OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

Just days old, the presidency of Donald Trump is already reshaping the politics between Israelis and Palestinians, on issues from the location of the US Embassy to possible annexation of a major settlement bloc to whether Palestinians are on the edge of a renewed revolt.

There is an elation among many Israelis that the rancorous relations with the Obama administration were over — but with questions about just how far or how quickly Trump would go on moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, a quandary that has bedevilled US presidents for decades.

Palestinian and Arab leaders girded for the changes that the new administration in Washington might bring. On Sunday, President Mahmoud Abbas met in Jordan with King Abdullah II, and both leaders repeated their staunch opposition to the embassy move.

The men did not release details of any plans for a coordinated reaction, but both have warned of renewed violence if the move happens. The Palestinian leadership has indicated it would revoke its recognition of Israel, considered the first condition by Israelis for negotiations on a two-state solution — a possibility that seems remote at the moment in any case.

“I hope the American administration will act on two levels: one, to not discuss moving the embassy to [occupied] Jerusalem, and second, for the administration to lead negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis with the aim of achieving a political settlement,” Abbas said.

The Israeli news media was filled with speculation that the Trump administration would immediately announce the embassy move — as a de facto recognition of Israel’s occupation and annexisation of predominantly Arab [occupied] East Jerusalem, which it captured from Jordan during the 1967 war.

On Sunday, Trump spoke by phone with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. While Trump called the talk “very nice,” he did not address the embassy move — a promise repeatedly made, but left unmet by US presidential candidates since the 1970s.

Netanyahu called the talk a “very warm conversation” in a statement, but he did not mention the embassy move. He said the men discussed peace with the Palestinians and Netanyahu’s planned visit to Washington in February.

Amid the lack of clarity on Trump’s embassy intentions, Netanyahu engaged in a day of furious political positioning.

On one hand, he is happy to have someone in the White House seemingly more like-minded on the Palestinian question than Obama was. But on the other, Trump’s advisers and his designated ambassador, David M. Friedman, a supporter of Israeli colonisation in the occupied West Bank, are in some ways in closer political step with Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals.

The prime minister is also besieged by what appears to be a series of serious investigations, from whether he improperly accepted gifts like cigars and bubbly to whether he conspired with a newspaper publisher for more favourable coverage.

As such, Netanyahu tried to tamp down his rivals by positioning himself both as Trump’s main interlocutor as well as the champion of colonists in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.

He declared that he opposed any limits on building in occupied East Jerusalem, a major point of contention between him and the Obama administration. On Sunday, the city announced approval for 566 housing units that had been delayed over Obama’s objections.