Premier Menachem Begin’s senior aide said today that the Prime Minister’s Office “will be moved to East Jerusalem — and I hope it will be soon.”
Mattiyahu Shmuelevitz, director general of the office, told a radio interviewer that Begin wanted the move to be ratified by a Cabinet decision, and that had not yet been done. But “I hope there won’t be any obstacles” to moving the office, he added. Shmuelevitz noted that work began six years ago on building a complex of government ministries at a site in East Jerusalem. “We cast our eyes on one building which is in a very advanced stage of construction, ” he said.
According to press reports here, U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis told Begin before the latter suffered from a mild heart attack last month that he would not call on him if his office was moved to East Jerusalem.
Begin, meanwhile, is said to be planning to attend Wednesday’s Knesset session in order to vote for the controversial “Jerusalem bill” proposed by Geula Cohen of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya faction. The bill, more declarative than operative, is not directly connected to moving the Prime Minister’s Office to East Jerusalem. But both issues have surfaced recently and have served to focus attention on the issue of Jerusalem.
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