Wednesday, 20 December 2017

Taking Names: ‘I’m not your friend anymore?’ / 2 weeks in Jerusalem / Hardy: Nobody Comes: 8 Poems / Mercy (Cats of Osaka)

Undercover Israeli security personnel detain a Palestinian demonstrator during clashes at a protest near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah December 13, 2017.: photo by Mohamad Torokman / Reuters, 13 December 2017

‘I’m not your friend anymore?’

Palestinians throw a molotov cocktail and stones towards Israeli forces on the other side of a barrier at the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. Photo @TomCOEX: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017

A knife, a fake bomb belt, a death: Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic describes photographing a Palestinian protester shot by Israeli police on Friday's 'Day of Rage': image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 18 December 2017

Clashes continue in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians protesting Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 December 2017

Palestinian demonstrators throw stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes near a checkpoint in the city centre of the West Bank town of #Hebron #Jerusalem Photo @hazemjbader1: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017

Clashes with Israeli forces near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as protests continue following the US president's controversial recognition of #Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Photo @Abbasmomani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017

Clashes with Israeli forces near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as protests continue following the US president's controversial recognition of #Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Photo @Abbasmomani @TomCOEX: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 December 2017

Son of Salam Rabaa, Palestinian owner of Rabaa restaurant, gestures with hand imitating poster of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, at venue entrance in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza strip on December 17, 2017. #GAZA #NORTHKOREA #ISRAEL Photo by

@mohmdabed/@AFPphoto: image via Amir Makar @amakar, 17 December 2017

So now the #US and #Israeli #UN mouthpiece #NikkiHaley is openly THREATENING sovereign, independent countries! "On Thurs there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names," she wrote on #Twitter, following her Führer, #Drumpfs example!: image via Damanda C_Palestine #amanda_damanda, 20 December 2017

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at U.N. Security Council meeting, where she vetoed a resolution seeking to rescind U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. December 18, 2017.: photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images, 18 December 2017

Haley Warns Diplomats on Jerusalem: Trump Is Watching You: “We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”: Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy, 19 December 2017

That was the message U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley emailed to scores of members of the U.N. who are weighing whether to vote Thursday in favor of a General Assembly resolution urging the United States to rescind its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“As you consider your vote, I want you to know that the President and U.S. take this vote personally,” Haley wrote in an email that was obtained by Foreign Policy. “The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”

Haley said the U.S. is not asking other countries to follow its lead and move their embassies to Jerusalem, “though we think it would be appropriate.”

The U.S. ambassador’s remarks follow President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reversing nearly seven decades of U.S. foreign policy and shattering the U.N. consensus that the status of Jerusalem would be settled as part of a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Trump’s decision drew expressions of condemnation from capitals around the world. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the president’s decision disqualified Washington as a Middle East mediator, saying “a crazy person wouldn’t accept” the United States as a peace broker after Trump’s announcement.

The tough rhetoric hinted that the United States was weighing retaliating against those who defy America’s wishes. But several diplomats said any such threat would likely be empty, as the vast majority of U.N. members, including close allies like Britain and France, are likely to vote yes.

The letter went out a day after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution, introduced by Egypt, that also urged the United States to reverse course, saying the decision by any government, including the United States, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would “have no legal effect” and is “null and void and must be rescinded.” The resolutions, which gained the support of all 14 other U.N. Security Council members, left the Americans diplomatically isolated.

The United States portrayed its decision as a purely sovereign matter that merely codified decades of congressional support for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

“At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more,” Haley tweeted Tuesday. “So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.”

In her letter to U.N. states, Haley noted that 22 years ago the U.S. Congress first declared “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel, and that the U.S. Embassy should be located in Jerusalem. President Trump affirmed that declaration by officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

The president’s decision, she noted, does “not prejudge final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.”

She also noted that the president still supports “the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites.”

U.N. diplomats saw Trump’s action as an affront to the United Nations and the rule of law, a blunt repudiation of 10 previous U.N. Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem adopted since 1967, including a 1980 resolution calling on states that had already established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them.

