Why is Israel suppressing the activities of Palestinian and/or Palestinian Authority (PA) activities in East Jerusalem?
The argument being offered by Israeli authorities is that PA activities are banned in Jerusalem under the Oslo Accords.
But, these activities were allowed — with difficulty — before and after the start of the “Olso” process in 1993.
It’s hard to believe these days, with the now-routine suppression of rather simple activities such as a memorial meeting on the anniversary of the death of Faisal Husseini, or the press conferences of East Jerusalem Palestinians in a media center opened by the Palestinians during the Pope’s recent visit, or this year’s Palestinian Literary Festival (PalFest09) that opened in Jerusalem on Saturday (see post below), have all been closed by police and Border Policemen with guns.
Israel’s then-Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, who is now Israel’s State President, wrote a letter dated 11 October 1993, promising “not to hamper” — but rather to “encourage” — the activity of “all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem”.
The “Oslo process” Declaration of Principles between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the State of Israel was signed on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993. It was to go into effect a month later. Apparently as part of that, Israel’s then-Foreign Minister Peres sent this letter to the Norwegian Foreign Minister, whose country had hosted the previously-secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations taking place under Oslo.
The text of the letter is posted on the website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (though, strangely, they take it from the Jerusalem Post some eight months later):
“The following is the text of a letter sent by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst, on October 11, 1993, as published in The Jerusalem Post on June 7, 1994:
‘I wish to confirm that the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem and the interests and well-being of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem are of great importance and will be preserved. Therefore, all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem, including the economic, social, educational, cultural, and the holy Christian and Moslem places, are performing an essential task for the Palestinian population. Needless to say, we will not hamper their activity; on the contrary, the fulfilment of this important mission is to be encouraged’.”
This text can be found on the Israeli MFA website here .
So, what has happened since then?
According to lawyer Jawad Bulous, the Israeli Knesset passed an “implementation” law (to “implement” subsequent “Oslo process” agreements) — he said, I thought, that this law was passed in 1997 — and it is this “implementation” law passed by the Knesset is apparently what prohibits Palestinian Authority activity in East Jerusalem — despite the promise made by Shimon Peres in his October 1993 letter to the Norwegian Foreign Minister.
So, what good are such letters — Peres apparently wrote a number of them on various subject matters — and such promises?
If the “implementation” law passed in 1997, an internet search reveals other dates, or other stages in the process: A Jerusalem Post article dated 6 June 1996 reported that “since the passing in December 1994 of special legislation explicitly forbidding Palestinian Authority activity in the capital, Orient House officials have largely stopped work directly connected with the PA. Faisal Husseini, the senior PLO official in Jerusalem who runs Orient House, also personally promised Internal Security Minister Moshe Shahal the PA activity would stop”…
December 1994 was just over a year after the Oslo accord’s Declaration of Principles — very early days.
The Orient House was then finally closed down in August 2001, after a suicide bombing targetted a Jerusalem pizza restaurant.