The New York Times · New York, New York · 18 June 1987

CP-1987-051

A Palestinian’s Plan to Run Stirs Up Jerusalem

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JERUSALEM, June 17 — A Palestinian editor has announced plans to run for office in Jerusalem’s municipal elections next year. The Palestine Liberation Organization has condemned the idea, prompting the editor, Hanna S. Siniora, to re-evaluate his plans.

But the proposal has forced Israelis to confront a major issue arising from 20 years of territorial occupation — the increasing demands of a rapidly expanding Arab population for full democratic rights. Mr.

Siniora, a 49-year-old Christian who is an avowed supporter of the P.L.O.’s mainstream faction, Al Fatah, has the potential to control at least one-fourth of the City Council if he takes all the city’s Arab vote. In the past, however, most of the 130,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem have refrained from voting in municipal elections in order to protest Israeli rule.

‘Real People, Not Ghosts’ “I want to show that Jerusalem is inhabited by real people, not ghosts,” Mr. Siniora said in an interview at the offices of his small East Jerusalem paper, Al Fajr. “The Israelis have to know there are two peoples living in this city.”

Sitting at his desk, beneath a painting of bright red wildflowers that have been marked “Censored” with the Israeli military censorship stamp, he said, “The only way to resolve the Jerusalem issue is to give both peoples who reside in it sovereign rights, each on his own side of the city, while municipal affairs can continue to be run jointly.”

Only 12,500 of the 70,000 eligible Arab voters, a bloc that is about one-quarter of the city’s 297,000 eligible voters, took part in the last city elections, city officials said. Israeli reactions to Mr. Siniora’s announcement have varied.

Teddy Kollek, the longtime Mayor of Jerusalem, welcomed Arab participation in municipal government, but right-wing hard-liners said it was perhaps time to reconsider the right of Jerusalem Arabs to vote. Commentators on the left of the political spectrum praised Mr.

Siniora’s idea as a jolt to Israelis who have ignored the so-called demographic threat posed by the military occupation of territory in which 1.3 million Palestinians live. “Hanna Siniora’s idea,” Danny Rubinstein wrote in the newspaper Davar, “is saying to us, the Israelis: ‘You want to swallow us, please!

But you will choke with us.’” Meanwhile, most Palestinians, including the publisher of Mr. Siniora’s paper, Paul Ajilouny, have criticized the idea. To run for municipal elections, they say, is to recognize, accept and legitimize Israeli rule over Jerusalem. The Palestinian movement, they assert, is not about sewers, but about national sovereignty.

The Palestinian weekly Al Awdah said in an editorial that since 1967 “the Palestinian people have been fighting with all possible means to achieve their national goal of establishing the independent Palestinian state.” ‘Mistake as Far as Principle’ It added, “Such a move by Siniora is a serious mistake as far as principle and timing are concerned.” Mr.

Siniora, an advocate of a Palestinian homeland, said last week that he would consult with international legal experts to see how his candidacy would affect the sovereignty issue before deciding whether to pursue it further. He has firmly stated that he is not accepting the Israeli annexation of the city. Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem is one Mr.

Siniora’s few Palestinian supporters. “It’s a very brilliant idea,” he said. “It will not affect the political future of Jerusalem, because sovereignty does not come through City Hall. But it has reminded the world there are Arabs living in Jerusalem.” Mr. Siniora, a pharmacist by training, has been editor of the Arabic-language Al Fajr since 1974.

He said he was prompted to explore his election initiative when the hard-line Likud bloc of the Israeli Government deferred Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’s idea of an international Middle East peace conference. “I think that to find peace,” he said, “we must first find it in Jerusalem.”

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