NEW LAW WOULD MAKE IT HARDER TO DIVIDE JERUSALEM

JERUSALEM Israel’s parliament passed a law on Tuesday requiring a supermajority to relinquish control over any part of Jerusalem, a move that could hamstring the city’s division in any future peace deal.

The amendment bars the government from ceding Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem without approval of at least 80 of the legislature’s 120 members.

But the law itself can be overturned with a simple majority, making it largely symbolic.

The law also permits the government to remove outlying Palestinian neighbourhoods from the city, a move promoted by hardliners to preserve Jerusalem’s Jewish majority.

They would be turned into separate municipalities under Israeli control.

The Knesset approved the legislation in a 64-52 vote early Tuesday, with opposition politicians saying it would make it even harder to make peace with the Palestinians.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinians want east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war, to be the capital of their future state.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the legislation “tantamount to declaring war on the Palestinian people.”

“This vote clearly indicates that the Israeli side has officially declared the end of the so-called political process and has already begun to impose dictatorial and de facto policies,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.