UNITED NATIONS: The United States faced blunt and sometimes withering criticism from friends and adversaries alike at the United Nations on Friday over President Donald Trump’s declaration that Occupied Jerusalem is the Israeli regime’s capital and his plans to move the US embassy to the city.

The rebukes, made at an emergency Security Council meeting called over Trump’s announcement, constituted an extraordinarily public denunciation of American policy on the world’s most prominent diplomatic stage, leaving the United States alone on the issue among the council’s 15 members.

One by one, the ambassadors of Sweden, Egypt, Britain, France and Bolivia, among others, reiterated their position that Trump’s announcement had subverted the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a longtime bedrock of the UN position on resolving it. Some, like Bolivia’s ambassador, Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz, demanded that the body take action, “otherwise the Security Council will become an occupied territory,” he said.

It is unclear what the council members could do, however, except to voice their anger and frustration. The United States is one of the five permanent members and could veto any resolution seeking to condemn Trump’s decision.

Ambassador Olof Skoog of Sweden said: "The statement by the United States president goes against the plea of many friends of the United States and Israel."

Amr Abdul Latif Abu Latta, the ambassador from Egypt — one of the few Muslim-majority nations to have recognised Israel — recited a litany of Security Council resolutions aimed in part at preventing the Israeli regime from declaring sovereignty over all of occupied Jerusalem.

The Security Council considers East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 war, as occupied territory, whose status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.

“This is a dangerous precedent,” the Egyptian ambassador said. “These are the resolutions of the Security Council.” He said the resolutions constitute “the law that governs the status of [Occupied] Jerusalem. All countries have pledged, according the UN charter, to implement and abide by it.”

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, defended Trump’s decision, asserting that occupied Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since its founding in 1948, “despite many attempts by others to deny that reality”.

The Palestinian and Israeli ambassadors had been invited to address the council. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador, was Haley’s only supporter during the meeting, calling Trump’s announcement “a courageous decision”.

The Palestinian ambassador, Riyad Mansour, urged the Security Council to reaffirm its position on occupied Jerusalem in a new resolution and said that the US decision “disqualifies its role as a just broker for peace”.

Trump said in his announcement on Wednesday that the decision was “nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,” and was not intended to pre-empt a negotiated solution to the conflict or to take a position on the city’s boundaries.

Critics have said that recognising the Israeli regime’s claim to occupied Jerusalem without acknowledging a Palestinian claim broke with international consensus and prejudged the outcome of any negotiations.