KEEPING his election promise, President Donald Trump announced the US recognition of Jerusalem, as the capital of Israel and his country will eventually move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Ever since the US Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, all presidential candidates promised the same during their election campaign irrespective for their win or loss. The only difference is that Donald Trump kept his word unlike his predecessors. But what interests me is how do the Arabs “support” this decision? What mistakes and sins they committed to make this decision happen?

There is no clearer case in the world today than the Palestinian issue, but the Palestinian cause has been hijacked by opportunistic political groups with the help of some Palestinian leaders. Examples include Hafez Al-Assad, his son Bashar, Muammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini’s regime and his followers. The despotic and criminal regimes were the ugly merchants of a noble cause. They were allowed to tamper with the issue and its symbols, hijack the “resistance,” reducing the Palestinian leadership a political tool at the hands of criminal and terrorist gangs.

The religion was allowed to be a tool to tear apart the case, by breaking the unity and provoking hostility. A series of wrong decisions was taken by a small group of Palestinian leaders ranging from supporting Saddam Hussein for his decision to invade Kuwait, betraying the neighbor to the decision to support Assad and Iran in their wars on the Arab world, to align with Qatar in its dirty project to disrupt the Arab world through the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah. No reasonable person will appreciate the situation of the Palestinian street where the leaders who caused a great loss to their country are being lauded and leaders who stood up and supported them day and night are being condemned.

This miserable scene is repeated. As a matter of fact Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the two countries that have done so much for the Palestinian cause, yet there is a growing public hostile rhetoric that is clearly intended to satisfy the coup regime in Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. The participation of the Palestinians in some internal battles and their transformation into tools of killing and sedition, as happened in Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria and Egypt, were all losing battles with every honorable Palestinian defending his cause, while not forgetting the great price borne by the issue as a result of internal differences between the Palestinian leadership and some of them and personality at the expense of the biggest and most important issue. The issue is the choices of Palestinian leaders and allowing themselves to be instruments at the hands of others, all of which made Trump’s decision an expected issue because the scene over the years has weakened the case and made it “fragile” even though it is the most important humanitarian issue today.

The Palestinians in particular need to seriously review their positions and political choices and not to “continue” with the decisions that cost them a lot. The Palestinian issue is a right issue and will not die, but it needs different heroes.