The new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not give up East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, Netanyahu's deputy reiterated Wedneday. "Jerusalem is protected under the policy of the current government and previous governments," Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, of Netanyahu's ruling, hard-line Likud party, told the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
"Jerusalem will not be divided," he told a special session commemorating the anniversary according to the Hebrew calendar of what Israel celebrates as the "re-unification" of Jerusalem. Israel captured East Jerusalem, which includes the city's historic Old City and its Jewish Quarter, from Jordan in the June 1967 Arab- Israeli war and annexed it shortly afterwards in a move never recognised by the international community.
Since the creation of Israel in 1948 and until the 1967 war, Israelis had had no access to the Old City, which also includes the Wailing or Western Wall, a key Jewish holy site. Palestinians want occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Israeli newspapers reported Wednesday that US President Barack Obama has appointed a team which is currently drafting a Middle east peace plan, the essence of which Obama is expected to present in a key-note address in Cairo on June 4. According to the Ma'ariv daily, the draft plan supports a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Yediot Ahronot daily said Obama has set the end of his first term as president in four years as a deadline for a peace deal.
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