Less than a third of Palestinians in East Jerusalem want to live under a new “Palestinian State” (And I can assure you that zero percent of the Jews in Jerusalem—nearly 70% of the city’s population—want to live under a “Palestinian State”).
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Arabs in East Jerusalem conflicted about Palestinian state
By Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY
JERUSALEM – Isham Fteih, who lives in East Jerusalem and works as a bellman at the Dan Jerusalem Hotel, says he wouldn't mind if his home comes under Palestinian rule. "Something's got to change," Fteih said. "Due to the Israeli roadblocks, it takes me longer to reach Ramallah, where my sister lives, in the nearby West Bank, than it does to Amman," the capital of Jordan. As the Palestinian leadership goes to the United Nations this week to demand statehood for Arabs in the Palestinian territories, some Arab residents of Israel whose neighborhoods are being proposed for inclusion in the new state are full of hopeful anticipation. Others are reacting with trepidation, regional experts say. A poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion this year indicated that Arab East Jerusalemites are split about who they want controlling the territory where they live. Asked whether they preferred to become a citizen of a future Palestinian state, "with all the rights and privileges of other citizens of Palestine," or a citizen of Israel, with the rights and privileges of Israelis, 30% said they would choose Palestinian citizenship; 35% Israeli citizenship; and 35% either declined to answer or said they didn't know. East Jerusalem is home to 288,000 Arabs, and some Palestinian leaders, such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, say it should be made the capital of an independent Palestinian state. Israel captured the eastern part of the city from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and says Jerusalem will always be its undivided capital. "People are conflicted," said Nabil Kukali, director of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll for Pechter Middle East Polls and the Council on Foreign Affairs. The poll was conducted in all 19 East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods. According to the latest available statistics from 2008, of the roughly 460,000 people living in
East Jerusalem, 57% are Muslim and 43% are Jewish.....
(Read the rest at USATODAY.com)Important demographics note: According to Wikipedia, in December 2007, Jerusalem as a WHOLE had a population of 747,600—64% were Jewish, 32% Muslim, and 2% Christian.