Word: jerusalem
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...week prior to Rice's arrival, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon opined that Israel should consider dividing Jerusalem, giving Arab neighborhoods to a Palestinian state and possibly ceding control over the Temple Mount. Predictably, the notion - last floated at the end of 2000 as the outgoing President Clinton sought to save the Oslo peace process - inflamed Israeli right-wingers. Some key coalition partners threatened to bolt Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's governing coalition, and some religious leaders vowed to mobilize mass protests. But the difficulties that the Israelis will face in even discussing the sharing of Jerusalem - a Palestinian bottom...
...signatories include Sheik Mohammed Nur Abdullah, vice president of the Fiqh Council of North America; Sheikh Salem Falahat, director-general of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan; Hasan Shariatmadari, head of the Iranian National Republicans party; and Sheikh Ikrima Said Sabri, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque. "This is a determination by mainstream, traditional Muslim scholars and authorities who cover all the branches of Islam, and that's very unusual," says David Ford, Director of the Inter-Faith Program at the University of Cambridge, who helped launch the letter in London this morning. "It is unapologetic...
...skepticism has been reinforced by Arab perceptions that Olmert will eventually decline to make the politically difficult compromises on core issues like territorial withdrawal, refugees and control over Jerusalem that Palestinians believe are necessary to end the nearly 60-year-old conflict. "The devil is going to be in the detail," says an Arab official. "The gaps are going to be huge." Moreover, in talks with Rice in New York two weeks ago, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal complained that Israel's failure to halt the construction of West Bank settlements raised questions about its good faith going...
According to charges made public by the office of Israel's crusading Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Olmert is accused of buying a heavily discounted Jerusalem apartment, at $320,000 below its $1.6 million market value, from a friend in the real estate business in return for granting illegal building permits. The Prime Minister's office said the investigation was "unnecessary" but that Olmert nevertheless would be willing to cooperate with police questioning. Privately, his staff expressed confidence that the case was too "full of holes" for Olmert to be charged...
Several legislators demanded that the Prime Minister be suspended, but political analysts in Jerusalem say that Olmert will survive in office, not because he is loved but because his rivals are in such disarray that none of them sees an advantage to contesting an election at this point should Olmert be forced from the government. [And while Olmert's approval rating hovers at a lowly 25%, that is an improvement due to the government's air strike last week on an alleged Syrian military installation...