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PLO Rejects Proposal on Jerusalem's Arab Neighborhoods

[Maan News-PA/Palestine Media Center] Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Abed Rabbo rejected on Wednesday an Israeli proposal to cede "certain neighborhoods" of eastern Jerusalem that could become part of the Palestinian capital in any future peace agreement. 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. "Even the no-man's land," i.e., the Musrarah area [in central Jerusalem], Israel has no entitlement to, he added. The unofficial Israeli proposal by Minister of Defense Ehud Barak was aired by Al Jazeera on Wednesday. "Our basic position is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but that 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 said. "We are not expanding. We did not announce even a single new settlement," he said. "But there is a well-known dispute. We clearly believe with Jerusalem we have the right to build as we need, and we have these settlement blocs, Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Givat Ze'ev, Ariel, and several other small ones, where we believe that according to the Bush letter to Sharon, we have the right to have them, even within a permanent agreement."
2008-09-05 01:00:00
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