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Settlers protest Rice's visit ahead of peace process

Around 2,000 Jewish settlers protested in central Jerusalem on Sunday as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Israeli leadership to make bold moves toward peace with the Palestinians.

The demonstration, called by the main settler organization in the occupied West Bank, was the first against the intensive talks launched by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of a planned peace conference in the US later this year.

"We know perfectly well that with the concessions envisaged by Olmert, Hamas will end up in the West Bank and the heart of Israel will be within the range of their rockets," the movement's secretary general Shaul Goldstein said.

Ultra-orthodox member of parliament Meir Porush, who joined the protest, said that the prime minister was throwing into doubt Israel's claim to the whole of Jerusalem, including its occupied eastern Arab sector.

"We came here this evening to say to Ehud: `Enough is enough, the fate of Jerusalem is at stake,'" said Porush, a member of the United Torah Judaism party.

Ahead of the protest, right-wingers put up posters around Jerusalem depicting Olmert in the Palestinian keffiyeh headdress that was a trademark of their late leader Yasser Arafat, police said.

The demonstration came as Rice held talks with Olmert on her eighth visit to the region since the beginning of the year.

Washington has been intensifying preparations for an international Middle East conference it hopes to host later this year.
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