Haley’s letter dominated diplomatic chatter at U.N. receptions at the residences of the Finnish and Japanese ambassadors.

“This is just political theater,” said one ambassador.

“Cowboy diplomacy,” said another diplomat who considers himself a friend of Haley’s.

“What, is she saying, ‘I’m not your friend anymore?’”

Israeli policemen detain a Palestinian protestor after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 15, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 15 December 2017

Palestinians scuffle with Israeli police during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 11 December 2017

Israeli policemen detain a man in a street during a demonstration in east Jerusalem December 9, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad7: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 9 December 2017

Israeli border policemen and a Palestinian youth scuffle after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, as Palestinians call for a "day of rage" in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017

Reuters #AmmarAwad #Jerusalem: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 8 December 2017

A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City December 7, 2017. #REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017

#REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 7 December 2017

A general view shows part of Jerusalem's Old City and the Dome of the Rock December 5, 2017 REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 5 December 2017

People sit together next to a camel at the look-out point of Mount Olives opposite to the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem's Old City December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad: image via Ammar Awad @AmmarAwad7, 4 December 2017

Thomas Hardy: Nobody Comes

Early automotive headlamp equipped with Corning Conaphore lens: photo by Schweinwerfermann, 21 December 2007

.....Tree-leaves labour up and down,
..........And through them the fainting light
..........Succumbs to the crawl of night.
.....Outside in the road the telegraph wire
..........To the town from the darkening land
Intones to travelers like a spectral lyre
..........Swept by a spectral hand.

.....A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,
..........That flash upon a tree:
..........It has nothing to do with me,
.....And whangs along in a world of its own,
..........Leaving a blacker air;
And mute by the gate I stand again alone,
..... And nobody pulls up there.

.............................
9 October 1924

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Nobody Comes, from Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)

File:In Came Wood - geograph.org.uk - 621333.jpg

In Came Wood, Dorset. The bridleway towards Warren Barn runs for a short way inside Came Wood, a deciduous woodland: photo by Graham Horn, 19 November 2007

File:Bridleway towards Warren Barn - geograph.org.uk - 621354.jpg

Bridleway towards Warren Barn. The northern part of Came Wood is to the left. The bridleway drops to a minor valley before continuing towards Warren Barn. Arable land to the right: photo by Graham Horn, 19 November 2007

Dorset woodland: photo by cjb22, 28 December 2010

Mercy (cats of Osaka)

Cat's House [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 27 November 2017

Siesta [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Untitled [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 11 December 2017

Blind Cat [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Patrolling [Osaka]: photo by Masami Yamada, 3 December 2017

Alley: photo by Masami Yamada, 16 December 2017

Thomas Hardy: Neutral Tones

today the snow (edge of Heron Pond, Munroe Falls Metro Park, Summit County, Ohio): photo by wood_owl, 26 January 2014

We stood by a pond that winter day,

And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
        -- They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
         On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
         Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,
         And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Neutral Tones, 1867, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, horses graze in a paddock with fog enveloping the trees behind them, as seen from Leith Hill in Surrey, south west of London. Thick fog has caused numerous flight delays and cancellations at London Heathrow and other area airports. The Met Office issued a severe weather warning for London and most of southern England as driving conditions were also hazardous and slippery.: photo by Matt Dunham/AP, 23 January 2017

It would seem that the statue of #ThomasHardy in #Dorchester acquired a new hat last night...!: image via Summer Strevens @SummerStrevens, 30 November 2017

Thomas Hardy: I Said to Love

Woman at mirror, Seattle, 1930s: hand-colored slide, photographer unknown (Seattle Municipal Archives)

=        I said to Love,
'It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
         All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,'
         I said to Love.

         I said to him,
'We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
         With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,'
         I said to him.

         I said to Love,
'Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
         Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,'
         I said to Love.

