Abbas drops Jerusalem from campaign trail
Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas cancelled a campaign stop planned in Jerusalem today, worried that Israeli security arrangements would have embarrassed him.
Abbas, the overwhelming front-runner in Sunday’s election, had been tentatively scheduled to travel to Jerusalem to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque, hold a rally and tour the Old City.
A campaign official said Israel wanted to provide Abbas a large security detail, concerned that Jewish extremists might attack him.
Abbas decided that being surrounded by Israeli security forces during a stop in front of his own people would have been embarrassing, the official said.
Instead, Abbas planned a campaign stop in Beir Naballah, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Abbas spent the morning laying a wreath at Yasser Arafat’s grave in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The status of Jerusalem is perhaps the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, for the capital of a future state. Israel claims all of the city, home to Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, as its capital.
Despite Israeli promises to allow campaigning in Jerusalem, few candidates have ventured into the city. In one instance, candidate Mustafa Barghouti, was arrested in the Old City by police, who said he was there illegally.
Abbas enjoys a huge lead in opinion polls and has called for peace talks with Israel after the election, a sharp contrast to days of hard-line campaign pronouncements that included his labelling Israel the “Zionist enemy”.
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