Abbas Says No Peace Without Deal on Jerusalem

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Agencies/Bethlehem
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday reiterated calls for Israel to accept a two-state solution, vowing not to resume negotiations with Israel without an explicit Israeli recognition of previously signed agreements.

Addressing an audience at the opening of an event celebrating Jerusalem’s role in Arab culture, Abbas said justice and peace will not come to the Middle East without “an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

“Jerusalem is the key for peace,” said Abbas.

Abbas said that “any new Israeli government should reaffirm anew its commitment for peace by clearly accepting the two-state solution, the road map peace plan and all commitments reached in previously signed agreements.”

He also stressed that “without (Israel) halting all settlement activities, in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories, there will not be serious and productive negotiations.”

Abbas stressed that the Palestinians want to reach “an effective truce” with Israel that would end bloodshed and hardships.

He called on Israel to stop the destruction of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, describing this policy as one of “ethnic cleansing.”

Israel refused to allow the Palestinian celebration to take place in Jerusalem, forcing a move to Bethlehem, which is under quasi-Palestinian rule. Bans on similar ceremonies were enforced in East Jerusalem and Nazareth, the largest Arab city inside Israel.

Nonetheless, Palestinian officials say they plan to hold several events throughout the year to commemorate Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture.

The streets of Bethlehem were bedecked with the flags of Arab countries ahead of the formal launching of the cultural festival.

Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad received officials from Morocco, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Jordan before attending the ceremony at an auditorium made to look like the Old City.

Palestinian officials said none of the dignitaries had plans to visit Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority had organised cultural activities in several locations – including annexed, mostly Arab east Jerusalem – to celebrate the city’s proclamation as this year’s capital of Arab culture.

Arab culture ministers have named a city each year since 1996. Damascus held the title in 2008.

But Israeli police vowed to “prevent any Palestinian attempt to hold official activities” in Jerusalem, and police reinforcements were posted yesterday throughout the eastern part of the city.

The authorities also set up barricades along routes to the Al Aqsa mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site – and prevented young men from entering the area, which in the past has been the site of violent demonstrations.

Israeli media reported that 11 people were arrested in Jerusalem. Police spokesmen could not immediately be reached to confirm the number.

Israeli police were also confiscating flags and banners associated with the event, and at one point they broke up a small protest of a few dozen people.

Elsewhere in east Jerusalem, children at a German school released a hundred red, white, green and black balloons – the colours of the Palestinian flag – into the air moments before police entered to halt the display.

In another incident, three employees of Jerusalem’s Al Quds University were detained for distributing T-shirts advertising the event, according to Israeli public radio.

Israel, which annexed east Jerusalem after the 1967 Six-Day War, bans any official Palestinian activity in the city, which the Jewish state considers its “eternal, undivided” capital.

The international community has never recognised Israel’s claim to east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their own promised future state.

A police spokesman said some 20 Palestinians were detained at eight events in and around East Jerusalem, but there were no reports of violent confrontations.

In the neighbourhood of Ral al-Amud, police confiscated a torch, brought in from Syria, which was to have been lit at an inauguration rally at sundown, spokesman Shmulik Ben-Ruby said.

The crackdown was ordered by Israel’s Internal Security Ministry because the celebrations violated understandings with the Palestinian Authority, an interim body created in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under 1993 peace talks, Ben-Ruby said.

A planned celebration in support of the events set to take place in Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab city, was also cancelled by police yesterday.

Abbas Says No Peace Without Deal on Jerusalem

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