a common Saudi family name said that while Muslims and Arabs would be provoked by the move, its top royals would not be. Instead, they would “suppress any move or call to jihad against the Zionist enemy”, he wrote.

REFUGEES

In Cairo, Khaled Abdelkhalik, a lawyer, said: “We paraded Trump as an ally of the Arabs, but he turned out dirtier than his predecessors.”

Jordan, which agreed peace with Israel in 1994 while the peace process with the Palestinians still seemed on track, held a special session of parliament.

“I call on my colleagues to tear up the treaty of humiliation and shame,” said MP Yahya Saoud, referring to the peace deal.

Jordan, like Lebanon, is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

“This is a conspiracy that is denying us our rights, the first of which is to return. They think we are a branch of thorns that they can step on and break,” said Fadia, a social worker with two daughters in Lebanon’s Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp.

“But we are a bomb. If they step on it, it explodes,” she said.

In Israel, analysts said that despite such warnings, they expected little violence or opposition.

“The moderate camp in the Arab world needs the United States as well as Israel in order to face their main threat, which is Iran,” said Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

“We may see some public announcements maybe denouncing the American decision, but in substantive terms I don’t think much will change.”

(Additional reporting by John Davison in Cairo, Tom Perry in Beirut, Ulf Laessing in Tunis, Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Stephen Kalin in Riyadh, Reem Shamseddine in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Writing By Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Giles Elgood)

President Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

U.S. President Donald Trump gives a statement on Jerusalem, during which he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as he appears with Vice President Mike Pence in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2017.

By Steve Holland and Miriam Berger

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – President Donald Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy on Wednesday and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risks creating further unrest in the Middle East.

In a speech at the White House, Trump said his administration would begin a process of moving the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is expected to take years.

The status of Jerusalem — home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions — is one of the thorniest obstacles to reaching a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said. “While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

Israel considers the city its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Trump’s announcement as a “historic landmark” and urged other countries also to move their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem.

He said any peace deal with Palestinians must include Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This would be a non-starter for Palestinians if it means the entire city would be under Israeli control.

The Palestinians have said Trump’s move would mean the “kiss of death” to the two-state solution, envisaging a Palestinian state in territory – the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem – that Israel took in 1967.

Ahead of Trump’s announcement, Washington’s allies in the region warned of dangerous repercussions.

Pope Francis called for Jerusalem’s status quo to be respected, saying new tension would further inflame world conflicts. China and Russia expressed concern the plans could aggravate Middle East hostilities. A Palestinian envoy said the decision was a declaration of war in the Middle East.

Trump said his move is not intended to tip the scale in favor of Israel and that any deal involving the future of Jerusalem would have to be negotiated by the parties.

He said he remained committed to the two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians if they parties want one.

Amid warnings of potential unrest in the Middle East, the president called on the region to take his message calmly and with moderation.

“There will of course be disagreement and dissent regarding this announcement—but we are confident that ultimately, as we work through these disagreements, we will arrive at a place of greater understanding and cooperation,” Trump said.

His announcement fulfills a core pledge of his election campaign last year

Trump said his move reflected the reality of Jerusalem as the center of Jewish faith and the fact that the city is the seat of the Israeli government.

Trump’s decision is likely to please his core supporters – Republican conservatives and evangelical Christians who comprise an important share of his political base.

He acted under a 1995 law that requires the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem. His predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, had consistently put off that decision to avoid inflaming tensions in the Middle East.

Trump signed a waiver delaying the embassy move from Tel Aviv since the United States does not have an embassy structure in Jerusalem to move into. A senior administration official said it could take three to four years to build one.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Matt Spetalnick and John Walcott in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Michael Nienaber in Berlin, Costas Pitas in London, Philip Pullella in Vatican City, Babak Dehghanpisheh in Beirut, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell)

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