Barak biedt Arabische wijken Jeruzalem aan voor Palestijnse hoofdstad

Israel komt de laatste weken met een aantal voorstellen en compromissen, in de hoop zo nog dit jaar een principe-akkoord met de Palestijnen te kunnen sluiten.

 

Na een vredesvoorstel waarin niet over Jeruzalem werd gesproken en een voorstel om bij de bespreking van Jeruzalem adviseurs van buiten te betrekken, biedt men nu concreet aan dat sommige Arabische wijken van Jeruzalem deel kunnen worden van de hoofdstad van een Palestijnse staat.

 

Als de Palestijnen nou ook met compromissen en redelijke tegenvoorstellen komen, is er misschien zowaar weer een beetje hoop. 

 

RP

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Last update - 20:07 03/09/2008      
Barak: Arab parts of J'lem could become Palestinian capital

By Reuters and Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1017874.html

Some Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem could become the capital of a future Palestinian state as part of a final peace agreement, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Barak did not say whether these neighborhoods would include all of Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
 
"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 told Al-Jazeera television.

U.S.-sponsored peace talks were launched last November by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with the goal of reaching an agreement in 2008.

But the negotiations have been marred by violence, as well as disputes over Jewish settlement building and Olmert's insistence that the fate of Jerusalem be decided later.

"I'm not sure whether the gaps are close enough," Barak said when asked if a deal was possible this year.

The talks have been thrown into further doubt by Olmert's announcement that he would step down as prime minister once his centrist Kadima party elects a new leader later this month.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem, including some surrounding areas in the occupied West Bank, to be its capital.

Israel wants to hold onto several major Jewish settlement blocs. Palestinians say these and other settlements will deny them a viable state.

Olmert and some of his closest advisers have hinted in the past that Israel would consider turning over outlying Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem in a future deal.

As prime minister in 2000, Barak presided over peace talks in Camp David that broke down amid violence. The then-premier first raised the issue of relinquishing Arab parts of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians near the outbreak of the Second Intifada.

"It will be Jerusalem and al-Quds, one next to the other, as two capitals," Barak said in 2000.