The Pros And Cons Of Declaring Jerusalem

623 Words3 Pages

Declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital city could be a bad decision

Aracelys Hernández

On December 6th, 2017, Mr Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital city and formally announced that he was going to relocate the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done,” said Mr Trump regarding his announcement. However, this decision may not be “the right thing” to do. In fact, it goes against the international law; it reduces the possibilities of a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, and it might affect U.S. relationships with other countries.

To begin with, it is said in the Geneva Conventions Protocol that the territories that were acquired by means of war are under “hostile military occupation”. That is the case of East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city. These territories were annexed to Israel in 1967, after the Six-Day War. Israeli government denies the existence of a “military occupation”. However, in 1980, the United Nations Security Council affirmed that East Jerusalem was under hostile occupation.and declared that its annexation to Israel represented a violation to …show more content…

It was considered that taking a unilateral decision could affect peace negotiations between these two countries and break with international consensus. The United States' previous governments, from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, had followed this policy. Mr Trump decided to go against this formula and, by doing so, he is interfering with peace negotiations between the two nations involved. After the U.S. announcement, Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine, declared that the decision represented a setback to the peacemaking deal and the "death knell of any peace