{"id":41433,"date":"2018-01-02T14:16:07","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T09:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=41433"},"modified":"2018-01-02T14:16:07","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T09:16:07","slug":"israel-raises-threshold-to-cede-parts-of-jerusalem-in-peace-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=41433","title":{"rendered":"Israel raises threshold to cede parts of Jerusalem in peace deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM Jan 02 (TNS):<\/strong> Israel set a higher threshold on Tuesday for any future vote on ceding parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city for a future independent state.<\/p>\n

The amendment passed by the Israeli parliament to existing legislation raised from 61 to 80 the number of votes that would be required in the 120-seat Knesset to approve any proposal to hand over part of the city to \u201ca foreign party\u201d.<\/p>\n

The amendment, long in the legislative pipeline, comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump angered the Palestinians, Middle East leaders and world powers by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

US negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 but, if ever resumed, a special Israeli parliament majority to approve handing over parts of Jerusalem could complicate efforts to reach a peace accord.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Dec. 6 decision touched off protests in the region and the Palestinians have said Washington can no longer serve as a peace broker. A US bid to revive negotiations, led by the president\u2019s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has so far shown no progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe authority to relinquish parts of the land is not in the hands of any Jew, nor of the Jewish people,\u201d said Naftali Bennett, head of the far-right Jewish Home coalition party, which sponsored the legislation.<\/p>\n

Palestinian officials were not immediately available for comment on the new amendment, which passed by a vote of 64 to 52.<\/p>\n

Opposition head Isaac Herzog said Jewish Home was leading Israel \u201ctoward a terrible disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. It says the entire city is its \u201ceternal and indivisible\u201d capital.<\/p>\n

Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that would also include the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party unanimously urged legislators in a non-binding resolution to effectively annex Israeli settlements built in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Political commentators said the decision might bolster right-wing support for Netanyahu, who could seek a public mandate in an early election while he awaits possible criminal indictments against him on corruption suspicions. He denies wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Parliamentary elections are not due until November 2019 but the police investigations in two cases of alleged corruption against Netanyahu and tensions among coalition partners in his government could hasten a poll.<\/p>\n

Some commentators, pointing to an existing law that already sets a similar high threshold for handing over territory in a land-for-peace deal, have said Jewish Home was essentially competing with Likud for support among the right-wing base.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM Jan 02 (TNS): Israel set a higher threshold on Tuesday for any future vote on ceding parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city for a future independent state. The amendment passed by the Israeli parliament to existing legislation raised from 61 to 80 the number of votes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1408],"tags":[1409,733],"class_list":["post-41433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jerusalam","tag-jerusalam","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41437,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433\/revisions\/41437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}