Israel's Cabinet will vote next week on whether to allow Palestinians to vote in Jerusalem during Palestinian parliamentary elections, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said. Approval is expected.
Olmert told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a phone conversation on Tuesday that Cabinet would vote on the matter at its weekly meeting on Sunday, according to a statement from Olmert's office. Rice called Olmert for an update on the condition of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remains hospitalized after a massive stroke.
If the Cabinet approves the plan, it would resolve a dispute that threatened to derail the Jan. 25 election.
Israel had threatened to prevent the voting in Jerusalem, which had been allowed in previous elections, because of the presence on the ballot of Hamas, a militant group pledged to the destruction of Israel. A Cabinet decision to allow the voting to go forward would be contingent on Hamas not participating, Olmert's statement said.
Israeli officials gave conflicting accounts as to whether the proposal would pass.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Tuesday that Israel would allow Jerusalem voting along the same lines as previous Palestinian elections, when it permitted some residents to cast absentee ballots in local post offices. The remainder of voters cast ballots in outlying West Bank suburbs.
"Israel's policy regarding elections in east Jerusalem will stay like it was," Mofaz told reporters while on a tour near Jerusalem. The arrangements were reached under interim peace agreements in the mid-1990s.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said there would be no voting in Jerusalem.
"Israel is of the opinion -- and it was an opinion widespread when Prime Minister Sharon was still functioning as a decision-maker -- that under the present circumstances residents of east Jerusalem are not to be allowed to vote in Jerusalem itself but only in the adjoining [West Bank] villages," he said.
The dispute reflects internal Israeli politics. Shalom is in Likud, the hard-line party Sharon left to set up his centrist Kadima, which Mofaz joined. Israel's parliamentary elections are March 28.
Since Kadima holds a majority in the Cabinet, the proposal is likely to pass.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he had not heard anything official from the Israelis.
"If this is the case, I welcome this position of the Israeli government," he said.
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinians claim the eastern sector of the city as capital of a future state.
Israel had been threatening to prevent voting in Jerusalem because the Islamic group Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction, is running.
On Tuesday, Israel's Security Cabinet recommended that the government boycott elected Hamas representatives unless the group accepts Israel and lays down its weapons, said security officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had said the election would be canceled if Palestinians in east Jerusalem weren't allowed to vote, but said in a televised address on Monday that he had received assurances from the US that Jerusalem voting would be allowed.
Olmert's announcement came a day before a team of US envoys were scheduled to arrive to help resolve the dispute.
Israeli police also reversed a ban on allowing Palestinian candidates to campaign in Jerusalem.
On Tuesday, police published conditions for the campaigning, saying that members of terror groups, such Hamas or Islamic Jihad, were still banned. Other candidates could hold meetings in private homes, but assemblies in public buildings would require a police permit.
Rallies in open spaces were banned and election posters were to be displayed only on notice boards put up for the purpose by the municipality. Posters on vehicles were also banned, but small bumper stickers were permitted, the statement said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in