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March 17, 2000/10 Adar II, Vol. 52, No.28
Battle for Jerusalem may divide coalition
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - A new surge forward on the Israeli-Palestinian peace track has catapulted the sensitive issue of Jerusalem's borders to the center of a political storm.
In a sign of just how fraught with political peril the issue has become, Prime Minister Ehud Barak made an embarrassing reversal March 14 and canceled plans to give up a West Bank village on Jerusalem's fringes to Palestinian control. The reversal - viewed as a capitulation to hawkish forces not only in the opposition, but within Barak's own coalition - came only hours after the Israeli media reported that he intended to transfer control of Anata and two other villages near Jerusalem.
The reports prompted Israeli hard-liners, including Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, to flock to Jewish settlements near Jerusalem to show their opposition.
The initial proposal to transfer the villages of Anata, Beitunia and Ubeidiya came as Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were to resume in Washington within days, after more than a month of deadlock.
The villages - with Anata no longer among them, at least for the time being - were to be handed over as part of the next Israeli withdrawal from an additional 6.1 percent of the West Bank. Barak and his aides decided that three other villages located even closer to the capital - Abu Dis, A-Ram and Azariya - will not yet be transferred to Palestinian control, despite Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's demands.
But the Barak government has hinted unmistakably that if the peace process with the Palestinians does indeed get back on track, those villages, too, will be transferred.
These concessions have triggered vigorous opposition from all quarters, including rightist elements within Barak's coalition. Even before Barak reversed his decision, government officials pointed out that Anata, Beitunia and Ubeidiya are not contiguous with the municipal borders of Jerusalem and that transferring them could not be seen as presenting the Palestinian Authority with an opportunity to encroach on the city.
But opposition spokesmen were quick to protest that Barak's concession flies in the face of his own assurances that he would not support any encroachment on Jerusalem. Those assurances were made in the face of a brewing storm over Abu Dis, A-Ram and Azariya - which are in effect suburbs of the capital.
The Palestinian Authority has long demanded that these villages, especially Abu Dis, be transferred to full Palestinian control. They are currently under Palestinian civilian control, with Israel having overall security responsibility.
The Palestinian Authority is completing the construction of a large building in Abu Dis that is apparently designed to serve as the seat of its future legislative assembly. Israeli observers believe that the Palestinian Authority is also planning to have its executive offices there.
Under a never-formalized, and never officially confirmed, 1993 understanding between now-Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Arafat's second-in-command, Abu Mazen, Abu Dis was to serve as the capital of an eventual Palestinian state. By investing this suburb, located less than half a mile from the Old City walls, with the status of an administrative and legislative center, the Palestinians were given the chance to satisfy, at least in the medium term, their ambition to have Jerusalem as the capital of their planned state.
Beilin said over the weekend that he "would be happy" if the Palestinians agree to make Abu Dis their capital.
The Beilin-Abu Mazen plan has always been anathema to nationalist and rightist forces in Israeli politics. The Barak government has never openly endorsed the plan.
But a statement last week by the premier's top political aide, Danny Yatom, that the government would consider the suburbs' transfer in the context of negotiations for a final peace deal, has thrown the political community into turmoil.
Those negotiations, which appeared to be receding at the height of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in February, now look to be closer than ever. The two sides, under U.S. diplomatic prodding, have agreed to a new, intensified negotiating schedule that calls for a framework for a final peace treaty by May, the last phase of Israeli withdrawal by June and the final treaty itself by September.
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