Abbas aide: Western Wall is ours
JTA Published: 10/11/2007
www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104603.html

An adviser to Mahmoud Abbas said the Kotel should be under Palestinian
control.

Adnan Husseini, aide to the Palestinian Authority president, said Thursday
that Palestinian demands for Israel to cede eastern Jerusalem under any
peace accord also includes the Western Wall.

"This is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be
under Muslim control," Husseini told Israel's NRG Web site, adding that all
of Jerusalem's Old City should be part of a future Palestinian state. He
made similar comments in an interview with Israel Radio.

The Western Wall is a last vestige of the Second Temple, which was razed by
the Romans in 70 CE. Today it abuts the Temple Mount, which houses Islam's
third-holiest shrine. Muslims refer to the wall as Al-Burak, a reference to
the Prophet Mohammed's horse, which he is said to have tethered at the site.

Abbas had no immediate comment on Husseini's statements, which appeared to
contradict several past land-for-peace proposals that had won international
consensus and called for Israel to retain control of the Western Wall and
Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City.

Husseni's assertions caused uproar in Israel's right-wing opposition, which
accused the Olmert government of escalating Palestinian territorial demands
by proposing a division of Jerusalem into two capitals for two peoples.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said a future peace accord with the
Palestinians would require Israel to give up on some of its long-standing
national claims but did not specify a plan for Jerusalem.