A majority of the newspapers from across the world took a dim view of the US policy shift to recognise occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Washington Post called President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as a big risk to take for the scoring of political points. “As a practical matter, West Jerusalem has been the seat of Israeli government since 1949. Political leaders and diplomats from around the world already visit government offices there, even if their embassies remain in Tel Aviv. As Trump put it, for the United States finally to accept that the Jewish state has its capital in occupied Jerusalem is “nothing more or less than a recognition of reality.” At the same time, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had good reasons for holding back on such a move, even though they, like Trump, had promised while on the campaign trail to move the US Embassy to occupied Jerusalem. They calculated that what amounted to a mostly symbolic step could undermine US policy across the Middle East as well as their hopes of brokering an Israeli-Palestinian settlement — and possibly trigger violence, including against Americans. Trump cast himself as setting aside failed conventional wisdom — he pointed out there has been no peace deal — and of offering a fresh approach,” the paper noted.

In a scathing editorial, The Observer wrote that Trump’s manifest unfitness for the highest office edges the world ever closer to conflict. “The result has been an act of hallucinatory statecraft, divorced from Trump’s foreign policy ambitions, as dangerously one-sided and counterproductive as it was unilateral. If it is unsurprising, it is only because in the last year the world has become used to Trump’s way of doing business like the reality TV star he was, whose hallmarks are a lack of patience, dishonesty, ignorance and boastfulness. In recent weeks, since Trump’s retweeting of Britain First, the British prime minister, Theresa May, and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, have begun to distance themselves belatedly from the president, a man whose dangerous instincts were always obvious.”

The Financial Times called Trump’s decision to go ahead with a campaign promise to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital an act of diplomatic vandalism. “It is the more curious for the likelihood that no one will benefit from it, or at least no one interested in peace — not even Trump himself. He has united almost everyone against him, including his closest allies in the region, provoked outrage among Muslims, provided fuel for extremists and, not for the first time, diminished America in the eyes of the world. Most of all, by taking sides on an issue central to the Israel-Palestine conflict Trump has exploded any residual notion that Washington can act as honest broker. The status of Jerusalem has always been a ticking time bomb. The fear now is that the US president has lit the fuse,” the paper warned.

Predicting that the occupied Jerusalem gambit will risk triggering another cycle of protests and repression in the Occupied Territories, The Hindu editorialised, “ The peace process is not going anywhere, while Israel has gradually been tightening its occupation and building new settlements. Hamas has already called for a third intifada. In the longer term, Mr. Trump has just made the two-state solution more complicated. The Israeli-Palestine conflict can be settled only after an agreement is reached on the status of Jerusalem. The city was not part of Israel in the original 1947 UN plan to partition Palestine. Jerusalem, which was supposed to be ruled by an international trusteeship, was conquered by Israel. This is why the UN has not recognised it as Israel’s capital. With his latest announcement, Mr. Trump has endorsed the occupation. And in doing so, he has undermined the US’ position as a neutral broker in Israeli-Palestinian talks. In short, he has dealt a blow to the peace process.”