Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Abu Dis and the Abbas-Beilin Agreement

I asked an advisor of Yasser Arafat about the mention of Abu Dis in the Abbas-Berlin agreement of 1995. He wrote to me (he does not want his name mentioned): ""Abu Dis was never mentioned as an alternative to East Jerusalem; it was not even mentioned separately once, but with many other neighborhoods of Al-Quds including al-Ram, Wadi Aljoz, Shuafat, Aissawiyyah and others as being the initial areas from which the Israelis will withdraw as a first step in further withdrawals from the rest of East Jerusalem. It was also agreed that East Jerusalem will ultimately be the capital of a Palestinian state."  He also added that the agreement stipulated that the text would not be published but Beilin published it any way.