Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and the
State of Israel. The connection of the Jewish people to its holy
city is undisputable. Every place you dig, you touch Jewish
roots. Our prayers and scriptures are filled with yearnings for
Jerusalem, and reinforce our historic and religious links to the
city. We turn to Jerusalem in prayer three times a day and
recall it during our most important rites of passage.
Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, could have no
other capital. I, who immigrated to Israel more than three
decades ago – an Israeli by choice, as I call myself – have
brought three children into the world in Jerusalem. I would
choose to live in no other city. Jerusalem is my home.
I love to drive by the Old City. I love to wander through its
narrow streets and alleys, with its quarters reminding us of the
centrality of this place to civilizations gone by. We recognize
that the three monotheistic religions view Jerusalem as a sacred
city. Billions of people around the world have Jerusalem in
their consciousness, and many have physical symbols of this
awareness in their homes, churches, mosques and, of course,
synagogues.
Jerusalem is also the center of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Both sides claim national rights in and to the
city.Between 1948 and 1967 the city was physically divided by
barbed wire and walls. The Jordanian annexation of east
Jerusalem was illegal by international law and was not
recognized by the international community. In June 1967 the
physical boundaries were removed, but the city remained deeply
divided, as it is today. Israel annexed east Jerusalem and
declared the city its united and eternal capital. The annexation
was illegal by international law and was not recognized by the
international community. There is not one country which
recognizes even west Jerusalem as the capital. Not one country
has its embassy in Jerusalem.
From 1948 until 1967, Jews were denied the right to go to their
most holy places in the Old City. Since the Oslo process began
in 1993, Palestinians have been denied free access to their holy
places in Jerusalem, as the city has been separated from the
rest of the West Bank.
AFTER 1967 Israel enlarged the land area of Jerusalem and began
a massive settlement-building drive, surrounding all the
Palestinian neighborhoods of the expanded city. A ring of Jewish
settlements from Ramot in the north to Gilo in the south
surrounds east Jerusalem. A road network was created that links
the Jewish neighborhoods to each other and to west Jerusalem,
leaving the Palestinian neighborhoods as disconnected islands.
Israeli-Jewish Jerusalem experienced rapid development and
modernization, while Palestinian Jerusalem has regressed into
underdeveloped, depressed urban slums interspersed with spots of
unplanned independent growth launched by private initiatives.
There has been no urban planning and development-oriented growth
for Palestinians in Jerusalem since 1967.
When an Israeli Jerusalemite and a Palestinian Jerusalemite
describe their city, it is as if they are speaking about two
different urban spaces. We all share common symbols such as the
Old City or the Temple Mount, but we give them different names,
and those symbols carry very different connotations. Jerusalem
is the most segregated city in the world. There are no common
places; every building is either Israeli or Palestinian, and
Israelis and Palestinians do not live in the same space.
Palestinians have never recognized Israel’s rights to east
Jerusalem; they have never participated in the democratic
process offered to them by the system we all inherited from the
British, which enables noncitizen residents of a municipality to
participate in municipal elections and run for office.
Palestinians have boycotted those elections for 43 years.
AFTER THE first intifada and through the beginning of the Oslo
process, Palestinians saw the development of their national
institutions in Jerusalem, Orient House being the most
significant. With the Oslo process, however, Jerusalem was cut
off from the Palestinians as their economic and political center
through the Law for the Implementation of the Oslo Agreement.
Since Jerusalem is defined as a “permanent-status issue” to be
negotiated, the Palestinians unsuspectingly agreed that their
Palestinian Authority would not be able to function in east
Jerusalem.
The law passed to enable the government to implement various
aspects of the Oslo agreement was used cynically to close down
Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, despite promises by
Shimon Peres and despite Israeli obligations under the Road Map
to reopen Palestinian institutions in east Jerusalem.
The law of unintended consequences has had two significant
negative impacts on Jerusalem for Israel. The removal of the
direct influence of the PA has created a power vacuum.
Governmental, municipal and national institutions, including the
police, do not sufficiently function in Palestinian Jerusalem.
As a result, others have filled the vacuum. The most prominent
are Hamas and Hizb al-Tahrir – the party of liberation, a
radical Islamic group. While the PA has done a remarkable job in
the past two years of shrinking the influence of political
Islamic groups in the West Bank, under Israel’s (non)watch and (non)authority
those groups are thriving in east Jerusalem.
Additionally, in constructing the separation wall in Jerusalem,
which primarily separates Palestinians from Palestinians, more
than 30,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites who left the city because
of housing shortages have returned for fear that they might lose
their residence rights.
TODAY, JERUSALEM is an unimportant, underdeveloped capital city
of little international consequence. It is a city which falls
way too short of its amazing potential. In many respects it is
hardly a capital of an important country. At times it seems like
a suburb of a city that doesn’t even exist.
Yet Jerusalem’s potential is bewildering. Jerusalem could be the
most important place in the world in demonstrating that humanity
could actually celebrate the diversity of three faiths that
reside side by side and cherish it. The Muslim world will have
guardianship over the Haram
al-Sharif (the Temple Mount), while Jews will have
guardianship over the Western Wall. Respecting the sanctity of
the entire compound, we will all agree not to dig, tunnel,
construct or damage what is on top or what is beneath.
Imagine that area E-1 – the controversial plan to develop a land
bridge of Jewish homes between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim,
cutting the West Bank in half – became the diplomatic quarter of
Jerusalem, with embassies and diplomats’ living quarters being
developed. Jerusalem could be a city where some 200 nations have
their embassies that serve two countries. Imagine the tens of
thousands of internationals who would be making it their home.
Imagine the potential of Jerusalem becoming a real city of
peace, where tens of millions visit, where Jewish, Muslim and
Christian pilgrims come to celebrate their faith. Imagine
Jerusalem the recognized capital of the State of Israel.
This is all possible. Jerusalem will become the city of peace
and the capital of the State of Israel, but only after it is
also recognized as the capital of Palestine. Jerusalem’s true
unity will only come through its political division. Jerusalem,
with two sovereigns, will be an open city demonstrating the
human ability for creativity, ingenuity and the spirit of
understanding, compassion and true sanctity.
The writer is the co-CEO of the
Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (www.ipcri.org)
and an elected member of the leadership of the Green Movement
political party.
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