         'Depart then, Love! . . .
-- Man's race shall perish, threatenest thou,
Without thy kindling coupling-vow?
The age to come the man of now
         Know nothing of? --

We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease. -- So let it be,'
         I said to Love.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): I Said to Love, from Poems of the Past and the Present, 1901

Couple in living room, Seattle, 1930s: hand-colored slide, photographer unknown (Seattle Municipal Archives)

Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Idylls_of_the_King_3.jpg

Camelot: Gustave Doré, illustration in Lord Alfred Tennyson: Idylls of the King, 1868: image by Holger Thölking, 2 April 2006

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening....

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,

As far inland as Stourton Tower,

And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

File:Stonehenge with farm carts, c. 1885.jpg

Ground view of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, with two farm carts, two horses and men: photographer unknown, c. 1885; image scan by Moonraker, 16 June 2011

10th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, marches past Stonehenge, winter 1914-1915: photographer unknown (Library and Archives Canada)

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King Alfred's Tower in Brewham, Somerset, near Stourhead, Wiltshire. View of the entrance from the southeast: photo by Interesting wiki, 7 November 2007

Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing, April 1914, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Channel Firing is another Hardy poem that begins with an immediate experienced moment: the sound of naval gunfire from the British Grand Fleet, conducting gunnery exercises in the Channel. The poet's home in Dorchester was only a few miles from the coast, and if, in the poem, the big guns' roar is loud enough to wake the dead, the reverberation seems to have also been enough to keep the septuagenarian poet from sleeping. All those ghosts, past and to come. This historically premonitory poem was writ a few months before the outbreak of hostilities, and broadens out in implication, as it goes along, from history to a fantasia of prehistory to myth -- Stourton Tower, Camelot, Stonehenge, increasingly remote realms. It has a way of continuing to echo. The awakened graveyard inhabitants were to witness the sacrifice of an entire generation of young men, soon coming to join them in their restless place.

Thomas Hardy: In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"

#China Sheep walk in a field between Karamay and Urumqi. Photo @franck_fife #agriculture: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 July 2017

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

III

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): In Time of "The Breaking of Nations", first published in Saturday Review, January 1916; collected in Late Lyrics and Earlier, 1922

#China A tractor is seen in a field between Karamay and Urumqi. Photo @franck_fife #agriculture: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 July 2017

Thomas Hardy: Afterwards

01671. concentrated cornish coloration hues (flock of starlings... I think): photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 9 November 2007

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,

"He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
   Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
   "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
   And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
   "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Afterwards, from Moments of Vision, 1917

01719. concentrated cornish coloration hues: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 26 November 2007

02155. this land: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 28 March 2008

01765. concentrated cornish coloration hues: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 7 December 2007

Thomas Hardy: The Walk

File:Crumbling Rusey Cliff - geograph.org.uk - 437355.jpg

Crumbling Rusey Cliff, 3 km from Tresparett, Cornwall: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

You did not walk with me

Of late to the hill-top tree

    By the gated ways,

    As in earlier days;

    You were weak and lame,

    So you never came,

And I went alone, and I did not mind,

Not thinking of you as left behind.

I walked up there to-day

Just in the former way;

    Surveyed around

    The familiar ground

    By myself again:

    What difference, then?

Only that underlying sense

Of the look of a room on returning thence.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): The Walk from Poems of 1912-1913, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914)

I rode my pretty mare Fanny and he walked by my side and I showed him some more of the neighbourhood -- the cliffs, along the roads, and through the scattered hamlets, sometimes gazing down at the solemn small shores below where the seals lived, coming out of great caverns very occasionally. We sketched and talked of books: often we walked down the beautiful Valency Valley to Bodcastle harbour where we had to jump over stones and climb over a low rail by rough steps, or get through by narrow pathways to come out on great wide spaces suddenly, with a sparkling little brook going the same way, into which we once lost a tiny picnic tumbler, and there it is to this day no doubt between two small boulders.

-- Emma Hardy: from Some Recollections, ed. Evelyn Hardy and Robert Gittings, 1961

Not till his first wife had died could Hardy's love poetry for her have been written, and then it was mixed with a flood of regret and remorse for what he had lost. This kind of paradox is inseparable from poetic creation, and indeed from life altogether. At times it almost appears a sort of basic insincerity in human affection. At others it seems a flaw built deeply into the working of the emotions, creating an inevitable bias in life towards unhappiness.

