Israel Closes 4 Palestinian Offices in E. Jerusalem

The Israeli government Wednesday ordered four Palestinian offices to stop operating in East Jerusalem, despite mounting international criticism that Israel’s actions threaten to destabilize the peace process.

The move followed heated talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo over Israel’s decision last week to build a Jewish neighborhood in disputed East Jerusalem.

Israeli police in Jerusalem tacked warning letters on the doors of the four Palestinian offices after dark, giving the organizations 96 hours to close voluntarily or face eviction.

The small offices are symbols in the battle over the future of the Holy City. They represent an official Palestinian foothold in Jerusalem, which Israel claims is its undivided capital.

Israel contends that the offices are run by Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and, therefore, violate interim peace agreements that prohibit the Palestinian governing body from operating outside self-rule areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“We have ascertained beyond a shadow of a doubt that these four offices are directed and financed by the Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan said. “We are certain they are illegal and they should be closed.”

But the unilateral move angered the U.S. government, which has backed the peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

“This is a time when it is very important that the parties take steps that will build confidence between them,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters in Washington. “It is, therefore, very difficult to understand why the Israeli government made such a decision at this time when there is a very difficult environment in the relationship with the Palestinians.”

Israeli television reported that Secretary of State Madeline Albright telephoned Netanyahu to say his government is making it difficult to defend Israel in the U.N. Security Council.

Israel’s closure order came a week after the government announced that it will soon break ground on a project to build 6,500 homes for Jews in the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, in an area that Jews call Har Homa and Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghneim.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine and argue that Israel should not build in the traditionally Arab half of the city before Jerusalem’s fate is decided in a final phase of the peace negotiations.

The Israelis say they have sovereignty over all of Jerusalem and the right to build anywhere.

Israel captured the eastern half of the city, along with the West Bank, in the 1967 Mideast War. The government annexed East Jerusalem and declared the whole city its capital. But the international community does not recognize this.

Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini accused Israel of “undermining the credibility” of the peace process and the Palestinian leadership with its order to close the offices and with its construction plans.

“No matter what the Palestinian leadership does, it cannot save the peace process if Israel continues these actions,” Husseini said.

He called the Israeli moves “a provocation for the Palestinian people” and fuel for Islamic extremists who oppose the peace process.

Bar-Illan denied charges in the Israeli media that the order to close Palestinian offices in Jerusalem is intended to appease right-wing members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet, which is scheduled to meet tonight to determine the scope of an Israeli troop redeployment in the West Bank that is scheduled to take place this week.

Under the U.S.-brokered Hebron redeployment agreement that Netanyahu and Arafat signed in January, Israel is to carry out the first of three pullbacks from rural West Bank lands in the first week of March. Israel is deciding the extent of the redeployments unilaterally.

Netanyahu’s far-right allies have threatened to oppose the pullback if it includes any areas now under sole Israeli control, arguing that such a move would weaken Israel’s bargaining position in the final phase of the peace negotiations.

Bar-Illan said Netanyahu plans to give up some areas under Israeli control but still expects to have enough votes in the 18-member Cabinet to go forward with redeployment.

He also said the Israeli premier had asked Arafat to close the Jerusalem offices in a meeting the two held subsequent to signing the Hebron agreement but that “nothing happened” and Israel decided to act.

The agencies affected are the Assn. for Welfare and Development, the office of National Institutions, the National Islamic Committee for the Struggle Against Settlements and the Institute for the Wounded, an Israeli police spokeswoman said.

The Palestinians have said these are independent organizations.

Notably, the government did not attempt to close any institutions operating out of Orient House, the Palestinian Authority’s unofficial headquarters in Jerusalem and the headquarters of several Palestinian offices, such as a mapping department.

As an opposition leader, Netanyahu and his Likud Party frequently attacked the previous Labor government for its failure to shut down Orient House.

In August 1995, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin closed three other Palestinian offices in Jerusalem--the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., the Health Council and the Bureau of Statistics.

Netanyahu is trying to balance compliance with the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords with opposition to them from within his constituency and coalition government.

He flew to Cairo on Wednesday to try to mend fences with Mubarak, but the two publicly disagreed over the proposed Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem.

“We believe in our policy, we believe we are doing the right thing for Jerusalem and all its residents, and we’ll stick by it,” Netanyahu insisted.

“I tell you I am afraid that this may create problems in the future” with the peace process, Mubarak responded.