Egypt said US president-elect Donald Trump and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi agreed to allow Trump's incoming administration a chance to tackle the Israeli settlement issue. By SAUL LOEB (AFP/File)

Cairo (AFP) - Egypt agreed to postpone a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements when US president-elect Donald Trump called President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the presidency said Friday.

Egypt had requested on Thursday that the resolution demanding Israel halt settlements be postponed after Israel launched a frantic lobbying effort.

The presidency said the two leaders had agreed to allow Trump's incoming administration a chance to tackle the issue. </s> U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a USA Thank You Tour event in Hershey, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 15, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump discussed laying the groundwork for peace in the Middle East in a phone call on Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a Trump transition official said.

The official did not know whether Trump and Sisi talked specifically about Egypt’s decision to postpone a vote set for Thursday in the U.N. Security Council on a resolution demanding that Israel end settlement building. </s> Egypt agreed to postpone a vote on a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements after US President-elect Donald Trump called President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian president's office said.

Egypt had circulated the draft late on Wednesday, demanding Israel halt settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, and a vote was initially scheduled for Thursday.

But it requested that the resolution be postponed after Israel launched a frantic lobbying effort, including calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the US to use its veto power at the Security Council to block the resolution.

On Friday, Sisi's spokesman said the two leaders agreed to allow Trump's incoming administration a chance to tackle the issue.

"During the call, they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East, and in that context the draft resolution in front of the Security Council on Israeli settlement," said spokesman Alaa Yousef.

"The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new US administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement."

A similar resolution was vetoed by the US in 2011.

Earlier, diplomats from New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal told Egypt that if it did not clarify on whether it planned to call the vote, they would press ahead without Cairo's involvement.

Trump, who campaigned on a promise to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, had called on Washington to use its veto to block the resolution.

"The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed," the Republican said in a statement released hours ahead of the scheduled vote.

OPINION: Trump and Israel

"As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.

"This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis," Trump added.

Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and seen as a major stumbling block to peace efforts as they are built on Palestinian land occupied by Israel.

The United Nations maintains settlements are illegal, but UN officials have reported a surge in construction over the past months.

Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel occupied in a 1967 war.

Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. </s> On Wednesday night, after it became clear that the United States was ready to allow passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Palestinian East Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to Twitter to urge the Obama administration to veto the measure. Soon after, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted an almost verbatim message, "The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed," linking to a Facebook post. On Thursday, Egypt, which sponsored the resolution, pulled it for unclear reasons.

A senior Israeli official tells CNN that the Israeli government called Trump to ask him to put pressure on President Obama, after its own efforts failed. A Western official said Israel pressured Egypt to withdraw the resolution as well, and an official in the Trump transition told Reuters that Trump also spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about the U.N. resolution. Traditionally, presidents-elect don't try to set policy. "It's unprecedented that a president-elect would pronounce on a matter of U.S. policy before he became president," said Arab-Israeli expert Aaron David Miller, "let alone say publicly that the administration should not vote for the resolution."

Trump wasn't certain he should publicly intervene with the tweet and subsequent statement, The Washington Post reports, but he was persuaded by some close advisers:

After initial hesitation on whether Trump should weigh in, the statement was written late Wednesday by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and an influential adviser to the president-elect, and Stephen K. Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, according to two people briefed on the deliberation who were not authorized to speak publicly. They said that Kushner and Bannon consulted with several allies in Israel and the United States but declined to name them. The effort represented perhaps Kushner's most significant foray to date into foreign policy and the Middle East, where Trump has said he would welcome his son-in-law's involvement. [The Washington Post]

On Twitter, former George W. Bush administration official David Frum tried to put in perspective how unusual this premature policymaking is: "In Dec. 2008, in the midst of worst financial crisis since 1929, Barack Obama meticulously deferred to the one-president-at-a-time rule." You can learn more about the case of the U.N. resolution in the CNN report below. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump vowed Friday to crush "evil organizations of terror" following an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt that killed more than two dozen people near Cairo and prompted the country's leader to appeal to Trump to lead the fight against global terrorism.

