“Trump’s Jerusalem decision is a wake-up call to all who want justice for Palestine,” said Stein, the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections.
Stein further reiterated the need for stronger efforts by the international community to enforce the BDS movement. “More than ever we must build the boycott-divest-sanction movement to stop the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people,” she said.
The US president last Wednesday defied global warnings, and said Washington formally recognizes Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel, and will begin the process of moving its embassy to the occupied city, breaking with decades of American policy despite widespread international opposition.
In anticipation of Trump’s move, 151 members of the UN General Assembly voted last week to adopt a rare resolution that denounced Israel as the “occupying power” of Jerusalem al-Quds, a city that is holy to Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike.
The city has seen heightened tensions since 2015, when the Israeli military introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site.
Over 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli soldiers ever since.
Trump announced late on Wednesday that he would relocate the US diplomatic mission in Israel, a decision that the US Congress made in 1995 but all of his successors have deferred ever since.
Israel lays claim to the entirety of al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital while Palestinians want its Eastern part as the capital of a future state for themselves.
Palestinian leaders have warned that the potential relocation would fuel strong reaction in the region and deliver a death blow to any prospect of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump’s move which overturns decades of US foreign policy has triggered a fresh wave of unrest in the Middle East.