Thousands of protesters in Istanbul burned US and Israeli flags to protest President Trump’s Wednesday declaration on Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. This declaration, which saw major protests breaking out on Friday, has expanded to yet more countries over the weekend.
Now, protests are being seen from Morocco, in the Atlantic coast of Africa, to Indonesia in the Pacific Ocean, and virtually all sites in between. Even many cities i Europe saw protests outside of US embassies and consulates related to the decision.
In many of the countries, the protests seemed to grow throughout the weekend, so while Indonesia was reported as seeing just a few hundred in any given place, some 10,000 were in Jakarta at the US Embassy by late Sunday.
And while European nations weren’t entirely comfortable with such protests, German officials in particular condemning the protests as “anti-Semitic,” in the Muslim world the governments are a lot more publicly aligned with the protesters, and in many cases, government officials were participating in protests and addressing the crowds.
Given the near unanimity in most of these states against Trump’s move, this is a particularly viable thing for politicians in democratic states to do, as positioning themselves as anti-Trump and pro-Palestine is definitely a winning issue.
“… this is a particularly viable thing for politicians in democratic
states to do, as positioning themselves as anti-Trump and pro-Palestine
is definitely a winning issue.”
The self-proclaimed nicest democracy in the world if not nicest country ever, led by Le Dauphin Justin Trudeau, the Anti-Trump, has actually shut up for once.
Source: “While Western allies criticize Trump’s Jerusalem move, Canada remains muted” – Evan Dyer, Dec. 6 2017 CBC.ca.
Actually there’s not much Canada could say; it has a free trade agreement with Israel (since 1997) and Parliament officially rejected the BDS movement 229-51. (42nd Parliament, 1st Session, Feb. 22, 2016). There are few democracies whose ruling class is as pro-Israel and anti-Palestine as Canada’s.
Being proclaimed the anti-Trump by CNN and the Washington Post – and showboatingly taking it seriously – hasn’t helped Trudeau at all in dealing with America under Trump either, whether its milk, softwood, Boeing, or Free Trade.
Of course, Canada’s not even particularly democratic; PM Trudeau the Minor shut down electoral reform after it became clear preferential (ranked) balloting, that would have rigged elections to perpetually elect Liberal governments, was a non-starter.
“Liberal fears of proportional representation and a referendum killed Trudeau’s reform promise” – Aaron Wherry, CBC.ca, Fe. 03, 2017.