Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem, reacting to the refusal of eight Consul General in East Jerusalem to attend the opening ceremony of the Armenian Church antiquities exhibition. has announced that the municipality would hereafter demand full payment for all municipal services from the eight consulates. He said the rejection of the invitation to the ceremony stemmed from the fact that he had been one of the signers.
Mayor Kollek also said he would reject any invitation extended to him from any of the eight consulates He called the boycott of the exhibit an affront. Consulates in West Jerusalem were exempted from municipal fees, other than for garbage removal, by an agreement reached 11 years ago. That arrangement was extended to consulates in East Jerusalem as a courtesy. The consuls involved are those of the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Greece. The issue stemmed from the refusal of the major powers and other countries to recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem following the June, 1967 war. Those powers regard East Jerusalem as under Israeli occupation and their postwar practice has been to decline all invitations in East Jerusalem sponsored or co-sponsored by Israeli Government or Israeli municipal authorities.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
