Will the PLO’s Executive Committee have decided after its meeting Sunday night to “postpone” (in effect cancel) the Palestinian general election and say the reason is that Israel won’t let it be held in East Jerusalem as well?
The issue of East Jerusalem Palestinians’ participation in the election is a sort of test. Through it, one can gauge the (un)willingness of Abbas and his Fatah loyalists to allow a democratic process, and the limits of the Palestinian Authority’s desire to act contrary to Israel’s dictates.
Abbas’ loyalists are demanding that Europe pressure Israel to promise that voting will take place in Jerusalem as well. For example, that’s what Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, the EU representative in the 1967-occupied territory, last week. And Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki is expected to say the same thing this week to the European foreign ministers.
The sharp-eared and suspicious hear a veiled message here: “It will be the responsibility of the Europeans [who support the democratic process and the election] if Israel puts up obstacles that make us cancel/postpone the election.”
In Jerusalem, the Israeli police and Shin Bet security service don’t miss an opportunity to arrest Palestinians, disperse conferences and repress popular activity. If the election is so important and is proof of Palestinian democracy, as Abbas and his loyalists keep repeating, it can be turned into a tool in the struggle against the occupation, a tool of mass civil disobedience.
Everyone recalls how in 2017, the Jerusalemites objected to the metal detectors that the Israeli police had installed at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa compound. Jerusalemites refused to enter the mosque plaza, and demonstrated and prayed en masse outside it. They portrayed Israel as the one sabotaging religious freedom, until Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to order the detectors removed.