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February 23, 1999

Web posted at: 8:04 PM EST (0104 GMT)

CASABLANCA (Reuters) -- Palestinian President Yasser Arafat Tuesday called for a Muslim-Christian campaign to save East Jerusalem against what he said was an Israeli policy of "ethnic cleansing."

Arafat told a seminar entitled "Future of Arab Jerusalem" that he was still committed to his goal to declare a Palestinian state but avoided setting a date amid mounting international pressure for a delay until after the May 17 Israeli election.

"We ... assure the whole world that the establishment of the independent state of Palestine, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, is a sacred and legitimate right of the Palestinian people," he said in a speech at the three-day seminar which began Tuesday in Casablanca.

"It is a goal that our people will not accept to abdicate or to give up no matter what the difficulties and challenges."

Arafat has said he would declare an independent Palestinian state on May 4, the end of a five-year period of negotiating a final peace with Israel under the Oslo peace accords.

But he appeared willing to heed Arab and Western calls for a delay.

"The Palestinian leadership is studying and consulting with brothers and friends in order to arrive at a formula that will satisfy the aspiration of our people," he said.

Arafat's speech was mostly devoted to the highly emotional issue of East Jerusalem which the Jewish state annexed and declared as its "eternal capital" shortly after it occupied it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem are suffering from "siege, isolation, expulsion and ethnic cleansing... The modes of building (Jewish) settlements and the sweeping Judaization threatening the city are escalating," Arafat said.

King Hassan of Morocco, who heads the so-called Jerusalem Committee set up by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), said that Israeli measures to change the character of the city were "null and void according to international legality."

"We consider these measures among the most serious violations of human rights," said a speech read on his behalf.

OIC Secretary General Azeddine Laraki and his Arab League counterpart Esmat Abdel-Meguid were among the 300 participants who gathered to discuss a political, economy and legal strategy to safeguard the Arab character of the holy city, organizers said.

Faisal Husseini, who holds the Jerusalem portfolio in the Palestinian Authority, said he hoped the seminar would come out with "resolutions, or perhaps, recommendations, that would lead to a more serious approach in dealing with Jerusalem."

Copyright 1999 Reuters.