Following Trump's lead, Guatemala to move embassy to Jerusalem

Agencies
December 25, 2017

Guatemala City, Dec 25: Guatemala is to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, President Jimmy Morales has said, following US President Donald Trump's controversial lead on the holy city.

After speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Morales wrote to Guatemalans on his Facebook page that "one of the most important topics was the return of Guatemala's embassy to Jerusalem," from Tel Aviv where it is currently located.

"For this reason I am informing you that I have given instructions to the foreign ministry that it start the necessary respective coordination to make this happen," Morales wrote.

Guatemala's leader made the announcement on Christmas Eve, three days after two-thirds of UN member states rejected Trump's decision to have the United States recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

In all, 128 nations voted to maintain the international consensus that Jerusalem's status can only be decided through peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Only eight countries stood with the United States in voting no to the resolution held in the UN General Assembly, among them Guatemala and fellow Central American country Honduras.

Guatemala and Honduras are both reliant on US funding to improve security in their gang-ridden territories.

The two nations are, along with El Salvador, in what is known as the Northern Triangle of Central America. Violence, corruption and poverty have made them the main source of illegal migration to the United States, which is giving them USD 750 million to provide better conditions at home.

Morales, like Trump, was a television entertainer with no real political experience before becoming president of Guatemala in 2016.

On Friday, Morales foreshadowed the decision he was to make regarding Jerusalem, as he defended his government's vote at the UN backing the United States.

"Guatemala is historically pro-Israeli," he told a news conference in Guatemala City.

"In 70 years of relations, Israel has been our ally," he said.

"We have a Christian way of thinking that, as well as the politics of it, has us believing that Israel is our ally and we must support it. Despite us only being nine in the world (in the UN vote), we have the total certainty and conviction that this is the right path."

Morales's position has become fragile in recent months because of allegations of corruption against him being investigated by a special UN-backed body working with Guatemalan prosecutors.

The United States ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, had said her country would "take names" of the states opposing its position, and Trump threatened to cut funding to countries "that take our money and then vote against us."

Several significant US allies abstained from the UN vote, among them Australia, Canada, Mexico and Poland.

Others, such as Britain, France, Germany and South Korea were in the majority of 128 nations denouncing any unilateral decision to view Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The eight countries on the US side of the vote were: Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.

Following the US decision on Jerusalem, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said he would "no longer accept" any peace plan proposed by the US, dealing a pre-emptive blow to a new initiative expected by Washington next year.

Trump has tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had no prior experience in government, with spearheading the complicated peace plan efforts.

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News Network
April 27,2024

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"I always wanted to be in a bar fight," said a US police official after pinning a Black man down on the ground and kneeling on his neck. The man later died at a hospital.

Ohio Police have come under intense scrutiny following the release of body camera footage showing officers pinning a Black man to the ground in a bar, reminiscent of the events that led to George Floyd's death in 2020.

The video, released by the Canton Police Department, captured the moments leading up to the death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old man suspected of leaving the scene of a single-car accident on April 18.

In the footage, officers are seen confronting Tyson inside a bar, where an altercation quickly ensues. Despite Tyson's pleas for help and his repeated cries of "I can't breathe," officers wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him, with one officer applying pressure to his back near his neck while saying, "You're fine." 

Tyson continues to plead for relief while lying on the floor. After several minutes, officers notice his lack of responsiveness and proceed to administer CPR. Paramedics arrive on the scene and transport Tyson to a local hospital, where he later dies.

In the body cam footage, one police officer can be heard bragging about how he always wanted to be in a "bar fight" with one of the patrons of the establishment. 

The circumstances surrounding Tyson's death draw chilling parallels to George Floyd's fatal encounter with Minneapolis Police in 2020 which sparked global outrage. 

The officers involved in Tyson's case, identified as Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch, have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. 

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News Network
April 29,2024

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At least 900 protesters have been arrested since the launch of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses across the US, where students are raging against the Israeli regime’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.

The Washington Post reported the tally on Sunday, the 10th straight day of the protests that began after Columbia University set up an encampment to demand cessation of the war and press the school to divest from Israeli financial interests.

The crackdown then started when university authorities called in the police, a move that sparked more than 100 arrests on the university’s Manhattan campus.

Two other highlights in the crackdown saw police forces rounding up roughly the same number of people at New York University and Emerson College in Boston.

Protests have also erupted across numerous other seats of learning, including Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and California State Polytechnic in Humboldt.

The ensuing countrywide counter-campaign of suppression has seen law enforcement resorting to riot control methods against the protesters.

The methods have featured “the same tools and tactics” that were deployed to confront the thousands-strong protests that sparked across the country after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd four years ago, the daily reported.

“At Emory University last week, Atlanta police said officers used ‘chemical irritants’ to clear an encampment, and a Georgia State Patrol officer was captured on video using a stun gun to subdue a man on the ground,” it said.

Academics have, meanwhile, been banding together throughout the US under the banner of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP).

Earlier in April, the FSJP’s Georgia chapter called on Morehouse College in Atlanta, which invited Joe Biden as its 2024 commencement speaker, to rescind its invitation as a means of objecting to the president’s role in enabling the Israeli genocide.

At Biden’s behest, the United States has been providing the Israeli war with unreserved military and intelligence support.

The US has also vetoed several United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in the brutal military onslaught that has so far claimed the lives of at least 34,454 Gazans, mostly women and children.

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News Network
April 24,2024

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Pro-Gaza US protesters in New York's Columbia University say they will stay put despite the university's harassment and police crackdown.

The protesters said they refuse to concede to "cowardly threats and blatant intimidation" by university administration, asserting that they will continue to peacefully protest.

Columbia University threatened the students with the national guard after refusing to bargain in good faith.

The university announced a midnight deadline for talks regarding the removal of pro-Palestine encampments on the varsity campus, warning that their campsite will be forcefully cleared by police if no agreement is reached.

The university campus is being used as a campsite for hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters and other activists, who have gathered and set up numerous tents.

Pro-Palestinian protests at colleges have demanded that their universities divest from corporations doing business with Israel or profiting off the war in Gaza. At Columbia, protesters have also asked the university to end a dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University.

The deadline was announced by Columbia University President Minouche Shafik late Tuesday, as authorities across major American universities have launched their repression campaigns against the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, amid rising anger over US's support for Israel. 

Shafik has issued a midnight deadline to protesters and organizers, warning that failure to comply will result in the forcible clearance of the camp by the New York Police Department (NYPD).

The university has engaged in discussions with student leaders behind the protests, which are part of a series of protests taking place at various colleges nationwide and resulting in multiple arrests.

The purpose of these talks is to address the encampment on the west lawn of Columbia's Morningside Heights campus.

American universities are grappling with the challenge of maintaining a delicate balance between the right to protest and freedom of speech, while also ensuring campus rules and safety, as tensions surrounding the ongoing war in Gaza continue to permeate across campuses.

Meanwhile, Shafik underscored the importance of free speech and the right to demonstrate, but highlighted significant safety issues, disruptions to campus activities, and a strained environment due to the encampment. She firmly stated that any form of intimidation, harassment, or discrimination would not be accepted.

The arrest of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University last week led to more campus demonstrations, at New York University, Yale, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Palestinian university professor Sami al-Arian said what is happening across US university campuses is unprecedented.

Al-Arian said, "I lived four decades in the US, 28 years of which were in academic settings. During my time, it was a very challenging struggle to present an anti-Zionist narrative."

"But the passion, courage, humanity, creativity, and determination displayed these days by students across US campuses make me proud. The Zionist grip on US society is weakening and waning."

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