What if there was a peace agreement and no one came?
The Christian Science Monitor‘s Ilene Prusher reports that Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has put the status of East Jerusalem on the table at the US-sponsored “international meeting” on the Middle East in Annapolis. This would appear to be good news, since there isn’t going to be a peace unless the Palestinian Authority can claim its ...
The Christian Science Monitor's Ilene Prusher reports that Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has put the status of East Jerusalem on the table at the US-sponsored "international meeting" on the Middle East in Annapolis. This would appear to be good news, since there isn't going to be a peace unless the Palestinian Authority can claim its capital to be in East Jerusalem. Whether the Palestinians who live in these neighborhoods actually want this to happen is another question entirely, according to Prusher: Those feeling skittish about the city's potential partition aren't just Israelis ? who traditionally take the position that Jerusalem should be Israel's united capital ? but also Palestinian Jerusalemites, who fear that their standard of living will fall if they come under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). "I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here," says Ranya Mohammed as she does her afternoon shopping in Shuafat. "I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport," says Mrs. Mohammed, whose husband earns a good living from doing business here. "I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I'm not ready to give up." Nabil Gheet, a neighborhood leader who runs a gift and kitchenware outfit in the adjacent town of Ras Khamis, also resists coming under the PA's control. "We have no faith in the Palestinian Authority. It has no credibility," he says, as his afternoon customers trickle in and out. "I do not want to be ruled by Abbas's gang," he says, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.... In a poll issued last year by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, 39 percent of Palestinians supported and 59 percent opposed a compromise in which East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state, with Arab neighborhoods coming under Palestinian sovereignty and Jewish neighborhoods coming under Israeli sovereignty. Among Israelis, the survey noted, about 38 percent would agree and 60 percent would disagree with such an arrangement.
The Christian Science Monitor‘s Ilene Prusher reports that Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has put the status of East Jerusalem on the table at the US-sponsored “international meeting” on the Middle East in Annapolis. This would appear to be good news, since there isn’t going to be a peace unless the Palestinian Authority can claim its capital to be in East Jerusalem. Whether the Palestinians who live in these neighborhoods actually want this to happen is another question entirely, according to Prusher:
Those feeling skittish about the city’s potential partition aren’t just Israelis ? who traditionally take the position that Jerusalem should be Israel’s united capital ? but also Palestinian Jerusalemites, who fear that their standard of living will fall if they come under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). “I don’t want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here,” says Ranya Mohammed as she does her afternoon shopping in Shuafat. “I’ll go and live in Israel before I’ll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport,” says Mrs. Mohammed, whose husband earns a good living from doing business here. “I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I’m not ready to give up.” Nabil Gheet, a neighborhood leader who runs a gift and kitchenware outfit in the adjacent town of Ras Khamis, also resists coming under the PA’s control. “We have no faith in the Palestinian Authority. It has no credibility,” he says, as his afternoon customers trickle in and out. “I do not want to be ruled by Abbas’s gang,” he says, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…. In a poll issued last year by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, 39 percent of Palestinians supported and 59 percent opposed a compromise in which East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state, with Arab neighborhoods coming under Palestinian sovereignty and Jewish neighborhoods coming under Israeli sovereignty. Among Israelis, the survey noted, about 38 percent would agree and 60 percent would disagree with such an arrangement.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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