Palestinian anger over Obama veto

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories, Sunday

Around 3,000 Palestinians gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday to protest the US veto that nixed a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.

The crowd massed in Manara Square, a central traffic circle in the West Bank city, waving banners and shouting slogans against the American administration.

“Obama, you despicable man, we want self-determination!” shouted the demonstrators, many of them members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.

Fatah central committee members Mahmoud al-Alul told the crowd: “This decision is against the Palestinian people and its freedom, and it supports Israeli injustice, oppression and occupation.

“We tell Obama that we are a people that doesn’t bow to anyone,” he said, before demonstrators interrupted with cries of “get out Obama, get out you settler.”

Fatah called for the protest after the United States used the first veto of President Barack Obama’s administration to nix a resolution that would have condemned continued Israeli settlement building.

The resolution, drafted by the Palestinian leadership in an attempt to pressure Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, was supported by all 14 other members of the Security Council.

The United States said its veto should not be interpreted as support for Israeli settlement construction, but that it did not believe the United Nations was the best place to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But in Ramallah, the veto drew fury and disappointment. “No to negotiations with Israeli settlements and American arrogance,” one banner held by demonstrators read.

Tawfiq Terawi, another Fatah central committee member, said the demonstration sent two important messages.

“First, when all the Arab people are demonstrating against their leaders, the Palestinian people comes today to support its brave leadership’s decision,” he said.

Second, it exposes America’s “false claim that it is the country of freedom, as it officially announces its support for the occupation and settlements and the oppression and injustice against our people.”