PALESTINIAN LEGISLATOR ORDERED TO CLOSE OFFICE.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. The Jerusalem office of a Palestinian legislator has been ordered closed because it is operating in violation of the Israel-PLO peace agreements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. Hatem Abdel Kader, a member of the Palestinian legislative council The Palestinian Legislative Council, (sometimes referred to as the Palestinan Parliament) the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, is a unicameral body with 132 members, elected from 16 electoral districts in the West Bank and Gaza. , said the closure was illegal because the office, located in his home, was not part of Yasser Arafat's self-rule government. ``I am not part of the Palestinian Authority Palestinian Authority (PA) or Palestinian National Authority, interim self-government body responsible for areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. . This is not the office of a minister or deputy minister. It's my house,'' Abdel Kader said. Israel sees Palestinian offices in Jerusalem as symbols of Palestinians' desire to make east Jerusalem East Jerusalem refers to the part of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western - home to about 155,000 Arabs and captured by Israel in 1967 - the capital of a Palestinian state The Palestinian state (Arabic (دولة فلسطين) is a proposed country. The proposed location includes the Gaza Strip and the autonomously controlled areas of the West Bank, currently controlled by the Palestinian National . Orient House The Orient House was the PLO headquarters in East Jerusalem in the 1980s and 1990s. The house was built in 1897 by Ismail Musa al-Husseini, and has inherited down his family since. It was intended as a family residence, but was vacated at times to host important guests. , the PLO's unofficial headquarters in east Jerusalem, has been tolerated by the Israelis as long as it has not been used to host foreign visitors of the rank of foreign minister and above. The status of the disputed city remains to be settled in Israel-PLO talks. Netanyahu reaffirmed Sunday that Jerusalem would not be divided again and said the Palestinians had pledged not to open government offices there. ``We are witnessing as we speak a violation of that solemn commitment. We insist that commitment be kept,'' he said. Two Israeli officials delivered a letter Sunday from Public Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani ordering Abdel Kader to close the office within 24 hours and warning that otherwise it would be closed by police. |
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