In a sharply worded statement, Trump condemned terrorists who were "engaged in a war against civilization" and decried the "merciless slaughter of Christians in Egypt." He said the attack on a bus carrying Christians, many of them children, would steel the nation's resolve to destroy terrorist organizations and expose "their depraved, twisted and thuggish ideology."

Trump, attending the G-7 meeting in Sicily, said the U.S. would stand with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who vowed to strike back at the training bases of Islamic State militants suspected of waging the attacks. Egyptian fighter jets struck militant bases in eastern Libya.

From left, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, French newly elected President Emmanuel Macron, British PM Theresa May, and US President Donal Trump talk to each other prior to the start of the leaders of the G7 countries summit in the Sicilian citadel of Taormina, Italy, Friday, May 26, 2017. On Friday and Saturday, for the first time all seven are around the same table, including also newcomers Macron, May and the Italian host, Paolo Gentiloni -- forging a new dynamic after a year of global political turmoil amid a rise in nationalism. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

El-Sissi, in his televised address, said of the U.S. president: "I direct my appeal to President Trump: I trust you, your word and your ability to make fighting global terror your primary task."

Trump said in his statement that the U.S. "makes clear to its friends, allies and partners that the treasured and historic Christian communities of the Middle East must be defended and protected. The bloodletting of Christians must end, and all who aid their killers must be punished."

It was the latest sign of the burgeoning friendship between Trump and el-Sissi, the former general who toppled democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member. It marks a change from former President Barack Obama, who often kept el-Sissi at a distance and criticized Egypt's human rights record and suspended some U.S. military aid.

Trump and el-Sissi held talks in Saudi Arabia last week ahead of the Arab-Islamic-U.S. summit, a gathering that followed an April meeting at the White House.

Trump has made fighting terrorism a focal point of his first overseas trip as president, which ends this weekend. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, Trump and King Salman inaugurated a state-of-the-art center in Riyadh aimed at monitoring and countering extremism. </s> When presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers visit the Holy Land, the script is simple: a trip to the Israeli Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem, and then off to Ramallah to meet the Palestinian leader.

But that script has been torn up in anger by the Palestinians for U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence's four-day visit to the Middle East.

"He is not welcome," said Hani Baidoun, a resident of East Jerusalem who has fought for an independent state for the Palestinians for much of his life. "[Pence] is against the position of the Palestinians."

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has refused to meet with Pence, enraged by the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Trump also began the process of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"May your house be destroyed," an angry Abbas told Trump during a fiery speech before Palestinian leaders last week, in which he also refused to work with the United States as a mediator in future negotiations with the Israelis.

The Pence visit comes six weeks after the vice-president stood next to his boss in the White House as Trump reversed decades of American policy that the status of Jerusalem should be decided in talks between both sides.

That declaration saw Palestinians take to the streets in protest, in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. Some of those demonstrations turned violent, with the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reporting that 14 Palestinians were killed in clashes and Israeli airstrikes in the three weeks after Trump made his speech.

The policy shift continues to roil the Middle East, and has forced Pence to explain the U.S. position to two important regional allies, Egypt and Jordan, the only neighbours of Israel that have diplomatic relations with the Jewish State.

After meeting Egypt's president Abdul Fattah el-Sisi on Saturday, Pence said there is a "disagreement between friends," but he noted "that nothing has changed and that we are absolutely committed to building a partnership for security, confronting terrorism together, but also finding ways that we can advance the peace process."

Right now, that process is stalled, despite Trump's declaration that he wants to negotiate the "ultimate deal" between the Israelis and Palestinians even in the face of deep divisions over Jerusalem.

Israel views the city as its eternal and undivided capital, and its leaders have heaped praise on Trump for recognizing what they say is an inevitable truth: that with Israel's parliament and government offices located in Jerusalem, it's only right to bestow this recognition.

"It's declaring what we already know, but it shows to the world that this is the capital of Israel," said Jerusalem resident Lisa Nemets. "So we stand with that."

The vice-president is scheduled to speak before the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on Monday afternoon. Pence will be given a warm welcome by Israeli lawmakers, although Arab members of parliament are boycotting the address.

Palestinians want to establish the capital of a future state in East Jerusalem, and on Sunday they received a boost from King Abdullah II of Jordan, who voiced his backing of "East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state."

