What does Trump's recognition of Jerusalem tell Israelis about their place in the world?

President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has done more than upend 70 years of American policy. It has underlined how far the Jews still are from international acceptance on their own terms, rather than as others would have them. It indicates that this lack of acceptance is still fundamental to how the world relates to the Jews.

There has been a raging argument between archeologists these past 30 years about how much historical truth there is in the Biblical stories. A consensus has slowly emerged that King David was a historical figure and that he lived in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago; the argument still rages around the question if his Jerusalem was a small and insignificant village or perhaps something much grander. Some historians insist the Jews emerged as a real nation with their own culture only once their elite had been exiled to Babylon, where they collected, collated and edited the Biblical stories for the first time: those would be the people who claimed "By the rivers of Babylon/there we sat down/there we wept/as we remembered Zion" – Zion being one of the names of Jerusalem. There is no way to make sense of the New Testament unless one accepts that Jesus was preaching and died in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jews. In the 2^nd century Hadrian ploughed Jerusalem and built a Roman town in its stead precisely because he assumed that would put an end to the pesky Jews.

Yet at no point in the past 2,000 years of history did any significant political power ever see the real city of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital. In one of history's remarkable twists, British forces conquered Jerusalem exactly a century ago this week. At the time a majority of Jerusalemites were Jews, and had been for at least 40 years if not 80, yet the British carefully gerrymandered all municipal elections to ensure there'd never be a Jewish mayor.  During 30 years of British rule there were a number of proposals to partition the land; none of them ever suggested Jewish control over Jerusalem. The partition plan eventually adopted by the UN 70 years ago last week invented an unprecedented departure from the universal principle of sovereignty, the Corpus Separatum, to ensure the Jews – still a majority of the city's population – would not control Jerusalem.  Deliberations on implementing this oddity went on at the UN years after Israel and Jordan had divided the city between them.

After the Six Day War Israel's leaders assumed the Christian world, which the West could still have been considered to be, would refuse to accept Jewish control of the city. They were talking about religion and its expression in Western civilization, not about international laws.

The near-universal rejection of President Trump's recognition of the plain fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital looks far more sinister than a mere disagreement over the best way to promote a notional peace agreement. This is reinforced by the blatant flimsiness of the reasons for the rejection and their distance from reality. It looks to this Israeli as a continuation of an ancient insistence that the Jews must be what the others say, and that for them to be accepted they must behave as the others demand. It can't be that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish State, because that would mean that the Jews really have returned to national normality, and that they are a nation and state as all the other 200 states are.

The louder the howls are, the more pervasive the condemnations, the more it seems to many regular, middle of the road Israelis that our place among the nations is still not yet finally accepted nor sincere.

Postscript: the cool response of some American Jews to the recognition is also a worthy theme for analysis. Not today, however.

Jerusalem Day and Yoga

It's Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. According to the Jewish calendar, 49 years since Israeli troops took East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount.

Someday someone needs to write the story of Jerusalem in the past half century. Who knows, perhaps I'll even do so myself if I find the time. One of the most complicated parts of the story is the relations between Jews and Arabs. They've never been particularly good, yet as I've repeatedly written, beneath the headlines about terror and inequality, animosity and enmity, the past 10-15 years have also seen a growing sort of partial and halting and mostly undeclared integration.

For example: The proprietor of the Yoga institute I go to recently mentioned that the assistant who runs the administration is an Arab woman, and though her efforts there is a growing number of Arab Yogi at the center, to the extent that next year they may even open an Arab-language group; in the meantime she's about to launch a marketing campaign, which will be tri-lingual.

Of such materials are larger, historical developments made.

Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Look, I know everyone is all worked up about the Netanyahu speech in Congress, scheduled for a couple of hours from now. But as I've said, what with being a senior civil servant and all I'm not allowed to talk about live political matters, so I'm not going to say anything about that today.

Instead, here's a picture I took recently of a rainbow over Jerusalem.

As we all know, at the end of every rainbow sits a pot of gold. Care to have a second look as to where that might be?

I understand the perspective is a wee bit unusual, but I assure you that tallish building at the end of the rainbow is... the Holyland tower.

I report. You figure out the significance.

A response to that nasty East Jerusalem op-ed in the New York Times

I'm riding out this round of Israeli-Gaza violence without blogging, as a good civil servant should. In the midst of it, however,the New York Times saw fit to publish a problematic op-ed by one Rula Salameh, a Palestinian woman from Beit Haninah, which is in north Jerusalem but for purposes of political correctness is called East Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem is one of my pet interests, and this op-ed has been causing quite a bit of excitement on Twitter, here's a quick rebuttal.