-- Philip Larkin: from Mrs Hardy's Memories, 1962, in Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 (1982)

St Juliot: ford through the river Valency. On a side road from Tresparrett to Lesnewth: photo by Martin Bodman, May 1997

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Beeny Cliff, looking down the steep steps to Seals Hole: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

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Beeny Cliff. Looking north along the cliffside from a point on the coast path just above Seals Hole: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009

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A Long Way Down. If you approach High Cliff on the coast path from the south the ascent is very steep indeed: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009

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Coastal footpath at North Lodge junction. We met these birders who were watching a Peregrine falcon: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

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Buckator Cliff and Gull Rock. Sheer black cliffs on the westwards facing headland: photo by Tony Atkin, 13 September 2009

Gull Rock and Buckator Cliff: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

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Voter Run. Amazing folded rocks just like molten toffee: photo by Jon Coupland, 18 May 2007

Thomas Hardy: At Castle Boterel

New Road, Boscastle, Cornnwall, ca. 1895: photochrome print by Photoglob Zürich, between 1890 and 1910; image by trialsanderrors (Library of Congress)

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
   And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
   And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
         Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
   In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
   To ease the sturdy pony’s load
         When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
   Matters not much, nor to what it led, ―
Something that life will not be balked of
   Without rude reason till hope is dead,
         And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
   A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill’s story ? To one mind never,
   Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
         By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,
   And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;
   But what they record in colour and cast
         Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
   In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
   Remains on the slope, as when that night
         Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
   I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
   And I shall traverse old love’s domain
         Never again.

Thomas Hardy: At Castle Boterel, March 1913, from Poems of 1912-13, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914)

In Boscastle (Kastell Boterel), Cornwall: photo by Dietrich Krieger, 25 May 2010

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Boscastle from Penally Hill. The centre of Bascastle viewed from the coast path on Penally Hill photo by Phillip Halling, 29 September 2009

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Boscastle: the village from Penally Point. A view up the Valency valley from the west: photo by Chris Downer, 25 August 2009

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Boscastle. Looking down on Boscastle from the coast path above the harbour: photo by Tony Atkin, 7 September 2009

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Boscastle. From Penally Point: photo by Rob Taylor, 24 July 2003

Merlin's Cave viewed from Barras Nose. With the bridge across to Tintagel Castle to the left: photo by Trevor Rickard, September 1986

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Barras Nose. Barras Nose is one of the many promontories on this coastline: photo by Tony Atkin, 7 September 2009

File:Quartz on the cliff, Boscastle - geograph.org.uk - 1325045.jpg

Quartz on the cliff, Boscastle. The quartz is found as veins in the slate, and occasionally in what appear to be large chunks, but in some cases at least there is only a veneer of quartz over the slate. In effect, these are exposed veins: photo by Humphrey Bolton, 7 May 2009

8 comments:

TC20 December 2017 at 19:56
Marcel Khalife: They stopped me at the border

They stopped me at the border, asking for my I.D.
I told them, "It's in Jaffa, my grandmother's hiding it"

And with these words, the group split in two
One half carried whips, the other asked, “Where is it?”
"In Palestine," I cried, and they split me in two
One half at the border, one half in my grandmother’s breast

They stopped me at the border, asking for my I.D.
I told them, "It's in Jaffa, my grandmother's hiding it"

Oh grandmother, hiding who knows where,
Hide my ID, hide it in some wall
They want to burn it, wipe it from the world
Oh clouds of my country, don’t rain on them

They stopped me at the border, asking for my I.D.
I told them, "It's in Jaffa, my grandmother is hiding it"

Marcel Khalife (b. 1950, Lebanon), They stopped me at the border, 1980

Marcel Khalife: They stopped me at the border, live in Jordan, 1980s
ReplyDelete
Replies
TC21 December 2017 at 05:25
UN to vote on Jerusalem amid accusations of bullying by Trump

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu denounces United Nation as ‘house of lies’, amid last ditch efforts by US and Israel to head off opposition

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem

Thu 21 Dec ‘17 06.52 EST

Donald Trump’s threat to cut US funding to countries that oppose his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in a UN vote on Thursday has set the scene for confrontation with countries already bridling over the president’s approach.

