TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz intend to let East Jerusalem Arabs vote there in the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
However, the Israelis moved to disrupt Hamas' campaign.
The elections have been scheduled for Jan. 25 and some Fatah leaders advocated they be postponed. One of the reasons was fear that Hamas would win but the formal reason was Israel's apparent refusal to allow elections in East Jerusalem and the chaos in Gaza.
Palestinian leaders warned that if the East Jerusalemites are not allowed to vote, no one would vote.
"We all agree that Jerusalem should be included in the elections," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in Qatar, on Monday, according to Al Jazeera TV. "If it is not included, all the factions agree there should be no elections," he said.
The Palestinians raised the matter with the United States and Abbas told Palestinian TV that he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. "I received American assurances that the campaigning and the elections will take place in Jerusalem," he declared.
Rice spoke to Olmert Tuesday and evidently won his consent for a vote in Jerusalem. According to the Prime Minister's Office, Olmert told Rice Israel will not give the Palestinians any excuse to postpone the elections.
Olmert said that Sunday he will ask the Cabinet to authorize the voting of several hundred East Jerusalem Arabs in post offices, as had been done in the 1996 elections to the Legislative Council and the 2005 Presidential elections.
He seemed to be preparing Israeli public opinion for such a move when he said the Palestinian Authority has explicitly undertaken to dismantle Hamas and its infrastructure -- after the elections and as result of the elections.
Terror organizations and their representatives will not be allowed to take part in the elections in Jerusalem, Olmert told Rice. The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization though the EU's chief elections observer Veronique De Keyser said last week the bloc favors Hamas participation in the elections.
Mofaz, too, spoke in favor of voting in five post offices. That is designed to create the impression that the Palestinians are casting absentee ballots even though they will be electing Jerusalem's representative to the Palestinian Legislative Council. In the 2005 elections votes dropped their ballots into red boxes that looked like postal boxes.
Likud ministers nevertheless oppose such a vote. "Jerusalem is Israel's capital and only Israel's," insisted Agriculture Minister Israel Katz. "A people that has a capital for 3,000 years must respect it and protect it," he argued.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom Sunday told the Cabinet that the East Jerusalemites could vote near Jerusalem but not inside that city.
The Likud hard-liners are a minority in the Cabinet. Observers believe that once Israel approves elections in East Jerusalem the chances they will be held on time increase.
Meanwhile police issued instructions for the campaign. It said it will not allow campaigning by activists and organizations engaged in terror (such as Hamas).
Meetings in private homes are fine but rallies in closed public places require police permission. No marches and open-air rallies will be allowed and election material can be posted only in designated billboards. No incitement, calls to violence or "hostile campaigning" will be permitted, it added. A police spokeswoman said these regulations are similar to those relating to Israeli election campaigns and that the police legal advisers will determine, on an ad hoc basis, what "hostile campaigning" means.
Some 250,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem governorate, that covers also neighboring areas, has a population of more than 400,000 people and they are to elect six members of the Legislative Council. Two of them have to be Christian.
Several Hamas members are campaigning in Jerusalem. Four of the 39 candidates in Jerusalem formally represent Hamas' Change and Reform list, but others are running as independents.
It is not clear how Israel intends to prevent people from voting Hamas.
In the presidential elections, voters were given pages with the names and logos of all candidates. Voters were asked to mark their candidate. If that is the format in January, blocking Hamas may not be easy.
Hamas' prospects were discussed at a briefing the Shabak security agency Tuesday gave the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The Shabak noted a 10 percent Fatah lead in the race for 66 seats distributed on a nationwide proportional basis. However it anticipated an outstanding Hamas show in the districts that will elect the other 66 candidates.
It predicted Hamas would continue engaging in terror after the elections but "in a more sophisticated way."
A "political aspect" is necessary to effectively combat against terror. It recommended Israel insist on a "real disarming" of terror organizations and that it refuse to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority unless that is done. "Leaving them with weapons would turn into a time bomb," the Shabak report said.
