US scraps event in Ramallah after boycott calls

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The US embassy in Jerusalem is forced to postpone a conference it organized in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Palestinian officials and factions called for a boycott and threatened to organize protests.

The Palestinians cut all ties with the US after it recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, and view the Trump administration as unfairly biased following a series of actions seen as hostile to their aspirations for an independent state.

The embassy had organized a conference this week to bring together alumni of US educational and cultural programs, including dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who received permission from Israel to attend. The territory has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Hamas terror group seized power there in 2007.

The Palestinian leadership viewed the conference as an attempt to circumvent its boycott of the US administration.

“We are aware of recent statements regarding a planned event for alumni of US educational and cultural programs,” the US embassy says. “In order to avoid the Palestinian participants being put in a difficult situation, we have decided to postpone the event for now.”

It says this and other events “are designed to create opportunities for exchange and dialogue between Americans and Palestinians at the grassroots level.”

Representatives of several Palestinian factions held a press conference today at the hotel where the meeting was to have taken place.

Spokesman Isam Baker tells The Associated Press that the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group, had reached out to the hotel management and the invitees asking them to boycott the meeting.

— Agencies