Jerusalem – Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that the Cabinet would decide next week whether to allow Palestinians to vote in Jerusalem during Palestinian parliamentary elections.
If the Cabinet approves the plan, it would resolve a dispute that threatened to derail the Jan. 25 election.
Olmert told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a phone conversation that the Cabinet would vote on the matter at its weekly meeting Sunday, according to a statement from Olmert’s office. Rice had called Olmert for an update on the condition of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was hospitalized after a massive stroke.
Israel has threatened to prevent the voting in Jerusalem, which has 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 let the voting 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 Tuesday that Israel would allow Jerusalem voting along the same lines as previous Palestinian elections, when it permitted some residents to cast absentee ballots at post offices. The remainder of voters cast ballots in 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.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he had not heard anything official from the Israelis.
