OP’s News

The United States has “disqualified” itself from the Middle East peace process by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said.
Mr Abbas said the US was “no longer an honest mediator” and declared his government “will not accept any plan put forward” by Washington, urging Europe to play a more influential role instead.
Speaking through a translator at a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, he also condemned Donald Trump’s threat to cut off financial aid to countries that criticised his administration.
The United Nations General Assembly voted by 128 to nine to declare Washington’s controversial decision on the status of Jerusalem “null and void,” an outcome a spokesman for Mr Abbas described as “a victory for Palestine”.
The official UN position is that Jerusalem is a “final status” issue to be decided at the end of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. No member country bases their embassy in Jerusalem – something Mr Trump said the US has plans to do in the future.
Washington’s decision sparked global condemnation and protests in the Middle East, as well as fears it would kill off the decades-long peace process.
“The United States are no longer an honest mediator in the peace process,” Mr Abbas told the press conference. “We will not accept any plan from the United States of America because of its bias and violation of the international law.”
He added: “We call upon countries that did not recognise Palestine yet to do so to preserve the two-state solution before it’s too late.”
Mr Macron reiterated that France remained committed to a “two-state” solution in which Israel and Palestine peacefully co-exist.
He said France would recognise a Palestinian state “at the right time”, and not under pressure.
“The American mistake was to want to unilaterally manage from afar a situation whose solution is in the hands of the Israelis and Palestinians,” added French President, who denounced the US threat to withhold aid from UN member states that voted for the resolution.
Some of the biggest recipients of US aid – most of them Muslim or Arab countries – defied Mr Trump’s threat and supported the motion.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had warned that she would be “taking names” of member states that backed the resolution, while the American leader said: “Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be, where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Middle Eastern leaders welcomed the outcome of the General Assembly vote, with Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif declaring it a “global no” to Mr Trump’s “thuggish intimidation”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he expected Washington to rescind its decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

She’s a walking advertisement for the dangers of nepotism, an exemplar of class privilege and a perfect representative for Republican know-nothingism. She was supposed to be the brains of the family and the moral ballast; instead, she’s a self-righteous enabler.
We’re speaking of Ivanka Trump, as you might have divined. She was out talking nonsense again on Thursday: “I’m really looking forward to doing a lot of travelling in April when people realise the effect that this has… The vast majority will be [doing their taxes] on a single postcard.” Thunk. There’s no postcard. That was a prop. And the filing for the first year under the new tax codewill be in 2019.
She also declared of Senator Bob Corker, Republican-Tennessee, who decided to vote for the final tax bill after voting no on the Senate version: “He really believes that tax relief, coupled with the administration’s deregulatory actions, will create the growth that will start to erode and ultimately eliminate the national debt that has been accrued over the last several decades.” I’m confident Corker believes no such thing because that would be preposterous, unsupported by any reputable economic analysis. (Corker voted for the final bill upon concluding it was flawed but helpful in promoting economic growth.) As Business Insider put it:
Trump leads the charmed life of one who will be able to take advantage of the reduction in the top marginal rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. She’ll have the best lawyers and accountants to make certain her income is run through a pass-through, thereby reducing the amount counted as income by 20 percent. If she has been a dutiful Trump daughter, her taxes might look a lot like her father’s – which means she and real-estate mogul husband Jared Kushner can afford even more lavish clothes, bigger homes and ostentatious jewellery. (Remember, the President’s claims notwithstanding, he’s likely to make a mint: “It is clear that President Donald Trump is set to save millions if he signs the Republican tax plan, but exactly how much? Forbes crunched the numbers: It looks like up to $11 million a year from a single rule change.”) While Republicans were pleading poverty when it comes to funding government programmes in the wake of the $1.5 trillion revenue-losing tax bill, Ivanka Trump and Kushner can breathe easy, as can their children. (“Under previous provisions, married couples could leave $11 million to their heirs before handing over about 40 percent of their remaining assets to the government. The new rule doubles that limit to $22 million, meaning Trump’s children will likely get an additional $4.4 million tax break on their inheritance.”)
She’d like to tout the child tax credit (CTC), but that, too, is less than advertised. Senators Mike Lee, Republican-Utah, and Marco Rubio, Republican-Florida, who championed the child tax credit, came on board with very little inducement. “Rubio and Lee didn’t get the biggest change they wanted, which was to apply the credit to low-wage workers’ entire income. Under their proposal, a minimum-wage worker making $14,500 would get a $494 tax credit; under the current bill, she’ll get only $75, according to the liberal Center [on] Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).”
The CBPP explains: