There was huge symbolism in this move that met with universal condemnation. It means the US is abandoning any chance of a two-state solution, which was the original UN plan for Palestine. Henceforth, Palestinians will subsist in a Jewish unitary state as a powerless, restive underclass. Washington is violating international law, the 1993 Oslo Accords, and countless UN resolutions.

Crusader Trump's decision strongly suggests there will be no Palestinian state, no Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, and no political hope for the region's 5.5 million Palestinians refugees living precariously in Israel, the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.

America's president is a notorious Muslim-hater who has sought to bar people from the Islamic world from the United States. Trump knows very little about the Mideast – which I call the 'American Raj' in my last book of the same name because of its resemblance to Britain's imperial rule over India.