Whatever they did it worked because Obama “unblocked” $500 million in U.S. aid.
Via Times of Israel:
The municipality of Bethlehem removed a monument depicting the Palestinian state as covering the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to the city last Friday, Palestinian Media Watch revealed on Sunday.
Obama route into the city would have taken him past the monument, called “The State Monument,” and said to showing the “State of Palestine,” PMW said. The model of “Palestine” also includes all of Israel, thereby erasing it completely, the watchdog group noted.
Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah first reported the removal of the map — commemorating the successful UN bid for non-member status last November, and “the outbreak of the glorious revolution” in 1965, a reference to the first PLO/Fatah terror attack against Israel – on March 19. Obama visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem three days later.
“It seems that in the city, there are those who not only welcome the visit of the American President, but are willing to go even further,” the article read, disapprovingly.
“Residents were surprised to find that a model of the map of Palestine engraved with details about the Nakba [the catastrophe, a Palestinian term denoting the establishment of Israel] and an olive tree were removed from the Al-Karkafa Square, to be replaced by a model of what was described as a peace dove. This enraged many people who gathered there.”