Palestinians Plan Creation of Jerusalem City Council

In an effort to emphasize their political claims to the city, the Palestinian leadership plans to establish its own city council in Jerusalem, senior Palestine Liberation Organization said this week.

The decision to revive the 12-member council that administered eastern Jerusalem until the 1967 Six-Day War was approved at Saturday’s weekly meeting of the Palestinian Authority.

The decision was likely to renew tensions between Israel and the Palestinians over the future of the city, after controversy erupted last month plans for land expropriations in eastern Jerusalem.

Talks on the status of Jerusalem are scheduled to begin in May 1996.

Last year, the Knesset passed legislation barring the Palestinian Authority from operating inside Israel and Jerusalem.

The former deputy mayor of eastern Jerusalem, Amin Majaj, said PLO leader Yasser Arafat met with former council members last week in Jericho.

Arafat informed them that he had decided to revive the Jerusalem council, and he promised that he would provide them with financial and administrative support, according to Majaj.

Palestinian official Faisal Husseini said Majaj, 74, would be named the new mayor of eastern Jerusalem.

“With this council, we can do things to help our community,” said Husseini.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert was not immediately available for comment. Foreign Ministry officials said they were still studying the Palestinian decision.

In a separate, but related move conveying the ongoing battle over Jerusalem, a Jerusalem municipal official and other right-wing supporters held a sit-down strike Sunday outside Orient House, the PLO’s de facto headquarters in eastern Jerusalem, calling on the government to close it down.