The Palestinian Authority (PA) government this week approved the construction of an international airport in the area of Al Bukieh, between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. The decision is part of the implementation of a PA plan to create the institutions of an independent state which they intend to declare in two years' time. Ghasan El-Khatib, Head of the Press Bureau in the PA, told Al Hayyat newspaper that an official committee prepared a detailed report on a planned airport with four runways for the PA. He said that the PA government decided to appoint three committees, from three relevant ministries, to advance the project and to propose operational recommendations for beginning work on the ground. The territory intended for the establishment of the airport is in Area C, which is under Israeli security and civilian control. PA sources told Al Hayyat that the PA trusts that the United States will intervene and force Israel to agree to the construction of the airport. At the same time, the PA is examining the possibility of renovating the Atarot airport north of Jerusalem and the Gaza airport which Israel destroyed when the terror war of 2000 began. The Atarot airport began as a British airstrip in the 1920s, and was used by the Jordanians until its liberation by Israel in 1967. Israel invested large amounts of money in it in the hope of turning it into an international airport but this idea never materialized because of international concern that use of the airport would be tantamount to recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The airport was used instead for internal Israeli flights. In the year 2000 the airport came under fire from surrounding Arab neighborhoods and it was closed down and transferred to the IDF's hands.
