RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Authority (PA) recently intensified its meetings with Israeli journalists, former lawmakers, political party members and academics in an attempt to gain their cooperation and to explain Palestinians' broad rejection of the US Mideast peace plan. But these gatherings aren't sitting well with the public.

Coordinated by the PLO’s Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society, a series of meetings began Feb. 2, bringing together an Israeli academic delegation and a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, Jibril Rajoub, in Ramallah. Since then, several more meetings have been held. On Feb. 14, former Knesset members, Israeli political figures, Palestinian representatives and members of the interaction committee met in Tel Aviv.

On Feb. 16, an Israeli delegation of 100 people, including journalists, visited Ramallah to meet with a number of top-level Palestinian political and religious officials. The next day, another delegation visited; this one involved columnists, analysts and political correspondents in the Israeli media.

The meetings sparked great anger in the Palestinian public. Palestinian factions condemned the gatherings and demanded they be halted, while dozens of Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah on Feb. 17 demanding the suspension of “normalization meetings.” Students at Birzeit University in the central West Bank organized a sit-in at the school Feb. 17 to protest the participation of a member of the university’s board of trustees in the Tel Aviv meeting. Also on Feb. 17, unknown youths threw a Molotov cocktail at the restaurant that hosted the meeting between Palestinian and Israeli figures.