Israel reverses Palestinian campaign ban
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-09 08:51

Palestinians running in Jan. 25 parliamentary elections would be allowed to campaign in Jerusalem, Israeli police said Monday, reversing a previous ban on Palestinian political activity in the city both sides claim as their capital.

Hatem Abdel Khader, a senior Palestinian politician, saw the decision as an indication Israel would permit east Jerusalem residents to participate in the voting, a key Palestinian demand.

"They informed me that there is a political decision to allow us as candidates in the upcoming election to conduct our election campaign in Jerusalem," he said. "I consider this to be a progress in the Israeli position."

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby told The Associated Press that police and Palestinians would meet later Monday to discuss procedures.

The decision on whether to permit Jerusalem's 200,000 Palestinians to vote in the city is likely to be the first political test of former Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who became acting prime minister last week when Ariel Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke. A government official declined comment on the decision early Monday.

An Israeli soldier prays at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City January 8, 2006. [AP]

The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state; Israel says the entire city is its capital, and police have repeatedly broken up Palestinian political gatherings, saying they are forbidden under interim peace accords.

Sharon's stroke and the subsequent Israeli political upheaval should not be used as a pretext for delaying the Palestinian election, said Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Palestinian uprising leader who is a leading candidate on the ruling Fatah Party list.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is under increasing pressure from Fatah members worried about a strong challenge from the Islamic Hamas to postpone the election.

Barghouti said in a statement issued from an Israeli prison that the elections are "a political, legal and national process that should not be subject to external effects."

"There should not be a link between holding the elections and the developments in Israel arising from the deterioration of Sharon's health," Barghouti said in the statement, which was published Saturday. He is serving five life terms for involvement in deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Fatah has dominated Palestinian politics for more than four decades, but voters are angry about government corruption and lawlessness on Palestinian streets, and Hamas is poised to benefit.

Abbas said the elections will go ahead as planned as long as Israel allows Palestinians in disputed east Jerusalem to vote — a demand echoed by Barghouti.

In a previous compromise, Palestinians voted in east Jerusalem by casting absentee ballots in Israeli post offices. But because of the participation of Hamas, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Israeli officials have so far not announced an agreement to allow such a procedure this time. Hamas rejects the presence of a Jewish state in the Mideast and has carried out dozens of suicide bombings, killing hundreds of Israelis.