Amid accusations of bullying and blackmail, the US and Israel have continued their furious efforts to persuade countries to back Trump’s position, amid predictions that more than 150 of the 193 countries in the general assembly could vote against the US.

Trump made his threat to cut US funding on Wednesday as he gave his wholehearted support to his UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, who had sent members a letter warning that the US would be “taking names” of those who opposed it.

The draft resolution reaffirms 10 security council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including requirements that the city’s final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

It also “demands that all states comply with security council resolutions regarding the holy city of Jerusalem, and not to recognise any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions”.

In an indication of the scale of defeat anticipated, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, launched a pre-emptive attack denouncing the UN as a “house of lies” on Thursday morning.

“The state of Israel rejects this vote outright,” Netanyahu said. “Jerusalem is our capital, we will continue to build there and additional embassies will move to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, whether or not the UN recognises this. It took 70 years for the United States to formally recognise this, and it will take years for the UN to do the same.”

The Israeli foreign ministry had earlier described the country’s frantic diplomatic efforts as “very vast”.

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TC21 December 2017 at 05:29
[Peter Beaumont cont.]

Thursday’s emergency general assembly session is as much a vote on the US’s claim to international leadership under Trump as on the fraught issue of Jerusalem.

In a sign of the uphill struggle the US and Israel face, King Salman of Saudi Arabia – a country frequently held up as the model for warming relations in the Arab world with Israel – announced he continued to support the idea of East Jerusalem as a future capital of a Palestinian state.
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While Trump’s threat was seen in the Middle East – including Israel – as being aimed at US allies such as Jordan and Egypt, who each receive more than $1bn in American aid and are expected to vote against the US, observers are sceptical whether Trump could follow through on his threat.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed the hope that the world would teach “a good lesson” to the US, adding that Trump could not buy Turkey’s vote “with your dollars”.

“We are expecting big numbers supporting the resolution,” one Palestinian official who has been tracking the votes said on Thursday morning. “Perhaps somewhere around 160 in favour. What we are hearing is that Nikki Haley’s letter has had a very good impact for us.”

Trump went further than Haley on Wednesday, saying Americans were tired of being taken advantage of. “For all these nations, they take our money and then vote against us. They take hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. We’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us.”

Supporters of the resolution expect Canada to vote with the US and Israel, and there has been speculation that Australia might abstain. A UN diplomat said Hungary and the Czech Republic might also bow to US pressure.

Diplomats expressed their anger at the Trump administration’s tactics. “No honourable state would bow to such pressure,” said Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. “The world has changed. The belief that ‘I am strong therefore I am right’ has changed. The world today is revolting against injustices.”

Among other countries to have been critical of Trump and Haley’s comments is Bolivia, which has a security council seat. “The first name that she should write down is Bolivia,” its UN ambassador, Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz, said of Haley’s message. “We regret the arrogance and disrespect to the sovereign decision of member states and to multilateralism.”

Trump’s comments have also attracted criticism in the US. Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, tweeted: “Our government should not use its leadership at the UN to bully/blackmail other nations that stand for religious liberty and justice in Jerusalem. Justice is a core value of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.”

Israel has been trying to garner support for the US’s stance, with its deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, saying that both the US and Israel are making “immense efforts” to block Thursday’s resolution.

Despite the tenor of the Trump administration’s public comments over the president’s recognition of Jerusalem, behind the scenes there has been a recognition that the unpopularity of the move – which has led to a Palestinian refusal to meet US peace mediators – will necessitate a cooling-off period, according to a senior US official.
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TC21 December 2017 at 09:51
UN votes resoundingly to reject Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as capital

The United Nations body’s debate and vote highlighted for a second time in a week the international isolation of the United States over the Jerusalem issue
Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem

Thu 21 Dec ‘17 12.23 EST

The United Nations general assembly has delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump, voting by a huge majority to reject his unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The vote came after a redoubling of threats by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who said that Washington would remember which countries “disrespected” America by voting against it.

