Travel for Palestinian Pilgrims Settled

The Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia agreed Sunday to Israel’s demand that Palestinian pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia this week carry Jordanian travel documents, not Palestinian passports.

Thousands of Muslims from Israel and the West Bank had feared that their pilgrimage--called the hajj--would be canceled this year because Israel and the Palestinian Authority were fighting over what sort of travel documents the pilgrims would carry.

But a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs said Sunday night that the issue had been resolved. Pilgrims may start leaving as early as today by bus to Jordan and from there to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

At issue was whether the pilgrims would enter Saudi Arabia on Jordanian travel documents, as they have in previous years, or on newly issued Palestinian passports. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority viewed the dispute as a test case that might define the future citizenship of Palestinians.

The agreement is sure to be interpreted by both Palestinians and Israelis as an embarrassing setback for Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, who had lobbied the Saudis hard to grant the Palestinians a quota of pilgrims separate from the Jordanian quota.

Since 1977, Palestinians have traveled as part of the Jordanian delegation to the hajj, on Jordanian documents issued specifically for the journey.

The arrangement allowed the Saudis, who do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, to let Muslims who are Israeli citizens, or who were living under Israeli military occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, travel to Saudi Arabia without having to accept Israeli passports or travel documents.

But in May, 1994, Arafat established the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho. He wanted Palestinian sovereignty and a Palestinian national identity recognized by as many states as possible. Arafat asked the Saudis to require that all Palestinians carry Palestinian passports, regardless of whether they live in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza, and the Saudis agreed.

Israel immediately announced it would not accept the arrangement, arguing that only Palestinians living under Palestinian self-rule could travel on Palestinian passports. Through several weeks of bitter negotiations, the Israelis did not budge.

It is a religious obligation for every adult Muslim to make the pilgrimage to Mecca once. Four days of ritual and prayer are followed by four feasting days.

Times researcher Summer Assad in Jerusalem contributed to this report.