Palestinian leaders last night rejected an Israeli "compromise" arrangement on the Jewish presence in the Arab Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud, raising fears that the relatively mild protests against this new Israeli foothold in East Jerusalem may now intensify and spread.
The Palestinians were not party to the compromise deal, which was drawn up yesterday between the government of the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and a Florida-based Jewish millionaire, Mr Irving Moskowitz, who has purchased several buildings and a substantial plot of land at Ras al-Amud, and who earlier this week rented out one of those buildings to three right-wing Israeli families.
Under the arrangement, the three families are to move out - possibly by Sunday - and to be replaced by 10 students or guards, who will maintain a permanent and indefinite presence there.
While Israeli government officials were last night determined to portray this arrangement as proof of their efforts to avoid further friction in relations with the Palestinians, aides of Mr Moskowitz were hailing a victory.
The deal keeps the Israeli flag flying in a hitherto Arab neighbourhood, with the prospect of the eventual fulfilment of Mr Moskowitz's building plan, which provides for some 50 new Jewish homes there.
As the deal was taking shape during the day, Palestinian leaders, who ultimately hope to establish their capital city on East Jerusalem land that includes Ras al-Amud, indicated that it was unacceptable. The Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, described it as a trick and said that the Israelis "have to be removed from these houses".
Mr Faisal al-Husseini, the senior Palestinian official in Jerusalem, added: "This will not change the problem . . . The solution is to close this place."
Last night Mr Netanyahu telephoned the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to apprise her of the deal. Ms Albright, visiting the region just days ago, had urged him to avoid unilateral actions that might deepen the crisis of confidence with the Palestinians.
Mr Netanyahu sought to suggest that he had solved the Ras alAmud crisis, because he had thwarted the attempted Jewish settlement of the district. But, well aware that the Palestinians regard the compromise in a rather different light, the Israeli security forces are bracing for possible riots after today's prayers on the Temple Mount.
Reuter adds:
The United States yesterday welcomed the deal as "good news" and said the families involved would leave by Saturday. A US State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, said the Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, "regards it as good news that the familes are moving out" and Washington "hoped and expected" that the previous status quo at the location would not change.
David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report