Palestinians gear up for ‘day of rage’ Tuesday against US settlements policy
PLO official says demonstrations will include marches through city centers and speeches by leaders of Palestinian factions
Adam Rasgon is a former Palestinian affairs reporter at The Times of Israel
Palestinians are planning to hold demonstrations across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to protest US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration that the Trump administration does not view settlements as illegal, a Palestine Liberation Organization official said on Monday.
Pompeo told reporters at the State Department last week that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law,” breaking with decades of US policy.
“We declared a day of rage to reject this statement by the American secretary of state,” PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef said in a phone call. “We totally condemn this American effort to legitimize the settlements.”
Like the Palestinians, most of the international community considers settlements to be illegal. That stance is based in part on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population to occupied territory.
Israel, however, maintains that the West Bank is not an occupied territory but rather disputed land that was captured from Jordan in a defensive war in 1967.
The PLO official, who is based in Ramallah, said that the protests also will denounce Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge last September to apply Israeli sovereignty over the vast majority of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, if he is given another term in office.
The Palestinians hope to build an independent state in the West Bank including the Jordan Valley as well as East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Abu Yousef added that the protests will include short marches starting at 11:30 a.m. through city centers and speeches by leaders of Palestinian factions, adding that they will not venture to “friction points” with the Israeli security forces.
Demonstrations at “friction points” often turn into clashes between Palestinian youth and Israeli security forces.
Isam Bakr, a prominent Palestinian activist, however, did not rule out the possibility of protesters going to such areas.
“There are voices calling on people to go to the friction points, so it is possible people could go there,” he said in a phone call. “They will go where they need to go to protest this illegal American decision.”
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to an inquiry as to how it was preparing for the possibility of clashes.
Abu Yousef also said that he expected large numbers of Palestinians to participate in the demonstrations because all of the Palestinian factions agreed to send their members to them.
“We expect a very significant turnout,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority Education Ministry announced late Sunday that schools would suspend classes between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
“The Education Ministry affirms the necessity of participating in the events being organized,” it said in a statement.
The Palestinians have organized multiple protests in the past two years in response to American decisions, which have widely been seen as marginalizing the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership.
Those moves included a decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the transfer of the US embassy to that city, and the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington. Those moves have been widely, though not universally, welcomed in Israel.
AP contributed to this report.