Canada, like most nations with diplomatic relations with Israel, has committed to keeping its diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv until the final status of Jerusalem has been settled in negotiations. At least one other country, Guatemala, is following the American lead after the Central American nation announced it will move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The relationship between the Trump administration and the Palestinians suffered yet another blow last week, when the United States decided to withhold $65 million in funding for UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency that assists Palestinian refugees, raising fears that schools and medical clinics could face cuts.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, accused the United States of "punishing the most vulnerable populations" and "destabilizing neighbouring countries of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon."

Pence was scheduled to travel to the Middle East in mid-December, but the trip was delayed because of a tax vote in the U.S. Senate. He has said the visit is an opportunity to discuss American concerns about the international agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program and to fight religious persecution of Christians in the region.

An evangelical Christian who famously said he is "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order," Pence was supposed to go to the Biblical town of Bethlehem, but that has also been scrapped from the itinerary.

Evangelical Christians remain some of Trump's strongest supporters, and some political watchers say his decision on Jerusalem was aimed at keeping that part of his base happy. They see the move as standing in support of Israel, as well as fulfilling a Biblical prophecy.

Brian Parsons, the vice-president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, hailed Trump's declaration as "courageous."

He added in an interview with CBC News: "We think that the Pence visit is another expression of solidarity with Israel, which we think is very needed. Too often the world gangs up on Israel and bullies Israel in very unfair ways."

But PLO member Ashrawi, who is Christian, took aim at Pence, said in an interview that his "evangelical extremist fundamentalist Christianity… goes against the whole tradition of pluralism and tolerance and inclusion.

"That's why I don't believe he should come here." </s> TUNIS: The Arab world on Sunday in a united voice rejected US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Gathering for an annual summit in Tunisia, Arab leaders denounced the step and warned it would further inflame tensions in the region. Delegated by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, His Highness Sayyid Asaad bin Tareq al Said, Deputy Prime Minister for International Relations and Cooperation Affairs, Personal Representative of His Majesty the Sultan, led the Sultanate’s delegation at the Arab Summit in the presence of leaders and presidents of Arab governments.

“We underline again our categorical rejection of any measures which can affect Syria’s sovereignty over Golan,” said Saudi King Salman. His remarks echoed those of senior Arab officials before Sunday’s summit of the Arab League, which ended with a final declaration agreed by the 22 member states. Israel seized the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel annexed the territory in 1981, though this move has not been recognised internationally. Last week, Trump signed a proclamation endorsing Israel’s rule over Golan in a ceremony at the White House attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The move followed last year’s relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, sparking anger in the Muslim world. “Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty on Golan and his earlier recognition of Jerusalem as (Israel’s) capital violate all international resolutions,” Lebanese President Michel Aoun said at the meeting. “Trump’s decision not only threatens the sovereignty of a sisterly country (Syria), but also the sovereignty of the Lebanese state that has lands which Israel has gradually bitten (into),” he added in Arabic, referring to a disputed border area with Israel. The Arab League summit rejected Trump’s decision and called it “invalid,” according to a final statement draft.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned against “more dangerous” steps from the Trump administration. League head Ahmed Abdul Gheit was sharply critical of Trump’s decision. “Occupation is a crime and legalising (it) is a sin.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who addressed the meeting, said any resolution to the Syrian conflict must guarantee the territorial integrity of Syria “including the occupied Golan Heights”. Summit spokesman Mahmoud Al Khmeiry had said before the summit that Arab states would also repeat a call offering peace with Israel in exchange for occupied Arab lands and would reject any initiative not in line with UN resolutions.

Khmeiry appeared to be referring to a still-unannounced US peace plan by White House adviser Jared Kushner and Trump son-in-law that Palestinians have refused to discuss. The Arab Summit addressed a range of topics and issues that concern the Arab nation including the political developments of the Palestinian cause, activating the Arab peace initiatives, the crisis in Syria, developments in Libya and Yemen, as well as discussing the Arab security cooperation, countering terrorism, developing the Arab League among other several Arab economic and social topics. — Agencies </s> US Vice President Mike Pence has met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after starting his Middle East tour amid outrage over President Donald Trump’s globally condemned decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime.

