Abbas, Sissi meet on coordinated response to Jerusalem move
PA president’s spokesperson says Ramallah will continue to consult with other Arab countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia
Dov Lieber is a former Times of Israel Arab affairs correspondent.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Egyptian President Abdul Fatah al-Sissi in Cairo on Monday in order to discuss US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as bilateral relations.
The two sides agreed to continue coordination and consultations in the wake of Trump’s decision, according to a readout of the meeting in the PA’s official news site Wafa.
“We will continue to consult with our Arab brothers, especially with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab parties, to confront the coming dangers, especially after the unacceptable American step in Jerusalem,” said Abbas’s spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
In an address last Wednesday from the White House, Trump defied worldwide warnings and insisted that after repeated failures to achieve peace a new approach was long overdue, describing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the seat of Israel’s government as merely based on reality.
The move was hailed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by leaders across much of the Israeli political spectrum. Trump stressed that he was not specifying the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city, and called for no change in the status quo at the city’s holy sites.
Anger throughout the Muslim and Arab world has included protests in Egypt and Jordan, which also has a special role as the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
In Cairo, students and professors demonstrated at the prestigious Al-Azhar University, a university spokesman said, with pictures on social media showing several hundred protesters.
Dozens of students protested at two other Cairo universities.
Arab foreign ministers on Saturday called on the United States to rescind its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and for the international community to recognize a Palestinian state.
In a resolution after an emergency meeting in Cairo, Arab League member ministers said the United States had “withdrawn itself as a sponsor and broker” of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with its controversial move.
The ministers met at the league’s headquarters in Cairo to formulate a response to the US decision.
Egypt’s top Muslim and Christian clerics have both canceled scheduled meetings with Pence in protest at the Jerusalem decision.
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
The Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of their future state. Israel says that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel and that only under Israeli rule has freedom of worship been afforded all religious groups.
Much of the international community does not recognize the ancient city as Israel’s capital, insisting that the issue can only be resolved in negotiations.
AFP contributed to this report.
