There will be no Palestinian elections without Jerusalem, several Palestinian factions, including the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, announced on Monday.
But Palestinian civil society activists warned the Palestinian leadership against using the issue of Jerusalem as an excuse to delay or even cancel the elections.
The announcement came amid preparations for holding parliamentary elections on May 22 for the first time since 2006.
Palestinian officials hinted over the past few weeks that the elections would be called off if Jerusalem’s Arab residents, who hold Israeli-issued ID cards, are excluded. They demanded, in addition, that Israel allow Arab residents to cast their ballots in the city, and not in areas located outside the Jerusalem Municipality boundaries.
Israel has yet to announce its position regarding the participation of Jerusalem residents in the Palestinian elections.
In the past, Jerusalem Arabs participated in Palestinian elections in accordance with the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement.
Only a few thousand residents, however, participated in the 1996, 2005 and 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections.
According to the agreement, “a number of Palestinians of Jerusalem will vote in the elections through services rendered in [Israeli] post offices in Jerusalem.”
Representatives of various PLO factions who met in Ramallah “emphasized the necessity of completing the elections process in all the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 (Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip),” according to a statement issued after the meeting. “There will be no elections without Jerusalem.”
The factions called on the international community, including the United Nations, European Union, Russia, and China to pressure Israel to prevent it from “obstructing” the elections.
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that the Palestinians will continue to work “with our international partners to exert pressure on Israel to prevent it from taking any measures that could obstruct the elections by preventing our people in the occupied city from participating in the elections.”