Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that any US decision on Jerusalem would face widespread protests in the Palestinian territories and in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It would also lead to unforeseen dangers and push the region into further tension.
Abbas’ advisor, Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, conveyed a message from the president to the American administration, through the US Consul General in Jerusalem, Donald Blum, categorically rejecting any American decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or to transfer the US embassy to the city.
The letter said that any action or decision taken by the US administration to meddle with the status of Jerusalem was “unacceptable, contradicts Washington’s role as mediator and sponsor of peace.”
It closes every door to continuing a serious peace process and pushes the entire region to greater tension and escalation, it warned.
Abu Amr told the US Consul that any action towards the transfer of the embassy or the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “will be met with widespread protests in the Palestinian territories and other parts of the Islamic world, because Jerusalem is not only the capital of Palestine but also an Arab and Islamic matter.”
He underlined that any American action “will free the Palestinian leadership from any previous understandings with the administration.”
The new Palestinian message falls within a series of preemptive steps, including a formal Palestinian request for two emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and contacts between Abbas and Arab and Western heads of state and officials.
On Monday, Abbas sent a letter to the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al Sabah, asking him to intervene in the matter. He also sent another letter to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for the same purpose.