Salameh makes three points. One, Israeli immigration policy sucks. Two, she's afraid for her 17-year-old son Memo, ever since that ghastly murder of their neighbor, 17-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir. Third, Israeli policy in Jerusalem is geared to harm Palestinians.

I see no need to relate to the immigration issue. The New York Times has twice endorsed President Obama, and his administration has deported more than 2 million folks from the US for not being citizens, including people who have lived there for decades and have no potential center of life elsewhere; hundreds of Africans have died just this month in futile attempts to get in to Europe. Immigration policies are tricky everywhere.

I can emphasize with Salameh's fear for her son. I was once in Washington DC with three children just about the time a crazy sniper was shooting down people at gas stations, and it wasn't fun, even tho the statistical chances of being hit were small. More important, all my three children went thru their adolescence in a Jerusalem where people were routinely blown to death on buses, in supermarkets, sitting in cafes or walking down the street. We did our best to shuttle them everywhere by car, but being teenagers they weren't keen on that so mostly we lived thru the lethal roulette Salameh's countrymen were playing with us, and we hoped for the best and went to the ocasional funeral. It was trying, so I can empathize with her fear.

Tho, come to think of it, she was raising her kid at the exact same time about two miles away, and there was never any danger, absolutely none, in her neighborhood. Only had she taken him into the Jewish parts of town would she have had anything to fear... from her own people, not from us, who were blowing up whoever was there.

Which brings me to the enormous element of the story she somehow forgot to tell. Since the end of the 2nd Intifada, Jerusalem has become ever more a place that Arabs walk in free of fear. Thousands of them have moved into the Jewish neighborhoods, and tens of thousands enter the Jewish parts daily: they work there, study there, play there, consume there, freely mingling amongst the Jews, noticed only if they choose to wear recognizably Muslim garb - which many do, unmolested. The city hasn't yet grown together, but it's clearly on the way, with one major exception: the Jews still mostly don't go into the Arab neighborhoods. The Old city, yes, along the edges, yes, but you won't find many Jewish teenagers rambling thru the Arab neighborhoods. Whether it's too dangerous, or they only fear it's too dangerous, is an interesting question I don't fully know the answer to.

Finally, Salameh's third point, about Israeli policies. They've been a mixed bag these past 47 years. Indeed, Israel has not invested adequate public resources in the Arab parts of Jerusalem. This is a fact, though the present mayor, Nir Barkat, is trying to rectify things, and this didn't interfere with his re-election bid last year. (The Arabs didn't vote for him). On the other hand, the Palestinians in Jerusalem enjoy a higher standard of living, including national health insurance, Jerusalem's high level medical infrastructure, social security, full access to colleges and the university, and so on and on. Israeli policy in Jerusalem is a mixed bag. It wold have been honest of Salameh to mention this.

Yes, there was one ghastly murder of a Palestinian teenager, and his murderers are already under arrest (three of them, the other three having been sent home for not having been involved). In response, Arab youth torched the light-rail train that goes thru Beit Haninah (Salameh forgot to mention this) and violently rioted for a few days before calming down. Soon the rails will be fixed and the evil Israeli tram line will return to Beit Haninnah. I have no doubt Salameh's son is already back in the Jewish parts of town, returneg safely home each evening. He needs to be careful, however, if the sirens go off, bacause the Hamas rockets from Gaza don't ask for identity cards.

Living and Dying in in Divided Jerusalem

Jewish cemeteries are fascinating places. I was in one this morning, and noticed this gravestone.

It's the final resting place of Chaya Sarah Safra, who died in the winter of 1957, nine years after Jerusalem had been divided. In all those years she had not been able to visit the grave of her husband, Noah Safra, who had died ten years (to the day!) earlier. He was buried on the Mount of Olives, which in 1957 was in Jordan. Her family buried her in the main cemetery of West Jerusalem, Israel.

Resting in one city but two hostile countries, her gravestone contains all the information from his, so that visiting her might be a bit like visiting them both; and resting separately might be a bit like resting together.

Celebrating (in) Jerusalem

The Jews have been around for quite a while now - 3,000 years, give or take half a millennum and depending upon whom you ask and what criteria you use for "Jews" and "around". If you tried to list the Top Ten events in their history, the list you'd end up with might say more about you than about them. Torah at Sinai? Disliking that Jesus fellow back on Passover that year? Rebbi orally editing an oral tradition? Lobbying Cyrus? David penning Psalms? The Baal Shem Tov shaking things up? Abraham haggling with God about Justice? Spinoza laying philosophical foundations for the Enlightenment?

