A Palestinian boy holds a flag as he watches a rally in the West Bank city ofRamallah in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' bid for statehoodrecognition in the United Nations, September 21, 2011.
RAMALLAH - Flag-waving Palestinians filled the squares of major West Bank cities onWednesday to rally behind President Mahmoud Abbas's bid for statehood recognition at theUnited Nations despite US and Israeli objections.
"We are asking for the most simple of rights, a state like other nations," said Sabrina Hussein, 50, carrying the green, red, black and white Palestinian national flag at the main demonstrationin Ramallah.
Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bankunder 1990s interim peace deals, gave school children and civil servants the day off to attendevents in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron.
A large mockup of a blue chair, symbolising a seat at the UN, and giant Palestinian flagshanging from buildings provided a backdrop for the Ramallah rally, where overflow crowds ofthousands packed its Manara and Clock squares.
The main venues were far removed from Israeli military checkpoints on the perimeter of thecities and there were no reports of any violence. Palestinian leaders have pledged thatdemonstrations for statehood would be peaceful.
Later in the day in New York, US President Barack Obama was due to meet Abbas to urge himto drop plans to ask the UN Security Council to recognise a Palestinian state. Washington saysstatehood should be achieved through peace talks.
Abbas has said he will present UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with a membershipapplication on Friday. The move requires Security Council approval and the United States, oneof five veto-wielding permanent members, says it will block it.
"CRY OF DESPERATION"
At the Ramallah rally, Amina Abdel Jabbar al-Kiswany, a head teacher, said the UN bid was astep on the road to statehood, not a solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict,which direct negotiations have failed to resolve.
"It's a cry of desperation," Kiswany said.
In the thick of the crowd, a masked men tried to set a US flag on fire but was dissuaded byanother participant who tried to grab it away from him. In the end, the Stars and Stripes wastossed into the crowd, where a man picked it up and walked away with it.
US-brokered peace talks collapsed a year ago after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahurefused to extend a 10-month limited moratorium on construction in Jewish settlements in areasPalestinians want for a state.
Netanyahu has called the Palestinian demand of a halt to settlement building an unacceptableprecondition and urged Abbas to return to negotiations.
The Israeli leader was due to meet Obama, with whom he has had a strained relationship, laterin the day on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Palestinians hope to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip,territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
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