The PA cabinet held its weekly meeting on Monday in Ramallah, with the usual mix of making decisions too trivial for dictator Mahmoud Abbas to make himself, plus symbolic announcements. They included:
- Noting that Monday, November 15, is Independence Declaration Day.
- Approval of the nomination of the board of directors of the National School of Administration.
- Allocating 8 million shekels for emergencies in the winter season.
- Demanding companies and factories to use solar energy on their roofs, similar to public institutions.
- Recommending to Abbas to join the World Trade Organization, Amnesty International and the Organization for the Protection of Property Rights.
- Commemorating the anniversary of Yasir Arafat’s death on November 11.
But one decision seemed to be intended to provoke Israel: the announcement that their next meeting would be held in Jerusalem, which Israel would not allow.
It turns out that this is symbolic, too. They said that the next meeting will be held in the headquarters of the PA’s Jerusalem Governorate, which is in Al-Ram – outside Jerusalem’s municipal borders.
Al Ram is divided between Area B and C.
Perhaps Al Ram would be an appropriate place for the US to open a “Jerusalem” consulate – the PA clearly considers it to be Jerusalem for its own internal propaganda purposes while Israel doesn’t, so everyone could ostensibly get what they demand and the US could avoid the diplomatic headache from the current impasse.
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