AMMAN: The controversial closure of the US diplomatic mission which has served Jerusalem for more than 175 years was on Monday branded a “political assault” on the Palestinian people.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman officially shuttered the consulate by thanking its Consul General Karen Sasahara for her “service and professionalism” and wishing her well representing America in her next posting.

“This decision was driven by our global efforts to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our diplomatic engagements and operations,” a US State Department spokesman said in a statement.

The three-story Jerusalem mansion, with its arched windows and bougainvillea-covered walls, was where the unofficial US envoy to the Palestinians lived and hosted Palestinian guests for Fourth of July parties.

The estate will now become the domain of the US ambassador to Israel, a move which has been criticized in many quarters.

Hanna Issa, secretary-general of the Islamic-Christian Commission to Support Jerusalem and the Holy Sites, told Arab News that the lowering of American diplomatic representation to Palestine was a continuation of discriminatory US policy.

“The attempts to merge the US consulate with the embassy is a contradiction of international law and specifically UN Security Council resolution 478 (one of several UN resolutions condemning Israel’s attempted annexation of East Jerusalem) of 1980,” said Issa.

Issa said the real purpose behind the US decision was to obliterate the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. 

In a statement issued on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said that the merging of the consulate with the embassy “is not an administrative decision. It is an act of political assault on Palestinian rights and identity, and a negation of the consulate’s historic status and function, dating back nearly 200 years.”

Speaking to National Public Radio former US diplomat Ed Abington, who served in Jerusalem, noted that historically the position of Washington had been that the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem “should not be merged.”

Abington said that “the effect on our ability to deal with the Palestinians is being greatly damaged.”

Jerusalem-based Israeli lawyer Daniel Seidemann told Arab News that the closure of the consulate was no mere merger. 

“The consulate will not merge, but it will be subsumed into the embassy to Israel,” Seidemann said. “This is no mere technicality, it precisely reflects current US policies: All things Palestinian are subservient to Israeli interests.”

The US decision has been met with a storm of opposition from a wide spectrum of American diplomats.

Former US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns called it “a mistake,” and said that all US presidents prior to Donald Trump had “understood its importance as our bridge to the Palestinian people. I was proud to serve there in the 1980s.”

Dennis Ross, chief US negotiator with both Republican and Democratic administrations, criticized the move as “unfortunate” noting that the Palestinian public would read it “as a sign of indifference to them.” 

Ross said that the US administration needed to take steps “to reach out to Palestinians if it is to have any hope for its plan.”

Hady Amr, a US researcher who worked in the Jerusalem consulate, said in a personal tweet that he was pained by the decision. “My heart is heavy. America should be playing the taps. A place I was honored to work out of during many trips in support of Secretary John Kerry (former US Secretary of State).”

Amr and security expert Ilan Goldenberg prepared a study for the Washington-based research group Brookings Institution which concluded that “merging units sounds efficient. But this merger does major harm to the US ability to act as a mediator in the conflict and serves as a severe blow to the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace through a two-state solution.” 

Jake Walles, a former consul general in Jerusalem, called the closure “a sad end to an important US diplomatic mission.”

Israeli journalist Noa Landau tweeted that shutting the US consulate would have a negative effect on reporting about Jewish settlements. 

“Reports about construction in new settlements will now be overseen by Ambassador Friedman, a longtime supporter of the settlement enterprise.”

US President John Tyler was the first consul general in Jerusalem in 1844. 

The first physical presence of a US mission there was inside Jaffa Gate in the old city of Jerusalem, a building that is now being used for Christian Swedes. 

The mission then moved to Prophet Street outside the old city, and in 1912 it was moved to its current location on 18 Agron Street in a building that was established in 1868 by the German Lutheran missionary Ferdinand Vester, whose family would later build what became the American Colony. 

The US also rented another building in 1951 on Nablus Road and this was kept as a US consular building until September 2010.

