UN Security Council debates acting on Israeli Jerusalem plan
Palestine-Israel-UN, Politics, 7/1/1998

Meetings began yesterday in the United Nations Security Council to discuss an Israeli plan to enhance its control over Jerusalem. Last Sunday, the Israeli government approved a plan which will set up an "umbrella authority" for Jerusalem over eight West Bank Jewish settlements to the east, north and south of the city.

The U.N. Security Council debated a draft resolution outlined by the Palestinian government and supported by the Arab League, which calls on Israel to refrain from unilateral actions.

The Palestinian observer at the UN, Nasser Al-Kidwa, outlined the history of UN involvement in the Jerusalem issue, stating that there is "clear international consensus" against Israel's practices there. He spelled out a long list of "illegal, appalling and immoral" Israeli practices in dealing with the Palestinians, "such as the attempts to annex occupied territories, the confiscation of lands and the expansion of the municipal boundaries and isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and such as bringing in 150,000 settlers, attempting to create a specific demographic composition, and the legal and practical discrimination between the Jew and non-Jew; and such as the direct oppression of Palestinian Jerusalemites and the confiscation of their identity cards, preventing them from living in the city of their ancestors and the demolition of their homes."

The current plan, he said, "represents a concrete step towards the illegal annexation of more occupied Palestinian lands to the already illegally expanded Jerusalem municipality and towards maintaining a specific demographic composition with the aim of furthering the process of the Judaization of the city," adding that it violates international law.

Al-Kidwa called on the U.N. Security Council "to finally undertake the necessary measures to guarantee the rescinding of this plan and to prevent Israel, the occupying Power, from undertaking any further illegal actions in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories, beginning with the adoption of the draft resolution which was sponsored by the Arab Group in this regard."

The Israeli government's intention, is to "not only violate the agreements, but also clearly aim at the systematic destruction of these agreements and discarding the entire peace process," he said.

"This plan constitutes another basic step towards the final divorce of the Israeli Government from the peace process."

Israel's Dore Gold said that Jews have far-reaching historical connections to Jerusalem, stating that there was a Jewish majority in the city in 1864 under the Ottoman Empire. He said that it is Israel's responsibility to care for Jerusalem as a holy city, and added that the expanded municipality exists simply to coordinate services between Jerusalem and surrounding communities.

US ambassador Bill Richardson said the US regrets the Israeli plan, but welcomed an Israeli promise that the city's political status will not change before final status negotiations. Richardson called on the Security Council not to interfere in a matter that both Palestine and Israel agreed was a subject for final status negotiations.

The Sudanese representative spoke on behalf of the Arab states at the UN, calling for all parties involved in the Middle East Peace Process to refrain from unilateral action.

Jassim Mohammed Buallay, Bahrain's ambassador, also noted that the Israeli plan and other Israeli actions violate the principles established to guide the peace process as well as UN Security Council resolutions.

Russia's ambassador, Sergey V. Lavrov, said the plan to expand Jerusalem further complicates the peace process and said that unilateral attempts to change the city's demographic status are in violation of existing agreements.

The Chinese ambassador, Qin Huasun, called for the issue of control over Jerusalem to be resolved through peaceful negotiation.

Sir John Weston, speaking for the European Union and several other states, said that the issue of Jerusalem is a subject for final status negotiations and pointed out that the Israeli plan is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Morocco stressed during the meeting that there will be no peace in the Middle-East without Jerusalem.

"Morocco, whose king chairs the Jerusalem committee, solemnly affirms that there will be no genuine peace without Al-Quds," Morocco's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ahmed Snoussi said.

Map reported that Snoussi said, "Morocco strongly affirms its opposition to this new aggression which comforts those who believe that no genuine peace is possible with Israel."

"By this act, Israel managed to reestablish an atmosphere of suspicion that we believed was buried," Snoussi said, adding that the Muslim community throughout the world "will allow neither the occupation nor the siege of the holy city, which remains the symbol and heart of our revealed religions."

Last Sunday, the Palestinians cautioned the United States against vetoing the Arab draft resolution at the Security Council on denouncing the Israeli plan to expand the authority of Jerusalem.

If the U.S. exercises the veto power, then it will be showing its "overt tilt" towards Israel, Palestinian ambassador in Cairo Zohdi al-Quddra told the Egyptian Middle East News Agency.

Previous Stories:
  Europe for elevating the status of PLO at the UN   (7/1/1998)
  Meguid hands documents showing U.S. support to Arab position on Jerusalem   (6/29/1998)
  Qurei: Israel must return every inch of occupied Jerusalem   (6/23/1998)

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