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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Palestinian leadership rejects Barak's suggestion of Palestinian capital in parts of East Jerusalem |
| 2008-09-04 |
| A top Palestinian negotiator rejected a suggestion by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday that Israel might allow certain parts of East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and a member of the Palestinian negotiating team said that East Jerusalem is not an entity that can be separated from the rest of the West Bank. In an interview with Ma'an, he said that Israel must withdraw from all areas it occupied in 1967. Palestinian negotiators, he said, would accept nothing less. Barak told Al-Jazeera television in an interview broadcast on Wednesday, "We can find a formula under which certain neighborhoods, heavily-populated Arab neighborhoods, could become, in a peace agreement, part of the Palestinian capital that, of course, will include also the neighboring villages around Jerusalem." Barak did not specify whether this would include all Palestinian neighborhoods, or what would become of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. Asked if a peace agreement is possible before the end of the year, Barak said "I'm not sure whether the gaps are close enough." Illegal settlements in East Jerusalem have transformed the city into a patchwork of Jewish and Palestinian areas. Israel unilaterally annexed Jerusalem and a ring of surrounding territory after the occupation of 1967, although Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not full Israeli citizens. |
| Posted by:Fred |