US Ambassador Nikki Haley at AIPAC, March 27, 2017
Following President Trump's
recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last week, the American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was
interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Blitzer tried to get a clear statement from Haley concerning the territorial implications of the recent recognition: "Specifically, does the Trump administration now consider the old city of Jerusalem now part of Israel?"
Haley avoided the question by saying, "We don't want to pick a side on this", citing the need for the "two sides to come together" for the sake of "Israeli children and Palestinian children."
Thus, the "new sheriff in town", as Haley has
called herself, is playing agnostic, objective and even-handed - "we don't want to pick a side". Just imagine, if the even-handed sheriff would be so objective that she would also recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine - you know, just to be fair.
But the US does not even recognize Palestine (unlike over 70% of the UN nations), precisely because such a move would preempt negotiations...
The UN Security Council has "censured in the strongest terms" Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem (
Resolution 476, 1980) and deemed it "a violation of international law", calling upon "those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City".
Comment: Arab leaders - including those who have previously signed agreements with Israel - are also planning responses: The OIC's full statement can be read here. Erdogan is this years chairman for the OIC. During his speech, he went on the offensive, showing maps of regions illegally occupied by Israel, calling Israel a child-murderer and terrorist state, criticizing Israel's rogue nuclear weapons program... Iran's President Rouhani even extended an olive branch of sorts to Saudi Arabia, saying Iran "is willing to cooperate with ALL MUSLIM COUNTRIES over defending Al-Quds without any precondition." Now it just remains to be seen how united the OIC nations can remain.
As Andrew Korybko points out, this is the perfect move for Russia to step in as a facilitator: Trump injecting a little bit of that "Art of the Deal" chaos seems to have opened up a bunch of possibilities: