Palestinian protesters tell Kerry to go home

Hours before the US secretary of state was to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a crowd of several hundred took to the streets of Ramallah, chanting “Kerry, you coward, there’s no place for you in Palestine!”

Hours before Mr Kerry was to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a crowd of several hundred took to the streets of Ramallah, chanting “Kerry, you coward, there’s no place for you in Palestine!”

Separately, an official close to Mr Abbas dismissed Mr Kerry’s drive for a “framework agreement” as biased towards Israel.

Mr Kerry has said such an accord would narrow gaps between the sides and pave the way for a final deal when the nine-month period allotted the US-backed talks expires on April 29.

But Yasser Abed Rabbo, Mr Abbas’s deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said the plan, still being finalised, “restricts Palestinian sovereignty on Palestinian land”.

“The Palestinian side will not even look at a worthless piece of paper, a framework agreement, which contains general principles for later negotiations, when the two sides have already been negotiating for months and years,” Mr Abed Rabbo said.

Palestinian and Israeli officials have differed on the future status of the West Bank’s border with Jordan, where Israelis want a permanent security presence but Palestinians want a full withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers.

Israel said last week it planned to build another 1,400 homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Mr Kerry has told reporters that the agreement, besides borders and security, would aim to address all the conflict’s top issues such as refugees and Jerusalem.

Mr Kerry held five hours of talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday and saw him again yesterday.

About 300 activists with the left-wing Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine party rallied in downtown Ramallah hours before Mr Kerry’s scheduled arrival.

“The people want the fall of the framework!” they said, evoking the chants heard in protests throughout the Middle East in 2011. “It’s clear, Kerry, we don’t want to see you! The Americans are the enemy of our people!”

Dozens of riot policemen and plainclothes security forces prevented their march from reaching Ramallah’s presidential compound, where Mr Abbas was expected to receive Kerry.

The veteran US senator, John McCain, who is also in Israel and has conferred with the Israeli prime minister, said yesterday that Mr Netanyahu doubted the proposals.

“Netanyahu has serious, serious concerns about the plan as it has been presented to him, whether it be on the ability of Israel to defend its borders, on the reliability of a Palestinian state ... and particularly on the overall security.

“We also are very concerned,” he said.

Perhaps in a move to allay some of Israel’s fears about US support for its security, Israel and the United States successfully carried out a joint missile test yesterday.

The two nations successfully launched the Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile system over the Mediterranean, the Israeli defence ministry said.

US officials have refused to release any details about the framework, but hope to conclude it soon.

It has also not yet decided whether it will be made public, but it is unlikely to be signed by both sides.

Mr Kerry on Thursday stressed the framework was building on ideas put forward by both sides over five months of talks, and would set out the agreements and disagreements on the core issues.

These include the contours of a future Palestinian state, refugees, the fate of Jerusalem, security, “mutual recognition and the end of conflict and of all claims,” said Mr Kerry.

Meanwhile, Israeli planes launched a series of strikes on the Gaza Strip early yesterday, after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave struck Israel.

Gaza is ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement, which is committed to Israel’s destruction and rejects the peace process.

* Reuters with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse