Kollek Says Israel ‘miserly’ in Giving Rights to East Jerusalem Arabs

Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem accused Israeli governments, past and present, yesterday of shelving the problem of the country’s minorities and charged that Israel has been “miserly” in giving the Arab residents of Jerusalem their rights.

Meeting with the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee presently convening here, Kollek said it would be absurd for 100,000 East Jerusalem Arabs to be excluded from the political rights to be granted other West Bank residents under the projected autonomy scheme. “Another solution must be found” for them, he said. He deplored the fact that the rights of Jerusalem Arabs are, to this day, not enshrined in law but — as with the right to teach Jordanian school curricula — were a matter of administrative practice that could easily be reversed.

Kollek has long been advocating a “borough” system for Jerusalem in which the Arab areas would enjoy a measure of local self-government. A municipal delegation is presently in London studying the borough system.

TWO SOVEREIGNTIES REJECTED

President Anwar Sadat of Egypt has proposed two sovereignties in an undivided Jerusalem. Yitzhak Unna, an advisor to Kollek, rejected that idea. Speaking to an Israel Bonds labor delegation from the U.S. West Coast tonight he said it was a logical contradiction that could lead only to a “Berlin wall.”

Earlier, the AJ Committee leaders were told by Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem that the Palestine Liberation Organization would soon publicly recognize Israel’s right to exist. He said PLO chief Yasir Arafat was becoming more moderate and that the consensus among PLO leaders favored a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip to live in peaceful coexistence with Israel. Under questioning, Freij contended that despite the “Palestine Covenant,” the PLO is not bent on the destruction of Israel.