Israel's Peres rejects critics of trip to West Bank settlement

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday rejected condemnation by anti-settler group Peace Now of a planned visit to a West Bank settlement, saying he was president of all Israel and its citizens.

The group wrote to the Nobel peace laureate, saying his visit to the key settlement of Ariel in the Israeli-occupied West Bank later on Wednesday helps the enemies of peace.

Peres was due to go to the settlement to mark the 30th anniversary of its establishment, 11 years after the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"Yesterday we wrote to Shimon Peres, who fought for peace and was awarded the Nobel peace prize, to ask him not to go today to Ariel," Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer told AFP.

"We do...