Here's a thesis which I may expound on eventually.
Between 1967 and the early 1970s, Israel sincerely intended on making Jerusalem a united city in the full meaning of the term. Sometime in the early 1970s, as the cost of pulling backward East Jerusalem up to West Jerusalem's level dawned on Israeli officialdom, while the international community hardened its determination not to enable Israel to maintain its control of the entire city, the budgets for the effort dwindled, and the socio-economic gaps never narrowed. Then, sometime after 2000, when it became clear that peace wouldn't happen, and the division was no more than a hypothetical but non-applicable idea, the officials began to move back towards pulling the East up to par. This, however, is totally unacceptable internationally, creating a situation which cannot be resolved in either direction. Systematic Israeli investments are forbidden, but damning Israel for their absence is fine. This, however, doesn't help the local Palestinians in the city.
There is ample documentation to demonstrate this thesis, though no one has ever tried, so far as I am aware.
Hatred for Jewish rule over Jerusalem precedes a concern for the welfare of Jerusalem's Arabs. The world would rather they be damned to live in misery forever than allow the Jews to rule over any part of it.
ReplyDeleteThe world cannot stand seeing the Jews rule Jerusalem. That is behind every international proposal to wrest sovereignty out of their hands. Make no mistake: its the anti-Semitism, Stupid.
The hell with the "international community". Pals can have their capital elsewhere, in Ramalah, for instance, or at the Sea of Tranquility in the Moon. And they can pray to Meca, Medina or whatever.
ReplyDeleteEnough of this crap
Why does blogspot put an advert for enddemolitionsnow.org on Yaacov's site?
ReplyDeletePhilo-Semite
ReplyDeletewhat they put is very different from country to country. I get very often
"learn Hebrew in 10 days"
to find out which words in Yaacov's post triggered the ad would probably be worth several PhD-theses - Jerusalem is likely to be one but what else?
Silke
OT but to me significant in the context
ReplyDeletethis is the picture the London Times shows on its front page today to accompany news on the peace talk.
I'm sorry but in my book there should be something the soldier should be allowed to do, to protect himself from this assault.
Silke
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00048/Demonstrator_48750e.jpg
Well the upside is that Jerusalem will resemble 1980's Berlin. The dour drab broken east and the vibrant modern west. As long as all Palestinians are absolutely and forever prohibited from setting foot in Jewish, Israeli (West) Jerusalem it's fine. And let's be honest. The PLO isn't going to want Palestinians to sneak into Better Jerusalem any more than the the East Germans wanted escapees to the west. You can't really call yourselves a Socialist Islamic Free Democratic Workers' Paradise with people trying to get out, much less start blabbing about the truth of it, can you?
ReplyDeleteAll I would ask of Israel is a firm inviolate timeline to disconnect their infrastructure including water sewer gas electric from the Peaceful Peaceloving Palestinian People's Republic of Peace. So as not to contaminate the Palestinians with their Jewishness and whatnot.
Actually, Palestinians are not prohibited at all from entering west Jerusalem. There is no border between east and west (aside from the separation border/wall/fence/whatever which keeps some Palestinians out of Jerusalem but incorporates others inside it). In fact some Palestinians are now moving into Jewish neighborhoods (Givat Zeev, Pisgat Zeev) because the apartments are cheaper.
ReplyDeleteYaakov, I would be very interested in your evidence for your thesis. Could you write more on this?
Rebecca
ReplyDeleteI am far away and so I am maybe not aware of fine insinuations Yaacov may have slipped into his text ;-)
but for the life of me I can't see where he says that Palestinians are "prohibited" - in my reading he talks about grand scheme city-planning-uniting-efforts that were stronger or weaker depending on what the bigger politics seemed to have in store.
Silke
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteI don't think I said anything about Arabs being forbidden to live in West Jerusalem. On the contrary. In the past I've explicitly explained the opposite, including by pointing out that I've got an Arab family in my building, and another one in the previous building I lived in.
As for the thesis: I expect I will write about it eventually, but probably not in blog form. It's too serious a matter, and will require academic-level research and publication, along with lots of documentation of the sort journalists, politicians and pundits never make the effort to look for. For that, of course, I'll have to set aside the time...