Daoud Kuttab canvases opinions concerning Trump’s Ambassador-designate Friedman’s assertion that the consulate will move to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in AL Monitor, and the reactions are uniformly negative. Here’s one:
Hanna Issa, a Palestinian expert on international law and a resident of Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor the United Nations has in various ways stressed the special status of Jerusalem. “This definition was made clear in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Resolution 181, and a year later, the status of Jerusalem was reaffirmed in a separate resolution, UNGA 303, in December 1949,” he said.
In the 303 resolution, Jerusalem and its nearby towns of Bethlehem and Beit Sahour were declared part of a UN-supervised international city. Issa noted that the US would not only be going against its own positions, it would be in direct violation of numerous other UN resolutions. He cited 11 UN Security Council resolutions that all say East Jerusalem is an occupied territory “and reject the annexation of East Jerusalem to Israel.”
I suspect if this is thrown in Trump’s face he’ll just threaten to withdraw from the United Nations – and his base will bark accordingly. This is the danger of the theory that experts just get in the way – people who know so very little dabble in a hotspot and, before you know it, people are dead – maybe your own people, even. You can’t just take it to court.
