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Sunday, 10 December 2017

Jerusalem continues to be the topic du jour

The US’ Jerusalem declaration was still the topic du jour on the airwaves last night, as the nation’s talking heads continued to grapple with potential repercussions.

Arab countries should no longer depend on the US to play peacemaker in the region, Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi told Kol Youm’s Amr Adib. She accused Israel of using Trump’s declaration as an excuse to expand its settlements in Jerusalem and increase its aggression against Palestinians (watch, runtime: 13:24).

Adib agreed that the US should be cut out of any further Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and couldn’t help but point to the lack of concrete action to counter Trump’s move (watch, runtime: 3:35)

He apparently had to look no further than Hona Al Asema, where his better half Lamees Al Hadidi emphatically called on Arab leaders to refuse to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence during his current regional tour and cried conspiracy, saying Trump’s hatred for Arabs was evident from the get-go. What say ye, every Egyptian out there who ululated at Trump’s election because he would be a “friend to the region”? (watch, runtime: 11:02).

Over on Masaa DMC, the Palestinian President’s adviser Mahmoud Al Habash said that Palestine is relying on decisive Arab action and not the UN, noting to host Eman El Hosary that the US holds the power to veto any resolution within the UN Security Council (watch, runtime: 5:34).

Meanwhile on Al Hayah Al Youm, Tamer Amin had a chat with Customs Authority head Magdy Abdel Aziz abouthow EGP float helped curb smuggling at national ports. They also discussed the government’s strategy to boost exports and decrease imports, with Abdel Aziz reminding everyone that levies on cars imported from the EU and Agadir countries will reach 20% under an ongoing FTA that will see them lifted entirely by January 2019, while the rate for imports from other countries will climb to as much as 137% (watch, runtime: 29:44).

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