When you get into recent history - say, 1750 onwards - things get even trickier. The emergence of secular German-speaking Jewish thinkers is probably on the list; should Refael Lemkin convincing the UN to outlaw genocide be on it? For that matter, is the Holocaust a Jewish event, and will it look as important in 2045 as it did in 1995?

The top event on my list for the Common Era is easy: the 28th day of Iyar, or June 7th 1967, the day Israel gained control of the entire city of Jerusalem including all of the Old City. It's not a normal event when a group of people spend 1,897 years vocally waiting for an event, which then happens. I'm not aware of anything remotely similar having ever happened anywhere, anytime, with any other group.

This evening is the 28th of Iyar, Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. We celebrated it at our shul in an unusual way, by celebrating Baruch's 90th birthday, which also happens today.

I wrote about Baruch back when he was a young 85. At 90 he still identifies primarily as the grandson of Rav David W, the chief rabbi of their Slovakian community. A Holocaust survivor, who fought in Israel's War of Independence and then spent 10 months as a POW in a Jordanian camp. One of the speakers this evening recollected stories about his service as a tank crewman in the Sinai War of 1956. Much of the congregation came to celebrate with him this evening, as he is universally regarded as second in importance only to the Rabbi, and he's the more obviously beloved of the two. (Rabbis inevitably have critics because they take positions on matters).

He was surrounded by his family: children, lots of grandchildren, lots and lots of great-grandchildren. It was the most natural and miraculous event imaginable. One of two survivors of a death march on which 2,000 people perished, celebrating his 90th birthday in Jerusalem. Geopolitics, world history, wars, national interests and international cynicism, statesmanship and diplomacy, terrorism and hatred, law, international law, justice, injustice, propaganda, public relations, politics - these and many others are all part of the contemporary story of the Jews and their City. At times, however, a simple birthday party will trump them all with the force of its truth.

More Jewish-Arab integration in Jerusalem

I took this snapshot recently near the Israel State Archives (you can see a sign pointing to us in the upper left). It shows the sign on a truck advertising the driving school from which it hails: Hanan's Driving School.

In Hebrew and in Arabic. Hanan is an equal opportunity fellow. He'll teach whoever pays him to learn how to drive a truck. There are lots of folks in Jerusalem who speak lots of languages, but he advertises only in the languages of those who are likely to want to drives trucks. Hebrew and Arabic fit that bill, so those are his languages. Not Russian (they speak Hebrew by now), not French or English (they probably don't speak Hebrew well, but nor do they drive trucks), not Yiddish ('bal-agulehs' are an extinct breed). Hebrew and Arabic.

Apartheid my foot.

Oh by the way: the sign directing traffic to the Israel State Archives is in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English, in that order.

Jewish-Arab integration in Jerusalem

The neighborhood pool just happens also to be the only full-sized Olympic pool in Jerusalem, and we've got some active swim-teams. Yesterday evening as I was preparing for my swim, there was a gang of teenagers from the team who were showering and dressing. Most of them happened to be Arab teenagers, tho some were Jews. At one point three or four of them were standing near me and I eavesdropped. Only one of them was Jewish, and they were talking about the matriculation exams they'll all be taking in the next few weeks, as they finish high school. The Jew, it turned out, had chosen to take the easiest version of math, and his chief interlocutor was poking gentle fun at him. "Of course it depends on what you intend to do afterwards, but don't you think you should at least try for the intermediate level, not just the easiest?" Two of the others launched into their own discussion, in Arabic, about which math credentials it's best to strive for.

This banal discussion would have been inconceivable in the first decade after Israel annexed Jordanian Jerusalem in 1967. As recently as 10 years ago it would have been conceivable, but not possible. Things are changing in Jerusalem, under our noses but also under the media radar.

After my swim and shower, there were two fellows in their mid-30s chatting as they dressed. They were discussing the hardship of living a mostly sedentary modern work-life, and then going off for three weeks in the infantry and being called upon to make physical exertions that were easy 15 years ago but not anymore.

Dawn and Midnight, Summer and Winter

Here are two sets of pictures. (Click and you should see them enlarged)

Kaffit on Emek Refaim at dawn on a hot September day, and the same place at midnight last Thursday. And then, Rachel Immenu (which is around the corner), at the same dawn (looking west you can see the mornings sunlight on the clouds) and at the same midnight (looking east this time).

 

 

 

Where if not in Jerusalem?