Despite the warning, 128 members voted in favour of the resolution in support of the long-standing international consensus that the status of Jerusalem – which is claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital – can only be settled as an agreed final issue in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Although largely symbolic, the vote in emergency session of the world body had been the focus of days of furious diplomacy by both the Trump administration and Israel, including Trump’s threat to cut US funding to countries that did not back the US recognition.

But on Thursday, only nine states – including the United States and Israel voted against the resolution.

35 countries abstained, including Canada – which Palestinian officials had expected would support the US position. Ambassadors from several abstaining countries, including Mexico, used their time on the podium to criticise Trump’s unilateral move.

Another 21 delegations were absent from the vote, suggesting the Trump’s warning over funding cuts and Israel’s lobbying may have had some effect.

While support for the resolution was somewhat less than Palestinian officials had hoped, the meagre tally of just nine votes in support of the US and Israeli position was a serious diplomatic blow for Trump.

Immediately after the vote Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas described the result as a “victory for Palestine”.
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TC21 December 2017 at 09:52
[Beaumont on UN vote, cont.]

Speaking to the assembly before the vote, Haley – who earlier in the week told members that the US “would be taking names” – returned to the offensive.

“I must also say today: When we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have expectation that we will be respected,” she said. “What’s more, we are being asked to pay for the dubious privileges of being disrespected.”

Haley added: “If our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our investment in other ways… The United States will remember this day.”

In his own speech Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said UN members who backed the resolution were being manipulated. “You are like puppets pulled by your Palestinian masters,” he told the session.

While Thursday’s resolution was in support of existing UN resolutions on Jerusalem and the peace process, the clumsy intervention by Trump and Haley also made the vote a referendum on Trump’s often unilateral and abrasive foreign policy.

The debate and vote highlighted for a second time in a week the international isolation of the United States over the Jerusalem issue, following a vote in the security council on Tuesday over the same issue in which it was outnumbered 14-1.
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The threatening US posture, which had been denounced as both counter-productive and “bullying”, only seemed to have hardened the resolve of countries in opposing Trump’s 6 December move.

The resolution, co-sponsored by Turkey and Yemen, called Trump’s recognition “null and void” and reaffirmed 10 security council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including requirements that the city’s final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
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It also “demands that all states comply with security council resolutions regarding the holy city of Jerusalem, and not to recognise any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions”.

Earlier on Thursday, as it had become clear that the US and Israel would be heavily defeated, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pre-emtively denounced the vote calling the UN a “house of lies.”

“The state of Israel rejects this vote outright,” Netanyahu said. “Jerusalem is our capital, we will continue to build there and additional embassies will move to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, whether or not the UN recognises this. It took 70 years for the United States to formally recognise this, and it will take years for the UN to do the same.”

Michael Oren, Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy, called for Israel to cut its ties with the UN and expel the organisation from its Jerusalem offices.

“We must evict the UN from the scenic Governor’s House, where its bloated staff does nothing, and give this historic site to a school, a hospital or – best yet – a new US embassy.”
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TC21 December 2017 at 09:58
Jon Williams‏Verified account @WilliamsJon
12m12 minutes ago

Applause breaks out as #UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to condemn US recognition of #Jerusalem as capital of #Israel.
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TC21 December 2017 at 10:07
Right, Mr and Mrs and Ms USA, but that shiny redribbon-wrapt new shitmobile waiting for you in your driveway xmas morning in all those lying warm and fuzzy tv ads -- it's your present to... YOURSELF!!

Of course you don't want any of that discretionary money given to all those desperate poor countries, they're such ingrates, you can't even buy their votes any more!

Let's play the Israeli way, our ball, our game, our rules, or we quit!
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TC21 December 2017 at 10:15
BTW, respects to PB, but to be fair, this sentence -

Benjamin Netanyahu pre-emtively denounced the vote calling the UN a “house of lies.”

- is missing one thing.

A "p".
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