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Israel Offers Outline to Divide Jerusalem

Israel's new government has outlined the clearest picture yet of how it plans to divide the holy city of Jerusalem and abandon much of the West Bank in its move to separate from the Palestinians.

Otniel Schneller _ an architect of the plan _ said in interviews this week with The Associated Press that his blueprint would give most of Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians while keeping the predominantly Jewish areas for Israel.

"Those same neighborhoods will, in my assessment, be central to the makeup of the Palestinian capital ... al-Quds," Schneller said, calling Jerusalem by its Arabic name. "We will not divide Jerusalem, we will share it."

But Israel would keep Jerusalem's Old City with its shrines sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians alike _ an unacceptable plan to Palestinians, particularly if carried out unilaterally.

Still, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert determined to draw Israel's final borders by 2010, likely without waiting for Palestinian agreement, a division of Jerusalem looks realistic for the first time.

The plan to divide Jerusalem reflects a sea change in the thinking of most Israelis, who once considered sacrilegious even the idea of abandoning part of the holy city.

Since Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War, Israelis had been in broad agreement that the city could never again be divided. But after five years of intefadeh bloodshed, Israeli voters swept Olmert's Kadima Party into office in March 28 elections on a platform to separate from the Palestinians for the good of the Jewish state. [washingtonpost.com]

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