Israel Averts Showdown

Israel's Supreme Court stopped the government from closing the Palestinian headquarters in Jerusalem Tuesday, defusing a potentially explosive showdown just six days before general elections.

Peace activists had asked the court to block a closure of Orient House until after next week's elections, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision smacked of electioneering.

Judge Dalia Dorner ordered Israel's police minister and Palestinian officials to explain within seven days why they failed to achieve a compromise.

Netanyahu wants an immediate resolution to the case, but Public Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani and Palestinian officials had hoped for a way to postpone a confrontation until after May 17 elections.

"To implement such a decision by force would have led to bloodshed, so any decision to delay this bloodshed and confrontation is good," said Faisal Husseini, the senior PLO official in Jerusalem.

Fireworks went off at Orient House when news of the decision reached the compound.

Orient House officials did not file the appeal themselves, apparently because they were concerned it would be interpreted as recognition of Israeli rule over all of Jerusalem.

Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it into its capital. Successive Israeli governments have said they would not relinquish control over all of the city, which is home to about 430,000 Jews and 193,000 Arabs.

Netanyahu, who is trailing opposition leader Ehud Barak in the polls, has tried with little success to turn the future of disputed Jerusalem into a major campaign issue.

Palestinian leaders and Israeli security officials warned that a police raid of the PLO headquarters could trigger Palestinian riots. The Palestinians consider the compound a symbol of their aspirations to establish a capital in east Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said he welcomed the court decision and blamed the Palestinians for provoking him at election time.

"It's clear to me that the Palestinians are using the timing of the elections to prevent us from exerting our sovereignty on part of Jerusalem," he told Israel army radio.

No Israeli government has dared touch Orient House, a former luxury hotel in the leafy Sheik Jarrah neighborhood, since it became the Palestinian headquarters during the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s.

In a surprise move, Jerusalem's hard-line Mayor Ehud Olmert, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, urged the prime minister not to take action against the Orient House before the election.

Olmert said he feared Netanyahu's decision would be interpreted as electioneering and create a rift among Israelis over Jerusalem.

On Monday evening, the Israeli government issued orders to close three offices in Orient House. The decision came after two weeks of attempts by Kahalani and Orient House lawyers to reach a compromise.

Prior tthe court decision, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said the United States was urging both sides to pacify the situation.

"What's important to us is that both sides seek to resolve this issue peacefully and avoid a larger problem," Rubin told reporters in Washington.