Senior Official: Israel Prepared to Divide Jerusalem.

By Robert Berger (VOA-Jerusalem) & IsraelNationalNews.com

A senior government official said Monday that Israel is prepared to relinquish parts of Jerusalem as part of a peace agreement. However, there is opposition to the plan in the Cabinet and Palestinians said it is not enough.

Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon said the Israeli government would support a division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. He told Israel Radio that under the plan, Israel would transfer many of the Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. This would be a key component of an Israeli-Palestinian declaration to be made at an international peace conference in the United States this year.

The plan marks a sea change in Israel's position, after it captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six Day War in 1967. Since then it has been an Israeli slogan that Jerusalem would remain the united capital of the State of Israel forever. Ramon said Israel does not need 170,000 Arabs in Jerusalem, about a third of the city's population, to be citizens of the Jewish state.

But the plan is facing opposition from hawks in the Cabinet, like Minister Shaul Mofaz. "We need to strengthen Jerusalem, not weaken it," Mofaz said. A former general, Mofaz warned that handing areas of Jerusalem to Palestinian control would pose a major security threat to Jewish neighborhoods in the city.

Palestinian officials say Israel's position is a step in the right direction, but that it still does not resolve the key issue: sovereignty in Jerusalem's Old City. The Palestinians say any peace deal must be based on an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, which would include a pullout from the Old City.

But Israel said it would never give up Jewish holy places such as the Temple Mount, which is also home to the Mosque of Al Aksa, the third holiest place in Islam. Old Jerusalem is a focal point of religious aspirations and tensions, and it remains a stumbling block to a peace deal.

The Arabic Al Quds Al-Arabiya newspaper reported Monday morning that Olmert has now come to an agreement with Jordan that Arabs in eastern Jerusalem will be granted Jordanian citizenship. The plan would leave Jerusalem's Muslim holy sites under the control of the Hashemite kingdom, according to the report.

Olmert vehemently denied the report in a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office. "The idea never existed," said the statement.

Dr. Guy Bechor, a leading expert on Arab affairs, said recently that the prime minister agreed in writing nearly two months ago to hand over half of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. He based his information on "leaks from the Palestinian side." Bechor said that Judea and Samaria, the strategic highlands in the middle of the Jewish State where much biblical history occurred, are also on the chopping block. The Olmert government is pushing for the establishment of an Arab state to be called Palestine alongside the Jewish State. A large but undetermined number of thriving Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria that were built over the past 40 years will be destroyed, according to the agreement.

Olmert's intent to divide Jerusalem also comes in direct contradiction to a previous promise he made to Christian Zionists a year ago, as well as one made by Foreign Minister and then-deputy Prime Minister Tzipi Livni several months ago. "If there is any agreement with the Palestinians it will be brought to the government for its approval, and then to the Knesset for ratification as well," promised Livni.