Olmert: Living with 270,000 Arabs in Jerusalem means more terror

By Avi Issacharoff and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that the situation in which Jews and Arabs live side by side in Jerusalem inevitably leads to terror attacks.

"Whoever thinks its possible to live with 270,000 Arabs in Jerusalem must take into account that there will be more bulldozers, more tractors, and more cars carrying out attacks," Olmert said, referring to two incidents this month in which Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem deliberately plowed bulldozers into passing cars in the capital, causing casualties.

Olmert added that in light of the volatile situation in Jerusalem, it was unlikely that Israel and the Palestinians would reach an agreement on the issue by the end of the year, as is the stated goal. He said that other core issues, such as the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the borders of a future Palestinian state, could be agreed upon by the year-end deadline.

"I don't believe that understandings that will include Jerusalem can be reached this year. But on the other core issues, the gaps are not insurmountable," he told members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to an official present at the meeting. "There is no practical chance of reaching an overall understanding on Jerusalem."

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Olmert's comments showed "Israel's determination to destroy the negotiations and the peace process."
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Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas' spokesman, said Jerusalem was a "red line" for Palestinians, who want the city's Arab eastern half as the capital of their future state. "We will not accept any agreement that excludes Jerusalem," he added.
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should round all the arabs up and throw them over the "fence".

IsraelNN.com)

Israel has abandoned several eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods within the separation barrier, leaving them without army or police patrols, according to Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Yuval Diskin.

"Neighborhoods are being abandoned…and it leaves a vacuum where Hamas operates," he added. Smuggling of weapons has increased, and police find it more difficult to deploy forces in neighborhoods where the terrorist infrastructure has strengthened.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima) pointed out that 20 percent of terrorist attacks in the past five years involved Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem. He explained that a dramatic change has occurred this year, raising a red flag through the direct involvement in terrorist attacks by Arabs who live within the separation barrier.

Three attacks this year that resulted in the deaths of 11 Jews were carried out by eastern Jerusalem Arabs who acted on their own, without any apparent ties to an organized terrorist movement. "It is extremely difficult to foresee and to prevent these types of attacks," Dichter noted.

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