Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture 2009

This news was extremely surprising to me, yet I was ecstatic. Finally, Jerusalem can be recognized as an Arab city. However the Israelis are far from pleased. They have had huge numbers of policemen around the city, stopping any festivities or celebrations. The government of Israel wants to prevent these people from celebrating their culture, and they want to deny the fact that Jerusalem was an Arab city, and East Jerusalem now, is still an Arab city. This is what I'm talking about in my past articles. The Israelis wiped out all traces of Palestine from the beginning of the occupation in 1948, yet it did not succeed in doing so to Jerusalem.
However, right now they are trying to rid all of Jerusalem of the Arab presence, for example, home demolitions, impossible permits, and the list goes on and on.
Since the Israeli Government did not let the Palestinians celebrate this special day, of marking Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture 2009, they celebrated it in various cities in the West Bank, such as Bethlehem, and Ramallah, and Nablus. The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbass said a speech in Bethlehem, remarking about how the Israeli Government. He said that the Israeli government should recognize Jerusalem as the future capital of any Palestinian state that should form, and in preventing their celebration of this day, they are showing that they do not want peace.
I read an article about this in Haaretz, and I also read the readers' comments on it too. One that I found very interesting stated: "When the Muslims let us celebrate a Jewish national holiday in Mecca, then we will let this celebration go on".
My response to this is that Jews do not make up any part of the population in Mecca, and I'm sure no Jews live in Mecca as well, so there would be no point of celebrating a Jewish holiday there. However, in all of Israel, 20% are Arab Palestinian citizens. And East Jerusalem is a Palestinian territory that was occupied in 1967, therefore there is no comparison. This is another way to wipe out all traces of a Muslim or Arab presence in Jerusalem. But the will of the Palestinians is much stronger than the Israeli governments ridiculous policies.