Hamas lawmakers defy Israeli eviction threat

Tue May 30, 7:42 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A group of Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament and a minister in the Islamists' cabinet rejected an order by Israeli authorities to resign or be expelled from occupied east Jerusalem.

Three MPs elected in January's elections as well as Khaled Abu Arafeh, the Jerusalem affairs minister in the Hamas government, were summoned by police late Monday and handed orders to step down from their posts.

If they fail to do so within the month, they will lose their status as permanent residents of the Holy City.

Israel reluctantly agreed to allow voting in east Jerusalem in January's parliamentary elections under international pressure but refused to allow campaigning by Hamas, a group committed to the Jewish state's destruction.

However it first threatened to revoke the MPs' status last month following a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv that, while carried out by the smaller Islamic Jihad movement, was not condemned by Hamas.

Mohammed Totah, one of the three MPs, dismissed the Israeli move as without any legal foundation.

"We will never resign," Totah told AFP. "This is an illegal decision. They can't take away our identity cards just because we're members of the legislative council (parliament)."

Abu Arafeh was equally defiant, rejecting what he described as a "threat to revoke our residency and remove us from our land, people, homes and families."

"This is a crime that adds to the chain of crimes of the occupation and shows that the occupation authorities disdain all the international decisions and agreements that they signed and the world witnessed," he added in a statement.

Israel bans all Palestinian political activity in east Jerusalem which was occupied and annexed following the June 1967 Middle East war.

The Palestinians want to establish the capital of their promised future state in east Jerusalem, but Israel considers the holy city the "eternal and undivided capital of Israel".

Totah said it was illogical for Israel to allow elections in east Jerusalem and then not respect the outcome.

"We went into the elections and no one objected. The Israeli police even protected the ballot boxes," he said.

"We were elected in free and fair elections and the will of the people has to be respected."

Revoking the lawmakers' residency permits was simply another attempt to disenfranchise residents of east Jerusalem, the MP added.

News that the Hamas quartet had been handed their orders to quit came from Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On.

"I told them resign or you will no longer be among us. They've got 30 days to make up their minds," Bar-On, a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima party, told the privately-run Channel Two television.

The future status of Jerusalem, home to around 200,000 Arab residents, has been one of the most intractable issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Palestinian Authority believes that much of the Jewish settlement activity in the area is designed to sever the link between Palestinians living in east Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank.

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