ABU DIS, West Bank, 29 August 2005 — Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei accused Israel yesterday 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 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 meeting. “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 proved to be arguably 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 road map 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 east of Jerusalem. Palestinian anger was further fuelled by an Israeli decision to confiscate communal Palestinian land around Maale Adumim, including from within the borders of Abu Dis, to build a section of its West Bank barrier around Maale Adumim.
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.
