Palestinians Burn Photos of US VP as He Arrives Israel

The protesters, who gathered in Manger Square in Bethlehem, burned the photos and stepped on them before dumping them in the trash containers, as a form of rejection of the Washington policies against the Palestinians, and US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Palestine News Network reported.

Scretary of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), Mohammad Al-Masri, told PNN that the event carried the same message of a previous protest which took place following Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“The Palestinian people were counting on the Arab peoples in the countries visited by the US Vice President to express their rejection of the American position,” Al-Masri said, referring to Egypt and Jordan which Pence has visited the past days.

Pence is the first senior official of the Trump administration to visit the Middle East since US declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, while the visit comes amid widespread anger in the Arab world over the decision by Washington.

Pence, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday to start his first Middle East tour, travels on Sunday to Jordan and to Israel later the same day. He is scheduled to address the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, on Monday.

His trip had originally been scheduled for December but was postponed because of the furor over the Jerusalem decision, which broke with decades of international diplomacy.