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Jerusalem

?Palestinians? make play for Jerusalem


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
November 16, 2004

Playing on the West’s insistence that Israel facilitate “Palestinian” elections, and Israel’s desire to comply, the PA Tuesday threatened to call off the January 9 vote if Jerusalem’s Arab residents were not permitted to fully participate.

The Palestinian Arabs claim Jerusalem as the capital of their contrived nation.

Israel, meanwhile, said Jerusalem’s Arabs would be allowed, as they were in 1996, to cast ballots for the PA chairmanship by mail, but that the “eternal, undivided” Jewish capital would not be subjected to the full trappings of a “Palestinian” election.

In search of democracy

Yasser Arafat’s death last Thursday was immediately followed by excited speculation in Washington and European capitals that so-called “free, democratic” elections for the “Palestinian” leadership could not be far off.

This was accompanied by pressure on Israel to facilitate “Palestinian” election plans in every way possible, including with gestures such as freeing jailed Arab terrorists.

Jerusalem responded that it too desired a democratically elected Palestinian Arab leadership, and would do its part.

"Everything that is needed will be given to them in order to ensure that they will have the possibility to elect their new leadership," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Monday in a joint press conference with outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Shalom insisted, however, that the appearance of democracy could not substitute for the PA finally fulfilling its numerous violated peace obligations.

"We would like to see this new leadership is moving toward a better peace, better understanding with Israel, to move toward peace with Israel, but there are no shortcuts.”

Whose capital?

Regarding Jerusalem’s 200,000 Arab residents, Shalom said they would not be allowed to cast ballots for the PA chairmanship in the Israeli capital.

"There will be no elections in Jerusalem," the foreign minister insisted, but said the city’s Arabs would be permitted mail in their votes.

But some cabinet ministers felt even that was too much.

“Since Jerusalem will not be a part [of a future Palestinian state], giving them the right to vote is liable to be interpreted as our willingness to divide Jerusalem, something which is out of the question,” Trade and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday.

During Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he did not believe Israel could prevent Jerusalem’s Arabs from mailing in ballots or traveling to Ramallah to vote.

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, took the opportunity Tuesday to turn the participation of Jerusalem in its elections into a make or break issue.

Interim PA Chairman Rouhi Fattouh told the Al-Arabiya satellite channel that if there were no elections in eastern Jerusalem, there would be no elections at all.

The Palestinian Arabs claim Jerusalem as the capital of their contrived nation. Observers noted that holding a full-blown PA election in Jerusalem would do much to strengthen their claim.

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