From Haaretz:
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said in Washington on Friday that if President-elect Donald Trump moves the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem the Palestinians would “make life miserable” for the United States at the United Nations.
“If people attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions, it is a violation of resolution 181 of the UN general assembly that was drafted by the U.S. … it means they are showing belligerency towards us … If they do that nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves and we have a lot of weapons in the UN,” Mansour said.
The official United States position on Jerusalem is indeed based on the idea, originally floated in UN General Assembly Resolution 181, that while Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state, Jerusalem and its surrounding areas would be a separate entity not under control of either state.
It is an absurd position by the US. While UNGA 181 was accepted by the Jews, it was rejected by the Arab world, including the Palestinian Arabs.
Indeed, Palestinians responded to the resolution by attacking Jewish civilians within hours of its passing.
UNGA 181 has no legal standing.
The US knows quite well that Jerusalem will never become an international city, but it continues to hold on to that fiction today in order to pressure its friend Israel into a peace agreement. There is no valid legal reason, under US law or any interpretation of international law, embassies not to be relocated to Jerusalem west of the Green Line. (Even within the resolution, the status of Jerusalem was only to remain in that bizarre state until 1958.)
Now, the Palestinians are complaining that the resolution that they violently rejected, that has zero standing in international law, should be respected?
If that's the case, then that means that the Palestinians accept the concept of a Jewish state, since that's what the resolution says.
If that's the case, then that means that the Palestinians must renounce all their own claims to Jerusalem as being their capital, since that's what the resolution says.
If that's the case, then not only do the Palestinians lose any rights to Jerusalem, but also Bethlehem and many Arab villages between the two cities, since that's what the resolution says.
Why doesn't anyone ask Mr. Mansour if this is what he is saying?
Also, someone may want to ask him about how wise he is to threaten the President-elect just at the time he is making major decisions at to what his policies would be.
But this is Palestinian diplomacy - whining that life is unfair, and threats to make things more to their liking.
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