EU Rebuffs Netanyahu’s Call for Recognizing Al-Quds as Israeli Capital

US President Donald Trump has announced his decision on Wednesday to recognize al-Quds as Israeli regime's capital and relocate American embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds, where Palestinians consider as permanent capital of their state.

The provocative move, that broke with decades of US policy and international consensus that the city’s status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks, has triggered fierce protests around the world and even Washington and Tel Aviv's close allies condemned the decision, arguing that such a step risks inflaming violence and further wrecking the chance for peace.

According to Reuters, after a breakfast meeting between Netanyahu and EU foreign ministers, Sweden’s top diplomat said no European at the closed-door meeting had voiced support for Trump’s decision, and no country was likely to follow the United States in announcing plans to move its embassy.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, took his own case to Egypt on Monday and was expected to fly to Turkey for a meeting of Muslim countries this week, cementing support from leaders who say the US move was a dire error.

The Palestinian president, Abbas, met Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in Cairo, as well as the head of the Arab League.

Moving the U. embassy in Israel to al-Quds would have “dangerous effects on peace and security in the region”, Sisi said on Monday at an earlier meeting with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Abbas was also due to fly to Turkey. Trump’s announcement has triggered a war of words between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Netanyahu.

On Sunday, Erdogan called Israel a “terror state”. Netanyahu responded by saying he would accept no moral lectures from Erdogan who he accused of bombing Kurdish villages, jailing opponents and supporting terrorists.

On Monday Erdogan took aim directly at Washington over Trump’s move: “The ones who made al-Quds a dungeon for Muslims and members of other religions will never be able to clean the blood from their hands,” he said in a speech in Ankara. “With their decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States has become a partner in this bloodshed.”

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, in a phone call with the leader of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, on Monday, also condemned the "insulting" move by the US President saying it was a vicious plan against Palestine and the Muslim world.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns this US move. This incorrect move further revealed the nature of the US and Zionist regime [of Israel] to the world and showed that they do not want to officially recognize the Palestinian people's rights at all," the Iranian president said.

Commander of Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani also phoned on Monday commanders of Hamas' military wing, Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades and the Islamic Jihad resistance movement to reaffirm the Islamic Republic's full support for Palestinian cause.

In Beirut, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest American leader's decision.

Secretary General of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told the crowd by video link the resistance movement, after defeating terrorists in Syria and Iraq, was turning its focus back toward the fight against Palestinian case.

“I speak today in the name of all the resistance axis – people, states, and factions – the resistance axis has overcome the previous phase and today, it stands strong and victorious as it is finishing its battles and defeating the US and Israeli elements, and now Palestine, its people, and al-Quds will return to be its top priority.”

The Hezbollah leader noted that the decision by Trump to formally recognize al-Quds as the capital of Israeli regime has made the US and White House isolated in the world.

Sayyed Nasrallah added that Trump believed that after announcement of his decision on al-Quds, the entire world would stand in line to follow suit, but all reactions from across the world, including European, Asian and American countries were the opposite of what he expected.

He pointed to massive protest rallies held in all countries across the world, including in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, the Hezbollah leader thanked all participants, inviting them to continue their protests in all manners possible, including through the cyberspace and on social media.