Palestinian president says Trump’s policy shift on Jerusalem is 'sinful'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blasted Donald Trump again on Wednesday in a fiery and emotional speech, saying the US leader's decision to recognise contested Jerusalem as Israel's capital was "sinful" and "ill-fated."

Abbas slated Trump openly over his policies in an international conference that kicked off in Egypt on Wednesday, amid an outcry in the Muslim world over last month's US decision to recognise the holy city as Israel's capital.

Officials and figures from around 86 countries are attending the two-day conference, which is organised by the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Dr Ahmed al Tayeb, which is the highest seat of learning in the Sunni Muslim world. 

The conference will focus on the ways of providing support for preserving the Palestinian and Arab identity of the holy city. 

Tayeb also described Trump's Jerusalem decision as "unjust," and said it must be countered by a revival of awareness of the Palestinian question.

On December 6, US President Donald Trump officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.

Some Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The US policy shift has triggered outcry in the Arab and Muslim world and a wave of protests in the Palestinian lands that left at least 16 people dead.

Abbas said that US has disqualified itself from continuing as a broker in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, a role America has had for decades.

US embassy move 

Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he was certain the US Embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem sometime this year, much sooner than Trump administration officials have estimated.

Netanyahu told Israeli reporters traveling with him in India that his "solid assessment" is that the American embassy "will be moved far faster than what we think ... in the course of the year."

American officials have said it's unlikely the embassy in Jerusalem would open before the end of Trump's term in office.

A long-time opponent of violence, Abbas said the Palestinians "will continue to peacefully pursue our demands until we win back our rights."

"Jerusalem will be a gate for peace only if it is Palestine's capital, and it will be a gate of war, fear and the absence of security and stability, God forbid, if it is not," Abbas said.

 "It's the gate for peace and war and President Trump must choose between the two," he added.

Abbas was to meet later Wednesday with President Abdel Fattah el Sisi. Egypt is the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Jerusalem "is our eternal capital, to which we belong, just as it belongs to us," said Abbas. 

He also renewed his call on Arabs and Muslims to visit Jerusalem, assuring would-be visitors that such visits would not amount to "normalisation" with Israel.

"Visiting the prisoner does not mean normalisation with the jailor," he said.

"Don't abandon us," he pleaded, "Visits by Muslims, Arabs and Christians lend support to the city, amount to the protection of its holy sites and give support to its (Arab) residents."