Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Angered By Trump, Palestinian Protesters Target U.S. Business Delegation

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinians protesting against President Donald Trump’s policy on Jerusalem halted a U.S.-coordinated Palestinian marketing workshop in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, damaging an American diplomatic vehicle as it sped away.

Protesters threw tomatoes at the sports utility vehicle, which had U.S. consular license plates, kicked one of its doors and ripped the plastic casing off a side mirror as it drove off under Palestinian police escort from the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce.

Samir Hazboun, the chamber’s director, told Reuters that a digital marketing workshop was under way when about five protesters barged in.

“We hosted an American expert on this issue. Some people who have been trying to express their point of view and protest (against) the American decision regarding Jerusalem and the political situation … interrupted the workshop and we stopped the workshop,” Hazboun said.

The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, which helped organize the workshop, declined immediate comment.

The U.S.-based lecturer was not a consular staff member. He was accompanied by consular security personnel and some of its Palestinian employees, organizers said.

Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital overturned decades of U.S. policy that its status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

His declaration drew universal condemnation from Arab leaders, stirred Palestinian street protests and drew widespread international criticism.

On a visit to Israel last week, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said that Trump’s promised relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would take place by the end of 2019. Palestinians boycotted Pence’s visit.

In the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem on Saturday, effigies of Trump and Pence were hanged and burned in a protest attended by about 30 Palestinians.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.