Israel wrecking chance of Palestinian state: Qorei
AFP
Date: 08-28-05
ABU DIS, West Bank (AFP) - Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei accused Israel of destroying the chances of a viable Palestinian state by expanding its settlements around Jerusalem.
As he held a symbolic cabinet meeting on the outskirts of the holy city, Qorei said that Israel's settlement drive and its construction of a separation barrier in the region were leaving Palestinians living in the east of the city in "ghettos".
"All these things do not leave any room for the creation of a viable Palestinian state," Qorei told reporters after the unprecedented meeting, the first ever to be held so close to Jerusalem.
"The Palestinian state should be built on the borders of 1967 and the Palestinians will not accept any state less than that."
The issue of Jerusalem has arguably proved to be the biggest thorn in the side of efforts to reach peace between the two sides.
While the Palestinians want to establish the capital of their promised future state in east Jerusalem, which was captured and then annexed by Israel in 1967, Israel regards the city as the undivided capital of the Jewish people.
Although it is meant to have frozen its settlement activity in the occupied West Bank under the terms of the internationally-brokered roadmap peace plan, Israel has continued construction.
Plans were announced last March to build 3,500 new houses in the largest settlement of Maale Adumim, which will effectively cut off Palestinian areas of the West Bank from occupied east Jerusalem.
Officials also revealed plans last week to build a new police headquarters on the outskirts of Maale Adumim which is home to 28,000 settlers, about eight kilometers (five miles) east of Jerusalem.
Palestinian anger has been further fuelled by the impact of Israel's West Bank barrier in and around Jerusalem.
Israel last week decided to confiscate communal Palestinian land, including from within the borders of Abu Dis, to build a section of its West Bank barrier around Maale Adumim.
The Israeli government also caused consternation among the Palestinians in July when it approved a new route for its West Bank separation barrier around east Jerusalem which would separate around a quarter of the 230,000-strong Palestinian population from the rest of the holy city.
Qorei said that the government had agreed to give extra priority to the issue of Jerusalem.
"The cabinet and the ministries will give priority to the Jerusalem issue because of the wall and the building of the ghettos which are wrecking the peace process," he said.
Abu Dis remains under Israeli security control but the Palestinians control the suburb's administration. The Israeli army seized the Palestinian Authority's offices in the town in August 2001.
Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian expert on settlements, was invited to address the cabinet on the implication of Israeli policies for Jerusalem.
"The thing is that is Israel is working on the land in an intensive way," he told AFP.
"They are the ones who are changing the reality on the ground, the ones who are winning the case," Tufakji said.
"The Palestinian Authority appears to be able to do nothing on the ground except express its anger and appeal to the United Nations and United States."
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