Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Fayyad honored an Israel ban on dedicating a Jerusalem school Tuesday, but he said at a ceremony near the city that Jerusalem’s outlying neighborhoods belong to the PA.
Referring to the predominantly Jewish neighborhoods of Ramot, French Hill, Gilo and others where 300,000 Jews live, Fayyad claimed, “Yes, these are suburbs, but suburbs of our occupied capital which will always be the capital of our independent state." Borrowing the Israeli phrase that Jerusalem is Israel’s united and eternal capital, Fayyad said that the suburbs – which are part of the municipality – are past of the PA’s "eternal capital.”
Virtually no Israeli political leader has suggested that Israel surrender the neighborhoods, restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967. The Palestinian Authority in the past several years has slowly but methodically escalated its conditions for establishing that it is a new Arab country.
Fayyad backed down from his plan to dedicate a PA-funded school within the capital’s borders after the Netanyahu government banned PA leaders from all political events in the city. Instead, Fayyad attended the dedication of a school immediately outside the capital.
The PA’s financing of the Jerusalem municipality schools contradicts the Oslo Accords.