 Pence told reporters in Cairo on Sunday that Egypt’s objection to the decision is “disagreement between friends,” adding “We heard President el-Sisi out.”

 Even before making the decision, Trump had shattered any prospects of the two-state solution, but Pence still assured Sisi that he would pursue the so-called solution.

 “My perception was that he was encouraged by that message,” said the former Indiana governor, who himself played a key role in the decision.

 Pence, a conservative Christian, is the most senior American politician to visit the region after the decision.

 The vice president later arrived in Jordan, where King Abdullah has warned against the decision. Pence will also be meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, where he will be “warmly welcomed,” according to Reuters.

 The vice president who mostly focused on the so-called two –state solution in the meeting with Sisi, is not even scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders.

 “(Sisi) noted that a solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will only come through negotiations based on a two-state solution, and Egypt would spare no effort to support this,” a statement from the Egyptian presidency said.

 ‘Blind supporter of Israel: Pence’s visit to Cairo serves as the highest-level one by a top US official in nearly a decade. Palestinians have called on other Arab countries not to receive Pence. “There is no justification to receive the US official, since his statement confirmed adoption of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

 Osama Qawasmi, Fatah’s spokesman in the West Bank, also told Xinhua that, “Pence’s visit to the region is totally unwelcome since he is a blind supporter of Israel.”

 The head of Israel’s Arab coalition party also vowed to boycott Pence’s visit, asserting that he could cause “the destruction of the entire region.”

 “We were asked if there’s a change in our position regarding Pence’s visit… He is a dangerous man with a messianic vision that includes the destruction of the entire region,” Ayman Odeh, wrote on Twitter. “He comes here as the emissary of a man who is even more dangerous… a political pyromaniac, a racist misogynist who cannot be allowed to be lead the way in our region.”—Agencies </s> Dozens Of Diplomats Gather In Paris For Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks

Foreign Ministers and other diplomats from some 70 different countries have descended on Paris, with the intent to renew peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The summit, which opened Sunday without leaders from either side of the conflict, is expected to urge the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"We are here to reiterate strongly that the two-state solution is the only one possible," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, in his opening remarks to top envoys at the conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to attend, decrying the conference as biased against Israel from the outset.

"It's a rigged conference, rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances," he said Thursday, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

French President Francois Hollande will be addressing the diplomatic gathering, which includes U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is making his final international visits in that role.

"Sunday's meeting marks the bitter, disappointing end of eight years of failed Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy," NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports for our Newscast unit. "But he's participating to try to ensure America's continued interest in a two-state solution is preserved."

The U.S. State Department has said he is attending to make sure that "whatever happens in this conference is constructive and balanced," the BBC reports.

It also may be meant as a message to Kerry's successors, the diplomatic team of President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated Friday. Trump has given indications that he is supportive of settlements Israelis have established in land the country captured in 1967, which have been central point of contention in peace negotiations.

Last month, Kerry delivered a speech condemning Jewish settlements in the West Bank and affirming his own support for a two-state solution. The United States also declined to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Jewish settlement activity.

Trump's incoming administration is expected to adopt a decidedly different tack, however. The man he has picked to be the next ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has said he hopes to serve his position from a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem — a city in which both sides have lain claims. That move would be seen as a de facto recognition of the city as Israeli's capital.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has warned against such a move, saying Saturday that relocating the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would cause peace prospects to suffer.

Yet statements like these from Trump and his proposed team have encouraged Netanyahu, who referred to them in his comments condemning Sunday's conference.

"It's a relic of the past," Netanyahu said. "It's a last gasp of the past before the future sets in."

Representatives from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are attending the gathering, which will also urge both sides to avoid taking "unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations," according to the BBC.

Skepticism persists that anything will come of Sunday's summit, given the absence of leaders from both sides. But, as Ayrault said in his address, the goal of the French hosts is to make a first step toward reopening peace talks, even if it's a small one.

"The parties are very, very far apart," Ayrault said, "and the goal is to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table."
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump calls President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, who then agrees to postpone a United Nations resolution regarding Israel.