JERUSALEM A TWIN CAPITAL FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINIANS ?

BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers urged Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday to make Jerusalem their shared capital, prompting a swift, angry reaction from Israel.

• For their part Tuesday, the Palestinians announced a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Palestinian Economics Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said the government has already confiscated $1 million worth of products, including foods, cosmetics and hardware, and that he hoped to remove all such goods from Palestinian store shelves next year.
• In Brussels, EU foreign ministers reiterated that the 27-member bloc would not recognize Israel’s annexation of the eastern part of Jerusalem after it occupied it in the 1967 war. The ministers called for Israel to share Jerusalem as a capital with a future Palestinian state.
• Although the EU has long opposed the annexation of east Jerusalem, the statement angered Israel and was sure to deepen Israel’s sense that the Europeans favor Palestinian positions. President Barack Obama has been trying, so far in vain, to nudge the sides toward renewed peace talks.
• ‘The EU will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties,’ said the ministerial statement. It was referring to the Mideast war in which Israeli forces captured east Jerusalem from the Jordanian army.
• ‘If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found (through negotiations) to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states,’ it said.
• The EU ministerial statement dropped an earlier Swedish draft resolution which explicitly stated that east Jerusalem — the disputed part of the holy city — should be the capital of a Palestinian state after Israel warned it would damage the bloc’s ability to take part in any resumed peace talks as a negotiator.
• The Israeli Foreign Ministry reacted immediately. ‘We regret that the European Union chose to adopt the text,’ Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in a statement. He said the statement ‘does not contribute’ to promoting peace and ignores the Palestinians’ refusal to resume talks.
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to resume peace talks, which broke down a year ago, unless Israel halts all settlement construction.
• The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, welcomed Tuesday’s EU statement. He said it gives Palestinians ‘a better sense of hope and possibility about tomorrow.’
• The competing claims to east Jerusalem remain perhaps the most explosive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Source: AP