RNA - “I believe the Americans play a destructive role in the entire region,” Mohammad Barakeh said on Wednesday.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the head of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, who served in the Knesset from 1999 to 2015, further denounced the recent decision by US President Donald Trump to recognize Israeli-occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Tel Aviv regime, stating that the move was an “attack” on both the Arab and Muslim worlds.
“If the US wants to maintain an embassy in Israel, it should stay in Tel Aviv,” Barakeh said.
“But it has no place in Jerusalem al-Quds, which has a Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Christian identity,” he added.
Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital and relocate the US embassy in the occupied lands from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds on December 6.
The dramatic shift in Washington’s Jerusalem al-Quds policy triggered demonstrations in the occupied Palestinian territories, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco and other Muslim countries.
On Sunday, violent clashes erupted outside the US embassy in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut during a protest against the US president’s decision. Demonstrators burnt tires as well as the US and Israeli flags as they pushed to break through a barbed wire erected by security forces around the embassy complex.
Security forces used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the angry protesters.
Jerusalem al-Quds remains at the core of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with Palestinians hoping that the eastern part of the city would eventually serve as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state.
847/940