Likud victory stirs fears in Jerusalem: Prime Minister warns right-wingers against reviving efforts to settle Jews in Arab areas

JERUSALEM (Reuter) - The surprise right-wing victor in Tuesday's contest for mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, stoked fears of increased tension with Arabs by insisting yesterday that Jews can live in all parts of the city.

'Every Jew can acquire property anywhere in Jerusalem, anywhere in the land of Israel,' Mr Olmert said on Israeli radio when asked if Jews would go on settling Arab east Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. 'The city will certainly make an effort to integrate all parts of the city.'

The former cabinet minister from the opposition Likud party scored an upset when he defeated Teddy Kollek.

The Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who viewed Mr Kollek's bid for a seventh term as a test of the government's peace deal with the PLO, warned against Mr Olmert reviving past Likud efforts to settle Jews in Arab areas. He said: 'If there is a repetition of what the Likud did in Jerusalem in sneaking to apartments in the Old City, Silwan, the City of David, it can cause a great harm to the delicate fabric of relations.'

Mr Olmert opposed the deal with the PLO, which gives Palestinians self-rule in Israeli-occupied territories.

A new Jerusalem, page 21

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