Israeli occupation parliament votes to annex occupied East Jerusalem as a step to evict Palestinians from the city

Israeli legislature votes to seize East Jerusalem

Wednesday November 14, 2007 18:47 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC saed at imemc dot org

The Israeli occupation government parliament (called Knesset in Hebrew) gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a bill that would seize East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law and UN resolutions, and make it part of Israel.

The move comes just after the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged that the Palestinians would never give up East Jerusalem, as it is an integral part of a future Palestinian state.

In addition, Palestinian and Israeli leaders are gearing up for a peace conference that will take place on November 26th in Annapolis, MD, in the U.S.

Before being passed into law, the proposed bill must be approved by a parliamentary committee and go to three more votes -- a process that could take months.

"(Preliminary) passage of the legislation, two weeks before the Annapolis conference, sends an important and clear signal to the entire international community that all of the people of Israel and parliament oppose concessions in Jerusalem," said Gideon Saar, the Likud lawmaker who sponsored the bill.

When Israel was created after a UN recommendation in 1948, the United Nations recommended that Palestine be split 50/50, with half of the land being given to Israel to establish the Jewish homeland. The city of Jerusalem was to remain an international city under UN control.

In the 1948 war, in which Jewish militias displaced 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in order to establish the Jewish homeland there (Palestinians now are about ten millions), Israel took control of more than 60% of historical Palestine, but Jerusalem remained under Palestinian control.

In the 1967 war, preemptively started by Israel, Israeli forces took control of Jerusalem, and 78% of historical Palestine. Since that time, Israeli settlements and military attacks have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many of them from Jerusalem, to become refugees.

Although many Palestinians have been forced from their homes in Jerusalem, the city still remains a majority Palestinian city. But the Israeli Knesset, along with a majority of the Israeli population, want to kick the Palestinians out to make Jerusalem a Jewish city.

Abbas: "East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of our future state"

Wednesday November 14, 2007 13:55 by PNN - IMEMC News manarjibrin at gmail dot com

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday declared that the Palestinian Authority would accept no peace settlement that did not include east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Speaking during a speech delivered to the Turkish parliament, Abbas reminded listeners of the importance of the upcoming Annapolis summit and urged all participants to give all they could in ensuring a successful outcome in the negotiations.

Abbas also warned of the consequences of a failure to negotiate a peaceful solution, arguing that, with ongoing Israeli procedures against the Palestinian people, the continued existence and construction of the illegal Israeli wall and the continued incarceration of approximately 12,000 Palestinian people in Israeli jails, the region would quickly return to the quagmire of violence and tension that has blighted the political landscape for so many years.

Of Palestinian demands at the upcoming conference, Abbas called for a fair and just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees, the implementation of the Arab peace initiative and, seemingly most importantly to the President, a guarantee of East Jerusalem's status as the future capital of a Palestinian state.

"East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of our future state , there will be no capital for this state but East Jerusalem, so there is a necessity to guarantee the religions rights and prevent any friction that would disturb the situations," Abbas said.

The President's official visit to Turkey coincides with a similar diplomatic mission by Israeli president Shimon Peres.

Translated by Manar Jibrin-IMEMC News

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