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Thursday, April 10, 2014
Jerusalem is not up for grabs, by Prof. Efraim Inbar

Jerusalem is not up for grabs
by Prof. Efraim Inbar
April 10, 2014
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 243

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Kerry’s remarks about Gilo, a neighborhood in Jerusalem,
reveal a profound misunderstanding of the situation. Palestinian demands to
divide Jerusalem’s capital are unreasonable. Israel’s capital holds a
spiritual and national significance to the Israeli population, as well as
strategic and military importance. Consequently, no Israeli government will
survive or support any concessions made in Jerusalem and it is time for the
U.S. and the international community to recognize this.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has blamed the sudden deadlock in peace
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Israel’s plans
to build additional apartments in Gilo, a southern Jerusalem neighborhood
beyond the Green Line. This indicates America’s profound misunderstanding of
the situation. With over 40,000 residents, Gilo is to be part of Israel
under any agreement. More importantly, the peace negotiations have little
chance of succeeding as long as the Palestinians demand the partition of
Jerusalem.

The Palestinians and most of the international community fail to understand
that the past offers made to divide Jerusalem – by Ehud Barak at the Camp
David summit in 2000, and repeated by Ehud Olmert in 2007 – were divorced
from the strong attachment a majority of Israelis feel towards the eternal
city. The willingness of Barak and Olmert to divide the city completely
lacks domestic political support. Furthermore, strategic considerations also
dictate that Israel hold onto greater Jerusalem as a united city.

Israeli public opinion is committed to maintaining the status quo in
Jerusalem. All polls show that over two thirds of Israelis feel that
Jerusalem should remain the united capital of Israel, while only 20 percent
favor dividing the capital between the Jewish state and a future Palestinian
state. The group of Israelis expressing the strongest support in favor of
Jerusalem remaining the undivided capital of Israel (almost 80 percent) is
between the ages of 18 and 24. Of this group, even stronger support was
expressed by Ultra-Orthodox and religious Israelis who are the fastest
growing segments in the Jewish population. When asked whether Israel should
relinquish control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest place in
the world for Jews, over 70 percent of Israelis disagreed.

After Barak’s offer in 2000, over 250,000 people demonstrated in opposition
to Barak’s violation of the Jerusalem taboo – the largest rally ever held in
the city. The electrifying hold of Jerusalem on the Jewish psyche is not
sufficiently appreciated. Moreover, an Orthodox injunction against visiting
the Temple Mount has eroded, allowing a growing number of Israelis the
spiritual experience of ascending the Mount and conjoining the metaphysical
past and future. Such feelings are politically potent, foreclosing the
possibility that Israelis will sit idly by and abide a transfer of
sovereignty in Jerusalem.

In 2000, the division of Jerusalem lacked the necessary majority in the
Knesset and Barak’s coalition subsequently disintegrated (for this and other
reasons). Similarly, in 2008, Prime Minister Olmert experienced coalition
difficulties because he placed Jerusalem on the negotiators’ agenda. No
Israeli government is likely to survive concessions regarding Jerusalem. If
elections are held in the near future, the strength of the opposition to any
concessions in Jerusalem is only likely to grow.

Jerusalem’s importance to Jews is not only historical and religious. The
city also holds strategic importance in controlling the only highway from
the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River Valley, along which
military forces can move with little interference from Arab communities.
Jerusalem is the linchpin for erecting a security zone along the Jordan Rift
that Israel insists on. If Israel wants to maintain a defensible border in
the East, it needs to secure the east-west axis from the coast to the Jordan
Valley, via an undivided Jerusalem. Keeping Greater Jerusalem, which
includes the settlement blocs that President Bush recognized as realities
that must be accommodated in a future settlement, is a strategic imperative.
The military importance of Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s central role in the
eastern line of defense for Israel cannot be ignored, especially given the
immense potential for political upheaval east of the Jordan River. Designing
stable defensible borders in accordance with current, but transient,
state-of-the-art technological and political circumstances is strategically
foolish. The turmoil of the past few years in the Arab world suggests the
need for great caution.

The partition of Jerusalem is also a bad idea given the history of cities
such as Berlin, Belfast or Nicosia. Why should Jerusalem be different?! Jews
have held a majority in the city for the past 150 years, while Jerusalem has
never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim political entity.

Moreover, the Arab minority in the city has clearly shown its preference for
living under Israeli rule. Many Arabs have moved to the Israeli side of the
security barrier being built around Jerusalem. Polls show that a large
majority of Jerusalem’s Arabs oppose being subject to Palestinian rule.
Their choice is understandable, since Jerusalem offers the quality of life
of a modern Western city; while only a few kilometers away, a Third World
standard of living and religious intolerance are the norm. An undivided
Jerusalem is the best guarantee for a better life for all Jerusalemites.

In sum, the unreasonable Palestinian demand to divide Jerusalem is an
obstacle towards a better future.
==============
Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, is a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, and a
fellow at the Middle East Forum.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the
Greg Rosshandler Family

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