WASHINGTON, May 17(TNS): By moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, President Trump has swept aside 70 years of American neutrality, The New York Times Editorial Board said in an opinion article, a move that was greeted with massive protests that claimed lives of at least 60 Palestinians.
The day the US embassy was inaugurated in Jerusalem turned out to be one of the bloodiest days for the Palestinians, when Israeli troops used live ammunition on protesting people, killing at least 60.
According to the NYT Editorial Board, for generations, the Americans acted as an honest broker, withheld its decision to accept claims by either side which see Jerusalem as their capital, pending a treaty that would resolve the issue with agreement from both sides.
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“But on Monday President Trump delivered the embassy as a gift without concession or condition to the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and as a blow to the Palestinians,” the Editorial Board said, referring to the day the Embassy was opened in Jerusalem.
“The world did not witness a new dawn of peace and security for two peoples who have dreamed of both for so long. Instead, it watched as Israeli soldiers shot and killed scores of Palestinian protesters, and wounded thousands more, along Israel’s boundary with the Gaza Strip.”
The NYT Editorial Board observed that unilateral action rather than negotiation and compromise had been the policy of the right-wing Israeli governments, which have steadily expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the area that Palestinians expected to be part of a Palestinian state.
“Mr. Trump has repeatedly promised a grand peace plan without delivering, and he has now lent America’s weight to this maximalist Israeli strategy,” the Board noted in its observation.
President Trump’s decision has swept away 70 years of neutrality of the United States which has prided itself on mediating between Israel and the Palestinians, the NYT Editorial said noting that successive administrations urged a peace formula in which the two parties would negotiate core issues between them.
“It said that the possibility of peace has continued to recede, ‘and Israel’s democratic character has continued to erode under the pressure of a long-term occupation of millions of Palestinians who lack sovereignty of their own”.
“The ceremony on Monday marking the embassy opening could hardly have been more dismissive of Palestinians. It was timed to make the American bias clear, coming on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence in 1948 and the day before Palestinians observe Nakba, or Catastrophe, the expulsion of their ancestors from the newly formed Jewish state.”
“The fact that Robert Jeffers, a pastor who has denigrated Jews, Mormons and Muslims, and the Rev. John Hagee, a megachurch televangelist who has claimed Hitler was descended from ‘half-breed Jews’ and was part of God’s plan to return Jews to Israel, had prominent roles in the ceremony should embarrass all who participated,” it added.
“Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the b…
