As I've said, being a high-ranking civl servant means not publicly writing on political matters. Yet the intensity of misinformation being peddled these days about Jerusalem, along with the fact that there doesn't seem to be a large Israeli consistuency supporting the division of the city, have encouraged me to write this post.
My position on settlements in general on the West Bank is well-known to anyone who has followed my writing, online or other, and I'm not going to talk about it. Before focusing on Jerusalem, however, here's a comment about E1, which is beyond the line Israel annexed in 1967. About 10 years ago I heard a lecture by Daniel Seidmann, founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem. I expect Danny may regret I was listening carefully that day, but I was, and he made an interesting point: When it comes to E1, he said, the Israelis and Palestinians are competing to see who gets the balloon and who gets the string. Jewish West Jerusalem, Maaleh Adumim, Rammallah and Bethlehem are all there to stay. Whoever ends up controlling E1 will have a comfortable land corridor between their two balloons while the other side will be left with a road through the other's territory: a string. If Israel controls E1, the Palestinians will have a north-south road through it; if the Palestinians own E1, the Israelis will have an east-west road through it.
The claim whereby Israeli ownership of E1 would make for a truncated and thus non-viable Palestinian state on the West Bank ought to be about as convincing as saying a physical barrier between Manhattan and Brooklyn and New Jersey makes Manhattan non-viable.
To be clear: I'm not arguing for or against Israeli construction on E1. I'm merely pointing out that much of the verbiage on the topic is misleading.
So let's focus on Jerusalem, and on the internationally accepted demand that it be divided.
1. It won't work. Or perhaps I should say: It. Will. Never. Work. I've written about this exhaustively, with examples, maps, pictures, films and data.
2. There's a profound fallacy at the heart of the case for division. As governments pundits activists and ignoramusi are all busy telling us this week, without a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem there can be no independent Palestine. I'm not going to get into the epistomological reasons for their saying so, but it does seem worthwhile to ask: How do you know? And why should it be so? There are more than 4 million Palestinians on the WB and in Gaza, and about 300,000 in East Jerusalem. The 90-plus percent can't be sovereign if the 8 percent don't join them?
3. True, the Palestinians say they'll never accept a state which doesn't include Jerusalem. But then it should be clear: the issue is not that the Israelis refuse to allow a Palestinian State to be created, but rather that the Palestinians aren't willing to accept it unless on their terms.
4. Suppose both sides had agreed on all other matters, and peace or war depended solely on the question of Jerusalem. How is it logical to say that an Israeli refusal to accept a division of the city prevents peace, while a Palestinian refusal to forgo a division doesn't equally prevent peace? The expectation is that Israel can be sovereign without the heart of Jerusalem, the so-called Holy Basin, but Palestine can't? How so?
5. Finally, let's assume for a moment, against all logic, that Israeli construction in Jerusalem really will forever prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. At the moment the construction isn't yet happening. It may begin in a year, or more, and it may be completed and people will move into their new homes in, say, three years. Doesn't that mean that all Israel is doing now is to define a future date, three years hence, when Israeli construction will have thwarted the creation of Palestine? There will be no bulldozers moving in January 2013, nor in June, nor, I expect, in January 2014. So if the Palestinians are so desperate for a state, what they need to do is come to the negotiating table RIGHT NOW and stay there until an agreement is reached. If in two solid years of intensive negotiations peace cannot be achieved, then that failure will be the reason there's no peace, not any bureaucratic decision to enable the future construction of homes for Jews in Jerusalem.
It's even conceivable that the prevention of peace might have something to do with Palestinian positions and actions, not only Israeli ones.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Ya'acov, the other side is not interested in peace but in achieving total victory over Israel no matter how long it takes.
That is why an Arab state is not going to arise in the next few years. And what those few Israelis, like Ami Ayalon and Gilad Sher, who still endorse it, are really advocating is a Hamas state surrounding Israel.
As I see it, there are two futures: Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria or a Hamas state facing Israel on all sides. There is no third option. The two state advocates are just not honest with Israeli voters about what creating an Arab state in Israel's heartland would really entail in the future, as I'll now lay out for everyone's benefit.
Imagine the Gaza Disengagement disaster on a more extensive scale. But some people are unwilling to learn from past experience on the dubious theory that more of the same will finally lead to a different result.
Its not one Israel should be tempted into trying again. The discredited Oslo road Ayalon and Sher and the rest of the world insist Israel remain committed to would lead not to peace but to more wars, suffering and death. The future of Jerusalem must not be the past and present of Sderot.
Excellent post Yaacov, as always.
It is indeed obvious that the Fakestinan Arabs will never be satisfied with less than the complete disappearance of the Jewish state... as do most of the countries on this planet by the way (including many western nations). More and more of those consider the "creation" of Israel as a historic mishap, hope to terminate it and give a helping hand to those who want us out...We need to use much more imagination,innovation skills, brains and resolve to escape their bad and vicious intentions and escape the traps set for us to fall in. We have soo many winning cards to play with and never put them on the table.
"Most of the countries on the planet" do not want Israel gone. Most of the dictators, probably. It is they who control the UN General Assembly. Never forget that, and never take the GA's words seriously.
Post a Comment