A document compiled by European Union officials recommends a more aggressive policy toward Israeli policies in East Jerusalem, according to newspaper reports.
Reports in today's edition of the New York Timesand The Guardiansaid the document concludes that Israel's policies are designed to prevent Jerusalem from becoming a Palestinian capital and hurt the prospects of a final agreement on the city with the Palestinians.
The report was compiled by the British diplomatic representatives in East Jerusalem and Ramallah and was presented to the 25-member group's council of foreign ministers.
It accused Israel of increasing illegal settlement activity in and around East Jerusalem and of using the route of its separation barrier "to seal off most of East Jerusalem, with its 230,000 Palestinian residents, from the West Bank" and to create a "de facto annexation of Palestinian land."
Israeli policies "are reducing the possibility of reaching a final-status agreement on Jerusalem that any Palestinian could accept," said the report.
"Israeli measures also risk radicalizing the hitherto relatively quiescent Palestinian population of East Jerusalem," the paper quoted the report as saying.
The authors of the report recommended that the EU ask Israel "to halt discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, especially concerning working permits, building permits, house demolitions, taxation and expenditure," it said.
The Timessaid EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday decided not to publish the report and instead asked for a "detailed EU analysis on East Jerusalem to be adopted and made public" at their next meeting in mid-December.
Israel seized East Jerusalem, along with the rest of the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 Middle East War and claims the city as its "united and eternal capital". Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state of their own
