Israeli experts, politicians prepare the nation for sharing Jerusalem
Israeli experts, politicians prepare the nation for sharing Jerusalem
JERUSALEM, Israel, 3 August 2000 (Newsroom) — An undivided Jerusalem has been an axiom of Israeli politics for decades. As recently as 1996 former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres with the campaign slogan “Peres will divide Jerusalem.”
The taboo on divided sovereignty with the Palestinians appears to have dissolved in the wake of the unsuccessful Camp David peace talks, however. Many leaders of the Israeli left openly are trying to persuade the electorate to consider if it would be in Israel’s best interests to incorporate 200,000 Palestinians — one-tenth of the West Bank population — in its capital city.
Israelis in the nationalist-religious camp adamantly oppose any partition of Judaism’s holiest city, however. All of municipal Jerusalem is Zion, the indivisible capital. “No Jew has the right to give any part of it up,” Likud leader Ariel Sharon maintained as the summit continued. Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert argued that handing over Arab suburbs to Palestinians would choke the development of Jewish Jerusalem. “Hundreds of thousands will take to the streets to block such a deal,” he predicted.
Nevertheless, Israeli Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin advocates compromise on Jerusalem, the first cabinet minister to publicly back divided sovereignty. On the eve of the Camp David peace talks he warned that to miss the opportunity for peace that such a compromise would facilitate would be “a tragedy of historic dimensions.” Such an agreement, he insisted, would allow Israeli control of a large, genuinely united Jewish Jerusalem, recognized by the Arab states and the rest of the international community as its capital. “We must not let the distorted myth that has been built around the borders of Jerusalem, which even the Israeli right knows is false, tie our hands,” the minister declared.
The city border was drawn after the 1967 Six-Day War in the belief that the entire West Bank — with the exception of Jerusalem proper — would be returned to Jordan, whose army was expected to return to threaten the city. Israelis created a large ring of dominating high ground for protection. As a result, the border took not only the 5 square kilometers of Arab East Jerusalem but also 65 square kilometers of surrounding open country and Arab villages, most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem.
Some Israelis back concessions if they lead to peace, and Barak’s government has embraced the image of a new, enlarged Jewish Jerusalem with the Western Wall and a Jewish majority. But recent polls show that two-thirds of Israelis strongly oppose any agreement that would divide the holy city, and on Wednesday Foreign Minister David Levy resigned from the cabinet to protest proposals raised at Camp David that would give Palestinians control over parts of the city.
When the Camp David talks concluded last month without a peace agreement, Ron Pundak, director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation in Tel Aviv, took a group of journalists on a tour to the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Pundak is the top Israeli expert on East Jerusalem and a key player in the back-channel negotiations with Palestinians.
Only a handful of Israelis have visited the area since the Arab villages were annexed to Israel 33 years ago. The tour illustrated vividly the appalling lack of infrastructure, the rash of illegal building, and the absence of any real presence of Israeli sovereignty.
“The Israeli Border Police go through here sometimes,” Pundak told Newsroom. “City Hall never does, and if there are police problems, the locals call the Palestinian Preventive Security force, which is not supposed to set foot in Jerusalem.”
Menachem Klein, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and another top adviser to the Israeli government on Jerusalem, told Newsroom that security and other expenses related to Jerusalem’s 200,000 Arabs cost Israeli taxpayers $70 million a year — $354 per person annually. But “there is no Israeli presence here … Why do we need it?”
Pundak said that he and others “try to deconstruct the myth of a united Jewish Jerusalem and use the reality on the ground as a lever for a political settlement that benefits both sides.”
A proposal drawn by Pundak and Klein, whose key points have been adopted by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, would make all Jewish suburbs part of Jerusalem and place Palestinian suburbs and villages in Al-Quds, the Palestinian capital. A network of roads, tunnels, and bridges would link parts of the respective capitals. Jerusalem and Al-Quds together would form one open city, with unfettered access to all parts. There would be two sub-municipalities, and one umbrella municipality coordinating issues of joint concern. Under this plan, the Old City and surrounding holy areas, defined as the “Holy Basin,” would be accorded special status in which both sides would be allowed to maintain national symbols.
The plan does not resolve the issue of sovereignty in the Old City, which apparently became the principal stumbling-block at Camp David, however. A Palestinian official who attended the summit said the United States suggested Palestinians sovereignty in the Muslim and Christian Quarters. Israel apparently accepted this, but refused to give up sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
“The U.S. suggested something called vertical and horizontal sovereignty,” said the Palestinian official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The proposal would have given Israel sovereignty and ownership over everything underneath Al-Aksa Mosque and the Palestinians control over everything above the ground, namely the mosque.
When no agreement on the holy sites could be reached, the U.S. suggested postponing the issues of the Old City and Palestinian refugees for several years, the Palestinian official added.
According to Israeli advocates of the partition plan, the deal would give Israel several major gains, chiefly that Jewish Jerusalem would finally be recognized by the Palestinians, the Arabs and the international community as Israel’s capital. Israeli sovereignty in the city now is recognized only by Costa Rica and El Salvador. An accord on Jerusalem also would herald the end of Israel’s conflict with the Muslim world. “It’s of greater strategic importance than the F-151,” Klein said, referring to Israel’s most advanced fighter plane.
Copyright © 2000 Newsroom. Used with permission.