Palestinians yesterday stepped up their campaign to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from carrying out his pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for help, while the Grand Mufti told worshippers the move would constitute an assault against Muslims worldwide.
The Palestinians consider such as move as recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In his sermon yesterday at Al Aqsa mosque in annexed east Jerusalem’s Old City, Sheikh Mohamed Hussein warned that believers around the world would not accept such a move.
“The pledge to move the embassy is not just an assault against Palestinians but against Arabs and Muslims, who will not remain silent,” he said.
“The transfer of the embassy violates international charters and norms which recognise Jerusalem as an occupied city,” Hussein said in his sermon, without naming Trump.
Palestinian leaders had called for the weekly prayers yesterday at mosques across the Middle East this week to protest Trump’s campaign pledge.
In Moscow, top Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said he had passed on a request of help from Abbas to Putin.
“The letter asks President Putin to do what he can about the information we have that President-elect Donald Trump will move the embassy to Jerusalem, which for us is a red line and dangerous,” he said after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Abbas has also written to Trump urging him not to move the embassy.
Previous US presidents, including George W Bush and Bill Clinton, reneged on election commitments to move the embassy to Jerusalem.
The Palestinians regard east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state of their own, while Israel proclaims the entire city as its capital.
The United States and most UN member states do not recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Israel occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1967. It later annexed the city’s Arab eastern sector, in a move never recognised by the international community.
Last month, Erekat warned of regional turmoil if Trump were to move the embassy, noting however he “didn’t think they will do it”.
Palestinian children carry placards during a demonstration against proposed plans by President-elect Donald Trump to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, in the village of Kfar Qaddum, near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank yesterday.
