Israel weighs limited Palestinian vote in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM - Israel's defence minister proposed limited voting in Arab East Jerusalem in this month's Palestinian election but the government said it would not tolerate Hamas candidates being on ballot papers in the city.

The Palestinians have rebuffed efforts by Israel to restrict who can run in the parliamentary election, casting doubt on whether the proposal will help settle a dispute that threatens to delay the January 25 vote.

"Everybody who registered (as a candidate) for election has the right to participate in campaigning and voting. Everyone has the right to present his programme before his constituency in Jerusalem," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, adding this included the militant group Hamas.

Under Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz's proposal, Palestinians would be able to cast votes at five post offices, as in their last parliamentary election in 1996.

But Israeli officials said the proposal offered by Mofaz, a political ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in hospital after a massive stroke last week, would bar Hamas voting slips in the booths.

The prime minister's office said the cabinet would vote on Sunday on whether to permit the voting, and it insisted in a statement that "terror organisations and representatives of them will not be able to participate in elections in Jerusalem".

Under election guidelines approved by Jerusalem police after talks with the Palestinian Authority, members of Hamas, a group dedicated to Israel's destruction, have been barred from campaigning in East Jerusalem.

Israel first threatened last month to ban East Jerusalem Arabs from voting in the election if Hamas takes part -- a move Palestinian officials warned could delay the vote.

A deal to allow voting in East Jerusalem would remove a major obstacle to the election taking place on schedule. Israel is not seeking to impose restrictions on Hamas running candidates across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Voting in East Jerusalem, captured along with Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, is contentious as Israel's annexation of it was not recognised internationally. Palestinians want the city's eastern sector as the capital of a future state.

"These elections will take place in the format used in 1996 and the same applies for East Jerusalem," Mofaz told reporters, though aides later said the defence minister was stating his personal opinion rather than government policy.

In a sign of political disarray following Sharon's stroke, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the prime minister had already decided that East Jerusalem Palestinians could vote in nearby West Bank villages and not in Jerusalem.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Mofaz was only describing a proposal and that negotiations continued.

Erekat said the Palestinians had not been officially notified that the election would take place in Jerusalem.

The issue could face intense debate in the cabinet as politicians jockey for position after Sharon's stroke.

Mofaz belongs to Sharon's newly-formed centrist Kadima party, which holds a majority in the cabinet. Shalom is a member of the rightist Likud, which Sharon quit in November.

Israel has been under US pressure to lift its threat to block voting in East Jerusalem, and Abbas said yesterday he had received American assurances the campaigning and election would take place there.

Western countries want the vote to take place as scheduled in order to strengthen Palestinian democracy. But they are wary of a strong showing by Hamas, which has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings against Israelis in the past five years.

Although best known to the outside world as an armed group, Hamas is admired by many Palestinians for charity work in Gaza and the West Bank. Its corruption-free image also stands in contrast to Fatah, whose control of the Palestinian Authority has been marred by graft.

- REUTERS