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Ammon News - Washington- Former U.S. Consul in Jerusalem and President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace FMEP, Philip Wilcox, warned against Israel's policy to change the Arab identity of East Jerusalem which it had adopted since its occupation of the city in 1967.

Wilcox, President and founder of the FMEP, a Washington-based foundation devoted to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, told a conference in Washington that the U.S. had not paid attention to the status of Jerusalem until later during U.S.-sponsored negotiations under former President Bill Clinton.

"Ever since, Israel has been making changes in the city extending its municipal boundaries," he told the annual conference of the Palestinian Centre's Jerusalem Fund in Washington.

"These changes were meant to an irreversible situation in Jerusalem, coupled with spreading myths about Jerusalem as a united Jewish city forever," he said.

"The United States and other governments were slower in recognising the need to set up a capital for a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem as a key point in the peace process than endorsing the need to set up a Palestinian state and the return of the rest of the territories occupied in 1967", Wilcox said.

He said that among the Israeli measures were erecting checkpoints, security posts and barriers in addition to harassment of the Arab inhabitants in Jerusalem, imposition of taxes and demolition of their homes.

"East Jerusalem will remain Arab in its nature whether a peace deal based on the two-state solution is reached or not or if Israel continued to take the issue of Jerusalem as a pretext to delay a peace accord," Wilcox told the conference.

He pointed out that the absence of a clear U.S. policy towards Jerusalem was largely behind failure to achieve peace in the region.

"Had the U.S. decided to adopt a real policy on peace and the two-state (solution), and had it submitted for the first time in years its ideas on final-status issuesJerusalem, settlements, refugees and security and bordersit would have been possible to resume negotiating from where negotiations left off during the Clinton parametres era," he said.

* petra