On Wednesday 6th December 2017, President Donald Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as capital of the state of Israel. This action by the American leader not only upends nearly seven decades of American foreign policy, it also enforces a sense across the region and the world that the United States are incapable of being the arbiter in brokering a just settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is action that history would almost certainly judge as confirming that the peace process as we know it has been dead for some time.
It is confirmation that insistence of the viability of the peace process is not backed by the United State's capacity to show the firmness and even-handedness required to steer both parties towards the desired goal of a two-state solution.
If Mr Trump's declaration on Jerusalem disqualifies the United States from being a fair broker of peace in the region (as is being increasingly mooted), it has also created a void and an opportunity to fill that void.
It is time for the other nations of the world - especially influential ones- to step forward in the absence of the reliability of the United States and push for peaceful co-existence between Israel and the Palestinians. That is the very least that the ordinary men, women and children caught up in the nightmare of dishonesty that has at times been the peace process, deserve.
