International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Dec. 23, 2002

The Labor Party’s plans to divide Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab neighborhoods would lead to an influx of lethal Palestinian terror and effectively introduce apartheid, a group of Jerusalem Arabs warned Saturday.

Arab leaders met over the weekend to discuss the Labor Party's new platform, which pledged to divide Jerusalem according to the terms offered by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the failed Camp David summit in the summer of 2000.

"It's strange to see that many Israelis haven't drawn the lessons from the events of the last two years," Zuheir Hamdan, a local Arab leader told The Jerusalem Post. "An Israeli withdrawal [from east Jerusalem] would bring all the gunmen of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front to Damascus Gate, Mount Scopus and Mount of Olives. They will turn Jerusalem into Gaza."

After consulting with Arab community and clan leaders, Hamdan, called for a meeting on Saturday, in an attempt to give Jerusalem Arabs greater say in their future.

Palestinian Authority figures have repeatedly criticized Israeli infrastructure projects in the capital as rendering future division impossible despite the fact that talk of sharing an undivided and open Jerusalem has been prevalent since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords. But Hamdan, who himself has been attacked for criticizing the PA, indicated that they do not represent the majority view among the city’s 200,000-strong Arab population.

"I believe the majority doesn't believe in Arafat's corrupt and tyrannical rule. Look what he's done in Lebanon, Jordan, and now in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He has brought one disaster after another on his people," he said

Calling Labor’s ideology "racist" for wanting to separate Arab and Jewish Israelis, Hamdan defended his group against Palestinian accusations that they were seeking to retain Israeli sovereignty merely for economic reasons.

"No one wants to go back to the pre-1967 era," he explained, referring to the period when east Jerusalem was under Jordanian control.