U.S. President George W. Bush 'wants Palestinian elections to go forward as scheduled' on Jan. 25, a White House official said yesterday, and that Israel should not bar Palestinians from voting in East Jerusalem.
'We believe that people must have access to the ballot', the official said. 'Arrangements have been made in the past to ensure that those persons can vote, and we believe some arrangements should be possible at this time.'
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and other officials have said that the election might be postponed if Israel does not allow East Jerusalemites to participate.
On the official opening day of campaigning for the election, police detained at least eight candidates for the Palestinian Legislative Council who were campaigning in Jerusalem yesterday. Among those detained after scuffling with police were independent candidates Hanan Ashrawi and Mustafa Barghouti, and Fatah candidates Hatem Abdulkader and Ahmed Ghanem.
The candidates were detained after arriving at Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem, accompanied by reporters from the Arabic press and dozens of residents who were raising Palestinian flags and election banners. Israel says the interim peace accords ban such political activity in Jerusalem.
Israel did not interfere in a news conference called by Hamas officials and leaders of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, held yesterday at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem.
The Islamic Movement's leader Sheikh Ra'ed Salah was accompanied by Mohammad Abu Tir, No. 2 on the Hamas list for the parliamentary election who was recently released from prison. The two presented a video and pictures they said were taken under the Temple Mount and showed excavations near the Western Wall Tunnel, and a synagogue they said was under construction, both endangering the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Other senior Hamas leaders in East Jerusalem and the Mufti of the Palestinian Authority, Akram Sabri, also took part in the briefing, which was held simultaneously with the launching of the Hamas campaign in front of the Gaza home of the movement's founder, Ahmed Yassin.