Alwaght- US President-elect Donald Trump intends to relocate the country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds (Jerusalem) in a provocative move that is set to have grave consequences in implemented.
In a boost to Trump’s belligerent decision, US House Republicans are preparing a letter addressed to Trump, calling on the incoming administration to immediately move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied al-Quds.
In 1995 US lawmakers passed the al-Quds Embassy Act calling on the US to recognize al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime and relocate the embassy there. But the law allowed for the move to be waived if the President deems it harmful to the US national security interests.
Since it passed, every US president -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- has signed the waiver every six months, even though Bush and Clinton had promised to move the embassy during their presidential campaigns. Early January, Obama renewed a presidential waiver delaying the move for another six months, citing "national security interests."
It is expected that once Trump is inaugurated and the reality of the West Asia region situation sinks in, he will have enough time to ponder over the consequences of such a contentious decision.
Dangerous consequences
The Palestinian Authority which has been engaged in negotiations with the Israeli regime through Western interlocutors including the US has come out strongly to slam any attempt to relocate the US embassy in Tel Aviv to al-Quds.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has written an official letter to warning that such a move would have a disastrous impact on the “peace process”, on the “two-state solution” and on the stability and security of the entire region."
According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, Abbas also sent letters to other world powers, including Russia, China and the European Union, calling on them to "spare no effort" to prevent the US from making the move.
Speaking last Friday, Abbas warned that “any statement or position that disrupts or changes the status of al-Quds is a red line which we will never accept.”
The Palestinians regard occupied al-Quds as the eternal capital of their future state and even the most moderate Palestinian leaders cannot compromise on the issue. Palestinian officials have warned that all US embassies in the Muslim world would have to close in the face of widespread anger and outrage that would follow such a dangerous move.
Death knell for “peace process”
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat who is also the secretary-general of the PLO’s Executive Council, warned that moving the embassy to occupied al-Quds would sound the death knell for the so-called peace process with the Israeli entity. Erekat even warned that the Palestinian Authority would no longer recognize the Israeli entity and would ask Arab states to expel US ambassadors from their capitals.
Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry has also warned that if the US moves its embassy to al-Quds, "you'd have an explosion -- an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region."
No doubt, the relocation of the US Embassy to al-Quds would rejuvenate Palestinian resistance movements in their armed struggle to liberate Palestine and vindicate their resolute stance of rejecting compromise talks with the Israeli regime.
There is a real possibility that Trump, who named David Friedman, a staunch Zionist and supporter of Israeli regime’s illegal West Bank settlements, as his ambassador to the Israeli entity, would move ahead and implement his campaign pledge of relocating the embassy. In a bid to reduce the consequences of the embassy move, US sources have said that Freidman could be based in al-Quds, while the official embassy building remains in Tel Aviv. This is a ploy to hoodwink Palestinians and the international community since what will remain in Tel Aviv will be an empty building.
Violation of international laws
Moving the US embassy to al-Quds would be an illegal move and blatant violation of international laws as the world does not recognize Israeli regime’s sovereignty over either west or East al-Quds and therefore not a single country has an embassy in there. Having an embassy in al-Quds would be a violation of United Nations security council resolution 478 which confirmed that, Israel’s 1980 “basic law” which declared East and west al-Quds “complete and united” as the capital of the Israeli entity, is a violation of international law.
