MID: Protesters heckle US Republican Huckabee in Jerusalem
Tue Aug 18 03:57:58 EST 2009
JERUSALEM, Aug 17 AFP - About 100 protesters heckled former US Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee on Monday as he attended a function to support Jewish settlements in mainly Arab east Jerusalem.
Two dozen right-wing Israelis staged a counter-protest, waving huge flags and cheering Huckabee, who has been touted as a possible Republican candidate in 2012.
Huckabee was among about 100 guests, including several Israeli MPs, who attended a private function held at the former Shepherd Hotel, the site of a controversial housing project for Jewish settlers funded by US millionaire Irving Moskovitz.
Protesters chanted "go home" and one of the banners they held up said: "Huckabee, we are not pawns in your Armageddon."
The Israeli civic rights group Ir Amin, one of the protest organisers said: "It was no accident that they chose to hold the event at the Shepherd Hotel, one of the most disputed places in the city, symbolising the settlers' intention to control Palestinian neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem to undercut future negotiations."
The US state department has asked Israel to halt the project and to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.
One of the right-wingers outside the gates of the building made his views clear, holding up a banner showing the US president wearing a checkered Palestinian scarf and bearing the words "Barack Hussein Obama - Anti Semite, Jew-Hater."
The international community considers Jewish neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem to be Israeli settlements, and the issue is one of the main obstacles in the hobbled Middle East peace process.
Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.
It sees all of Jerusalem as its "eternal, undivided" capital and does not consider construction in east Jerusalem to be settlements.
"Today in 2009 it's about time that the world should know the Jewish people will not divide Jerusalem," said Tzipi Hotobeli, a Knesset member from the Likud party of hawkish prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Jerusalem will stay and remain undivided and united," she told journalists outside the hotel.
