ISRAEL : Effort to Curb Arab Politics Likely to Roil ’95

Israeli officials are starting the New Year armed with a new law, one they say will put an end to Palestinian political activity in the Holy City.

As 1994 drew to a close, Israel’s Parliament voted in favor of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement Implementation Law. Both the government and the opposition Likud Party touted the legislation as a tool that will strengthen Israeli rule in Jerusalem.

“Your excuses are finished now,” Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu lectured the government after the bill passed Monday. “Now you have the law you asked for to take action on behalf of a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty.”

(The Likud abstained in the voting, because it opposes the Israeli-Palestinian accord the law refers to.)

The legislation, which takes effect New Year’s Day, restricts activities of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho--areas that Israel handed over to the Palestinians in May.

It bars the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority from carrying out any activity “of a political or governmental nature . . . which does not coincide with respect for Israel’s sovereignty” in Israel without Israeli government permission.

Israelis informally tagged the legislation the “Orient House law” because its primary purpose is to stop Palestinian diplomatic, political and bureaucratic activity at Orient House, a building in mostly Arab East Jerusalem.

The Israelis annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. That annexation has never been recognized by the international community. Palestinians warned that any effort to enforce the law will jeopardize Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“Passing a law like this puts pressure on the Palestinian Authority and reduces the credibility of the peace process and the Palestinian leadership,” said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian negotiator who often criticizes implementation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

If the law is enforced, Khatib said, “then the Palestinian Authority should reconsider its agreement to postpone the issue of Jerusalem to the final phase of negotiations with Israel.”

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Palestinians and Israelis started scuffling over Jerusalem almost as soon as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat arrived in Gaza in July to take over the newly formed Palestinian self-governing authority.

At the heart of both sides’ concerns is their peace accord’s language, which says that Jerusalem’s status will be resolved only in the final phase of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, scheduled to begin in 1996.

Palestinians assert that the Israelis are using that time to strengthen their hold on Jerusalem by building thousands of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem. They say the Israelis also are trying to separate Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank by restricting access of West Bank Palestinians to the city and by forbidding Palestinian Authority officials from conducting political business in Jerusalem.

The city not only is home to sacred shrines of all three monotheistic religions but has a mixed population of Arabs and Jews. Israel claims it as the historic capital of the Jewish state. Palestinians say they want it to also serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Israeli officials retort that the Palestinians are trying to bolster their claims to mostly Arab East Jerusalem by using Orient House, a lavishly appointed onetime hotel, as a quasi-embassy and office building for Palestinian Authority ministers.

Orient House is owned by Faisal Husseini, a minister-without-portfolio in the Palestinian Authority responsible for Jerusalem. He spent his own money to restore the 19th-Century structure, built by one of his ancestors.

An Orient House history of the building describes it as “an official Palestinian guest house.” Since 1992, after its restoration was completed, a stream of foreign dignitaries have met with Palestinian officials at the building.

Husseini also has allowed Saeb Erekat, minister of municipalities in the Palestinian Authority, to keep an office on the premises.

Israeli Police Minister Moshe Shahal said that Erekat’s activities will be immediately investigated to see if they violate the new law.

In a statement issued after the legislation was enacted, Husseini said the law restricting Palestinian political activity here “represents a serious violation of the Palestinian-Israeli accords and international resolutions.”

“Orient House confirms that its political activities will continue unabated as they always have been since 1992. The new Israeli law will not hinder nor stop any of these activities,” he said, almost certainly setting the stage for another Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in 1995.