JERUSALEM –  Israel is invoking an arcane military law to try to temporarily expel a Palestinian protest leader from his native east Jerusalem and if successful, Palestinians warn the measure could further hobble efforts to salvage moribund peace process.

Adnan Gheith, a 35-year-old local leader of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' moderate Fatah movement, says he has been in and out of Israeli jails over the past two decades for demonstrating against the occupation of Palestinian territory. He claims Israel is trying to punish him for those protests.

Israel's Defense Ministry says Gheith is a menace to public order and last month ordered him out of the city for four months.

The order appears to be part of a wider Israeli crackdown on opponents of its policies toward the Palestinians. But what makes this case exceptional is that the military is invoking an obscure emergency regulation to expel a Jerusalemite from the city. The law goes back to British rule before Israel's establishment in 1948 and hasn't been used for decades.

So far, Gheith has managed to stave off the expulsion with an appeal. But human rights groups have expressed concern that Israel could widen the use of the emergency regulation against others.

"There is only one way they can carry out their decision: to deport me by force," he said.

Gheith has protested against 350 Israeli settlers living in heavily guarded enclaves in his overwhelmingly Arab neighborhood of Silwan, just south of Jerusalem's Old City. Demonstrations in Silwan often turn violent, with Israeli police firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse rock-throwing Palestinian youths.

Gheith is also a leading opponent of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes in another neighborhood to make way for an Israeli tourist center. That plan is on hold.

"They are trying to make look it like I am the one threatening the security, as if saying no to oppression and to house demolitions is an assault," he said. "Whatever they do to stop me, I will keep talking."

The Israel military said it ordered his expulsion after a top commander received "information of a security and intelligence nature that tied Mr. Adnan Gheith to operations that relate to the disrupting of public peace in Jerusalem."

East Jerusalem, home to the most important Muslim, Jєωιѕн and Christian shrines in the Holy Land, lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel annexed it to its declared capital after the 1967 war in a move that was never internationally recognized. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, and the conflicting claims have derailed past peace efforts and sparked bouts of violence.

With current peace efforts at an impasse, any move threatening the delicate status quo in east Jerusalem could raise tensions. Peace talks broke down in September, in part because of continued Israeli construction in east Jerusalem's Jєωιѕн areas.

Palestinian President Abbas appealed to the United States to halt Gheith's expulsion, said spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh. "It's illegal and unacceptable, and it will negatively affect the American efforts to revive the peace process," he said.

Since capturing east Jerusalem, some 200,000 Israelis have settled in burgeoning Jєωιѕн neighborhoods throughout east Jerusalem, while construction for Arab neighborhoods — home to about 250,000 Palestinians — is tightly controlled. At the same time, Israel has stripped roughly 4,500 Palestinians of residency rights, according to the Israeli advocacy group HaMoked.

Israel says these people have lost their residency on technical grounds because they haven't lived in the city for years. But Palestinians call it a bid to win a demographic race for Jerusalem.

Israel's efforts to oust Gheith coincide with its revocation of the residency rights of four Hamas officials from Jerusalem, including lawmaker Mohammed Abu Teir, who was expelled to the West Bank earlier this month. The three others have avoided deportation by holing up in east Jerusalem's Red Cross office.

Attorney Daniel Seidemann, an expert on Jerusalem, said Israel used the British-era emergency regulations invoked against Gheith immediately after capturing east Jerusalem in 1967 to exile the city's Palestinian leadership.

"Since the early 1970s, to the best of my knowledge, this has not be used. So this is a serious regression," Seidemann said. "Beyond that, this sends a very serious detrimental message to the Palestinians of east Jerusalem: Behave well or you're out of here."