✣ Trump and Pope Francis at odds over Jerusalem
What happened? Pope Francis has expressed “concern” over US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Trump made the announcement last week, and said the US embassy would move there from Tel Aviv. Speaking just in advance of the decision, the Pope said he could not “keep silent” and called for respect for the “status quo of the city” in accordance with UN resolutions. He said Jerusalem was “sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims”. What local religious leaders said The organisation of Islamic Cooperation has called an emergency summit to discuss the issue. Heads of state will be present. The Vatican, in a later statement, said the summit would be seeking “peace”. Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church was also aggrieved, and responded by shunning US Vice-President Mike Pence, who requested a meeting during his visit to Cairo next week. In a statement, the Coptic Church said it “excused itself from hosting” Mr Pence, and explained that Trump’s decision “did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people”. Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, will also snub Mr Pence. “How can I sit with those who granted what they do not own to those who do not deserve it?” he said, according to local media. What commentators said Trump had thrown “decades of long-standing US policy up in the air,” lamented Ishaan Tharoor in the Washington Post. There seemed to be little pressure from Israel or Washington to justify the move, which had caused distress across the region. The upside,though, was that Trump’s move may “refocus the conversation on the moral conundrum of perpetuating [Israel’s] indefinite occupation”. National Review’s David French disagreed. This was “one of the best, most moral and important decisions” Trump had made. He stood against an “unholy mixture of anti-Semites and eliminationists” who used diplomatic and cultural pressure to “isolate the Jewish nation”. International bodies “hold Israel to higher standards than any other nation on earth”. Trump had resisted the “bigots”.
