Jordanians rally against Israel, US-brokered talks

Jordanians rally against Israel, US-brokered talks
Sat Feb 15, 2014 09:44:25

Jordanian demonstrators have held a protest rally against the Israeli regime and the US-proposed talks between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

People took to streets in the capital Amman on Friday to voice their opposition to the deal brokered by the Washington.

The protesters burned the Israeli flag and chanted anti-US slogans as Jordanian King Abdullah II was about to meet US President Barack Obama.

The demonstrators called on the Jordanian king to "revoke the peace treaty with the Zionists" signed in 1994.

The rally also slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA chief Mahmoud Abbas to accept the deal.

“The Jordanian people took to the streets today, because they sense the gravity of the upcoming period in terms of the negotiations regarding Palestinian cause. There is a general consensus among Jordanians that a dangerous project is being orchestrated by the US through its foreign secretary, John Kerry, to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” said Zaki Bin Irshaid, the deputy head of country’s Muslim Brotherhood, at the protest.

On February 7, a similar demonstration was held in the capital with the participants chanting “Death to America.”

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the occupied West Bank, East al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Last Palestinian-Israeli talks had broken down in September 2010 after Tel Aviv refused to freeze its settlement activities in the occupied West Bank.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

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