Apparently afraid of US diplomatic reprisal, the small Central American country of Guatemala says a plan to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds is final and will not be reversed.
“It’s a decision that has been made... it is not going to be reversed,” Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel said on Friday, referring to a plan proposed by President Jimmy Morales to transfer the Central American country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.
Morales announced the plan last week, just days after Guatemala voted with the US against a United Nations General Assembly resolution that had condemned a similar move by Washington and declared it to be “null and void.”
Washington had engaged in a heavy bullying campaign to scare away potential opponents. Nevertheless, 128 countries voted in favor of the measure, only nine opposed it, and 35 abstained.
In addition to the US and Guatemala, the countries that opposed the resolution were Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo. The Israeli regime also voted against the motion.
The website of Israeli Ynetnews revealed on Thursday that at least one of the small nations that voted in favor of the US had been paid by the Israeli regime to do so. The small Pacific island country of Nauru, according to the Israeli report, received a sewage treatment system worth a mere $72,000 to offer support for the US and Israel.
Guatemala later announced that it would be following the US in relocating its embassy.US President Donald Trump had announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital” and relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city on December 6.
That decision and the overwhelming vote against it at the UN worked to significantly isolate America on the international scene. A study of the population size of the 128 countries that voted for the resolution and against the US showed that they represented 90.5 percent of the entire people of the world. By that same account, nine percent of the world population abstained, and only 0.5 backed the US position.
Jerusalem al-Quds remains at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Palestinians hoping that the eastern part of the city would eventually serve as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state.
Trump’s controversial decision triggered demonstrations in the occupied Palestinian territories, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, and other Muslim countries.