Fayyad: PA Moving to Make Jerusalem Palestinian Capital

VJ:  Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad used his weekly address to tell listeners the PA would be making unilateral moves to establish Jerusalem as the capital for a PA state.

This despite claims by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday that he is ready to sit down and talk peace with Israelis.

Telling listeners the last two years [during which the PA adamantly refused to sit down and discuss peace with Israel -Ed.] had focused on resistance to Israeli "occupation" of eastern Jerusalem, Fayyad said that now it was time to focus instead on turning the city into a capital for a PA state.

Fayyad said the PA is determined to improve services to residents of eastern Jerusalem, and to help institutions operating there, especially in health, law and education.

Doing so would be a confrontational exercise in sovereignty over the city, which, without a negotiated settlement with Israel, would be a violation of the Oslo Accords agreement that brought the PA into existence in the first place, and enables its continuation.

Fayyad said he hoped "to stop the Israeli attempts to destroy the national dimension in the curriculum of Arab school children" in Jerusalem.

The PA has already allotted NIS 2m for materials and textbooks for Arab schools in eastern Jerusalem.

The curriculum Fayyad hopes to implement in Arab schools in eastern Jerusalem -- which are funded by the Jerusalem municipality and the State of Israel Ministry of Education -- include PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Holocaust denial dissertation, excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the promotion of a jihad (religious war) against Israel's Jews.

Fayyad added Jerusalem would be the "symbol of peace and co-existence between religions and cultures."