Cabinet approves east Jerusalem voting

The Israeli Cabinet today unanimously approved voting in east Jerusalem, defusing a crisis that threatened to derail Palestinian elections.

The vote was the first major political test for Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the likely political heir to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remained comatose in a Jerusalem hospital today, 11 days after suffering a massive stroke.

Later today, Attorney General Meni Mazuz was expected to notify Olmert that he will continue to serve as acting prime minister through Israel’s March 28 elections, Justice Ministry spokesman Yaakov Galanti said.

Olmert, Sharon’s ally and a proponent of further territorial concessions to the Palestinians, has quietly been easing the turbulence created by Sharon’s illness. His ability to end the risis over voting in disputed Jerusalem was seen as a first litmus test of his political skills.

Jerusalem is the epicentre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming the city as its capital.

Israel initially planned to bar Palestinian voting in east Jerusalem because candidates from the armed Hamas group were to appear on the ballot – a stand that provoked Palestinian threats to cancel the election because of Jerusalem’s symbolic significance.

But last week, Israel reversed course after coming under pressure from the US, which didn’t want the voting scuttled because it is eager to promote democracy in the region.

According to the proposal Cabinet approved today, elections in Jerusalem will go ahead so long as members of armed groups like Hamas, which call for Israel’s destruction, won’t be allowed to run.

“I welcome this decision,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, calling on international election observers to ensure that election campaigning and the voting wouldn’t be impeded.

Hamas is expected to make a strong showing in the overall balloting and possibly dominate parliament, having been bolstered by its clean-hands image and growing violence in Palestinian-run areas.

With the east Jerusalem voting crisis resolved, Olmert faced another immediate test – a stand-off with Jewish settlers in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, where 500 settlers live among 170,000 Palestinians.

Eight settler families have been given until today to evacuate a neghbourhood they took over four years ago.

They're to be removed forcibly in a month’s time if they disregard the evacuation order, as they are expected to do.