Jerusalem Boundaries

Gearing up for a possible new confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is warning American Jewish leaders that an Israeli plan to extend the Jerusalem city limits could deliver a fatal blow to the already stalled Middle East peace process, sources said Saturday.

Gearing up for a possible new confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is warning American Jewish leaders that an Israeli plan to extend the Jerusalem city limits could deliver a fatal blow to the already stalled Middle East peace process, sources said Saturday.

Israel's decision to greatly expand the boundaries of its capital, Jerusalem, delivers another blow to the reeling peace process and another snub to U.S. efforts to keep that process alive. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright objected in advance to the Israeli Cabinet's approval of the expansion plan, which she diplomatically labeled as "not helpful" to advancing talks with the Palestinians. Her spokesman, James P.

Standing on a hilltop in the Palestinian village of Beit Safafa, Mohammed Jadallah surveyed the surrounding landscape with disgust. "I call them the concrete castles," Jadallah said of the densely built Jewish neighborhoods that now virtually encircle Beit Safafa. "They leave us no air to breathe." Jadallah spoke as he stood on a piece of land owned by his family for generations.

At the start of an already heated national election campaign, an Israeli newspaper Thursday poured fuel on the political fire, reporting that a government minister and Palestinian officials have secretly drafted a proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which they call for a Palestinian state.

Anis al Qaq, fresh-faced candidate for the Palestinian self-governing authority, listened empathetically Thursday to the frustrated would-be voter who buttonholed him during a campaign walkabout. "I don't know where to vote," the shopkeeper in the walled Old City complained. "I don't know where to vote either," Qaq admitted before rushing on to shake more hands.

This holy city--always the emotional heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict--has become the setting for a recent, elaborate, high-stakes cat-and-mouse game between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinian officials are playing the mice, scurrying in and out of Jerusalem, trying to force the Israelis to put discussions of sovereignty on the table. The Israelis are the increasingly frustrated, angry cats.

We all saw the photograph: a handshake between Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon. We heard the happy interviews: Palestinians and Israelis, contemplating peace. But the optimism generated by new Palestinian leadership, the talk of Israeli army redeployments, the summit and even the truce amounts to little more than false hope.

As the emotional heart of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Jerusalem offers a critical challenge to negotiators. Yet the Holy City will become an even more difficult issue to tackle if hard-line Israeli opponents to the peace process succeed in their current campaign to extend the functional borders of Jerusalem to three West Bank Arab villages: Abu Dis, Azariya and Suwahare.

AS a young paratrooper 40 years ago, Moshe Amirav felt the unmistakable touch of history. Ignoring a minor head wound suffered in the capture of East Jerusalem from Jordanian forces, Amirav raced through the winding lanes of the Old City to join jubilant fellow soldiers at the Western Wall. It was June 7, 1967. Overcome with the sense that God had finally brought the Jews home, he scribbled "Shalom," or peace, on a slip of paper and tucked it between the iconic stones.

YEARS after Israel seized a hilltop artillery post from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and turned it into a Jewish neighborhood, a civic-minded resident launched a turf battle of her own. Ruth Geva thought that Ramot Allon, a community originally built for secular Jews, needed a police station. But she had to campaign eight years for a place to put one. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish families, known to Israelis as haredim, were moving in and seeking space for synagogues and religious schools.