EU: Jerusalem must be capital of two states

Ma'an
European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday called on Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a solution wherein Jerusalem would become the capital of both their states......

'Disappointing' draft

Former Palestinian Minister of Information Mustafa Barghouthi told Ma’an that the draft leaked to media on Tuesday was weak compared with an original draft introduced by Sweden.

“It’s disappointing. The original draft was much better,” he said.

Barghouthi said the call for negotiations was inappropriate at a time when “the most extreme right-wing government is obstructing peace negotiations.”

He said the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had set “impossible conditions” on all issues, including Jerusalem, borders, settlements, and water. “What is left to negotiate?”

“What we need today is pressure on Israel similar to the pressure that was applied on Apartheid South Africa,” Barghouthi said in a phone interview.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem along with the West Bank as a whole in 1967. Israel later claimed to have annexed a swath of the central West Bank as a part of Jerusalem, which it declared its “eternal” capital.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty in areas east of the 1967 Green Line. Foreign governments maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem reject Israeli citizenship. Full story

1967 war