JERUSALEM: The United States has deployed its advanced THAAD missile defense system temporarily to Israel for a joint military exercise, the first of its kind, officials said Monday.
The two countries confirmed the deployment, with Israel’s military stressing it was “not related to any specific current event.”
It is the first such exercise in Israel, although the two allies hold regular joint war games. No dates have been announced for the maneuvers.
Israel has its own missile defense system, but the exercise aims in part to examine how to incorporate THAAD so that “we are ready for any challenges in the future,” military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.
It will also allow the US military to practice the rapid deployment of THAAD across the globe, officials said.
“We see this as an opportunity to practice the integration of advanced American air defense systems into the Israeli air force air defense array,” Conricus told journalists.
“The THAAD system is considered to be one of the most advanced of its kind in the world,” the Israeli spokesman said.
The exercise with THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, involves more than 200 US military personnel and its components include radars and launching systems, Conricus said.
Components and personnel have come from the United States and Italy, Conricus said.
The THAAD will be deployed in southern Israel, but officials declined to say specifically where and for how long.
Israel’s enemies in the region include Iran and Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah, both of which are supporting President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria.
THAAD is capable of destroying short, medium and intermediate-range missiles.
In 2017, the US government approved its sale to Saudi Arabia, providing Riyadh with state-of-the-art capabilities that could thwart an Iranian rocket attack.
It had already been supplied to Saudi Arabia’s neighbors Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Its deployment by the US military in South Korea as defense against North Korean drew protests from Beijing, which feared its sensors would be capable of penetrating Chinese air space and upset the balance of power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the joint exercise, calling it “additional testimony to the commitment of the US to the security of Israel.”

ISTANBUL: A Turkish court accepted an indictment seeking life sentences against businessman and rights activist Osman Kavala and 15 others over the 2013 Gezi protests, Kavala’s lawyer said on Monday.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Istanbul in 2013 to protest against a plan to build a replica of an Ottoman barracks on Gezi park in the city center. The protests turned into nationwide demonstrations against the government of then-prime minister Tayyip Erdogan.
Authorities recently launched a new investigation into the protests. The indictment, seen by Reuters, seeks life sentences against Kavala, other rights activists and opposition figures involved in the protests.
It said the defendants “at best wanted to force the government to resign or call early elections” and were making efforts “to prepare the grounds for a civil war or coup” if that did not happen.
Opposition figures have said the renewed investigations are designed to polarize public opinion and rally support for Erdogan ahead of local elections at the end of March.
The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), of which some defendants are members, said the indictment was part of efforts “to defame and sully the honorable history of Gezi.”
“We see the bad intentions despite all its dirtiness and we reject it with all our clarity,” TMMOB said in a statement published earlier on Monday.
In November, police detained more than a dozen people as part of the investigation into the Gezi protests. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Foundation said it had become a target of the investigation and would cease operations in Turkey.

BEIRUT:  Around 150 Daesh fighters have surrendered to US-backed forces in Baghouz, the group’s last enclave in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitoring group said on Monday.

The Daesh fighters were among 400 people to leave the area on Monday after the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces staged an assault in recent days, the Observatory said.

US-backed Syrian fighters said they were forced to slow their advance because the extremists were using civilians as human shields.

But despite this hindrance, spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Mustafa Bali tweeted that the battle to retake Baghouz, the last territory in Syria held by the Islamic State group, was “going to be over soon.”

An SDF spokeswoman said the offensive had slowed down but pressure is being kept up away from the corridor to prevent fighters from infiltrating or sabotaging the area. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press.

The US-backed forces resumed their offensive on Baghouz last Friday, after a two-week pause to allow for the evacuation of civilians.

Retaking the sliver of land would be a milestone in the devastating four-year campaign to end Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” that once straddled a vast territory across both Syria and Iraq.

“We’re slowing down the offensive” due to a small number of civilians held as human shields, Bali said. The previous night, an SDF statement said the Kurdish-led forces would continue their military campaign “to take control of the last ISIS-held pocket in Baghouz and to liberate the remaining civilians who are being used as human shields,” using an alternative acronym for the extremist group.

“In order not to harm them, we are advancing slowly but we assert that the battle of Baghouz will end in a short period of time,” it said.