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'A Palestine without all of east J'lem as capital won't work'
A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict necessarily requires the establishment of a Palestinian State with its capital in all of east Jerusalem and any accord short of that will not work, the Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs said Monday. The comments by Adnan Husseini, who previously served as director of the Islamic Wakf which administers the Temple Mount, only served to highlight the immense gaps that exist between the two parties regarding Jerusalem, and cast doubt on whether Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's longstanding proposal to cede Arab neighborhoods on the periphery of the city as part of a final peace agreement could serve as basis for such an accord. "The outline for Jerusalem is very clear," Husseini told The Jerusalem Post. "East Jerusalem is for the Palestinians and west Jerusalem is for the Israelis," he added.
The newly appointed Palestinian Minster for Jerusalem Affairs said that he had "no information" about a reported agreement between Olmert and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas which would reportedly give Jordan control over parts of the Old City - inlcluding the Temple Mount - as part of a peace agreement. The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi Arabic daily reported that Abbas and Olmert have agreed to make Jordan a guardian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, while such an arrangement would be supervised by Jordan, Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations. Husseini said that there was "not a problem" between Palestinians and the Jordanians over who would run the Muslim holy sites, noting that such a situation actually exists today and stressing that the problem was over the future of the city. Wakf officials declined comment Monday on the report. Olmert has said that he is willing to cede at least six outlying Arab neighborhoods in the city to the Palestinians as part of a final peace treaty. Husseini however scoffed at such an offer calling it "a street here and a street there." But the issue of who will be in charge of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem actually pales in comparison to the difficulty in finding a solution for the Old City, and particularly its holy sites, which will be acceptable for both sides. The Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest and Islam's third holiest site, is currently under Israeli sovereignty, although a very delicate status exists at the bitterly contested Jerusalem holy site whereby Israeli police are in charge of security at the compound, and the Islamic Trust or Wakf administers the site. The issue of who will control the Temple Mount, which is known as the tinderbox of the Middle East, is considered to be one of the single hardest issues in any future negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has long preferred Jordanian involvement in the goings-on on the Temple Mount, considering the Jordanians to be more moderate than the Palestinians. A team of Jordanian engineers recently repaired a bulge on the southern wall of the Temple Mount after two years of wrangling between Israeli and Palestinian officials over which side would fix the ancient wall. Last year, a study by a liberal Israeli think tank concluded that Israel and the Palestinians should allow the international community to oversee the administration of Jerusalem's holy sites, including the Temple Mount. The study, by the European Union funded Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies offered five different solutions to the bitterly contested question of sovereignty of Jerusalem's holy sites: full Israeli control over the sites; full Palestinian sovereignty over the area; Territorial division of the basin between the two sides, with international supervision to help monitor and settle disputes; a distribution of powers in the basin between the two sides, with international backing; entrusting the authority of the historical sites to an international body, which can delegate powers to both sides in certain aspects. The study states that full Israeli sovereignty is likely to be rejected by the Palestinian and the international community, while Palestinian sovereignty would likewise be rejected by Israel. The researchers concluded that entrusting the authority of the holy sites to an international body is the preferable and the most realistic option provided that both sides can put their faith in an international body and in its ability to run the holy sites fairly. In contrast, former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk has said that the thorny issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem's holy sites as part of any future peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is best left untouched since there is no solution that will be agreeable to both sides. "In the Middle East and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular some problems do not have solutions," Indyk, who served as Ambassador during the failed Camp David talks, said in a Jerusalem address last year. "You should leave well enough alone." Posted by: Fred 2007-10-09 |
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