No-one really knows how many people attended the funeral of the Rav Ovadia Yosef last night. If it was 700,000, that's more than 10% of the Jewish population of the country. If it was 850,000, as published by some newspapers today, that's almost 11% of the entire population of Israel. No matter what the number, most of the participants were men, so that a similar number of women were left at home with the same mourning sentiments. The entire media agrees this morning that it was the largest funeral in Israel's history.

I think it was probably the largest in the entire long history of Judaism.  Think about it for a moment. The Talmud tells about millions of people who used to come to Jerusalem for the pilgrimages, but those aren't eye-witness reports, rather wistful recounts from a few generations after the destruction of the Temple. Even to the extent they're true, there's no legend of a mass funeral of anyone. From then until the late 19th century, there were no Jewish communities large enough to create such a crowd of mourners. Even in pre-Holocaust Europe, or New York at any point, there were never anything near six-plus millions Jews in a region the size of Israel. And anyway, that's the recent past, so we simply know: there were no comparable events, not of that size, any time in the 20th century, not even at the funerals of the Lubavitcher Rebbe or Menachem Begin.

So what we saw yesterday was the largest Jewish funeral ever. It was a combination of the death of a Jew of historical stature; his followers' confidence of ownership of the public space such that shutting down half a city was not given a second thought; and the simple fact of having enough of them to generate the numbers. All of which came together in the most important city in the Jewish world. Jerusalem.

Postscript: I may be attuned to this insight as I'm in the middle of reading that PEW report on American Jewry, which I may post about once I'm finished. The contrasts are stark, of course, not to say harsh. One of them is that the Rav Ovadia, whom Israeli Jews just gave the biggest sendoff in 3,000 years, was largely irrelevant to American Jewry. To the limited extent he was relevant, it was when they totally misunderstood what he was all about. I once wrote about this, a few years ago; if you wish, you can re-read that post as my obituary of him.

Jerusalem is Destined to Grow

Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi is one of the most quoted scholars in the Talmud - assuming he was one scholar and not two, which he may have been. Whether one or two, he or they lived a very long time ago, in the 3rd century give or take a generation. (And either he, or they, or someone else of the same name, seems to be buried until this very day in Mitch Pilcer's back yard in Zippori).

In any case. Back in the 3rd century Jerusalem was a small town, roughly the size of today's Old City, which is one square kilometer. Yet the Talmud on page 50a of the Pessachim tractate cites Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi as foretelling that in the future the city will be so large that a galloping horse will need half a day, from dawn until noon, to get from the edge of town to its center, and this in all directions.

I'm not an expert in galloping horses, but assuming one can gallop without stopping for all those hours, I expect the Jerusalem of 2013 hasn't yet reached the dimensions Yehoshua ben Lvi had in mind. Give us another 10-20 years and we'll get there, only 1,800 after he said we would.

(The Daf Yomi series, I remind you, is presented and explained here).

Jerusalem doesn't have the advantages of Tiberius

It's been ages since I did a "daf yomi" post. (The idea was presented and explained here). So here's a quick one, about Jerusalem, from the Pesachim tractate we're currently crossing (page 8b, to be precise).

Rabbi Abin son of Rabbi Ada said in the name of Rabbi Itzhak: "Why aren't the fruit of Jerusalem as good as those of Genosar? (North of Tiberius, famous as the source of the best fruit of Erez Israel). So that the pilgrims won't say they've come to Jerusalem to eat its fruit, and there will be doubt if they came for the mitzva of the pilgrimage itself". Rabbi Dostai son of Rabbi Yannai said: "Why are the hot-springs of Tiberius not in Jerusalem? So that the pilgrims won't say they've come to Jerusalem to enjoy the hot-springs, and doubt will be cast on their motivation for the pilgrimage".

A Secluded Corner of Jerusalem You've Never Seen

It's on Mount Zion, but I doubt that will help.

Hannah Arendt in a false Jerusalem

The other day we went to see the new film about Hannah Arendt, directed by Margarethe von Trotta (2012). If you're into Batman films or other Christopher Nolan intelligent flics, this one isn't for you. It's slow, thoughtful, in two languages, and very well made. There is no action of the sort that Hollywood would recognize. It's about Arendt's trip to Jerusalem for Adolf Eichmann's trial in 1961 and the book she wrote about it, Eichmann in Jerusalem (Penguin Classics) - a book with one of the most important subtitles ever: a Report on the Banality of Evil.

Arendt was once a serious presence in my life. It turns out that shortly before she traveled to Jerusalem she spent an evening at our home in Chicago, though given my young age I was probably sent to bed before she arrived. As an undergraduate I read her magnificent The Origins of Totalitarianism (HBK) - easily one of the most intellectually exciting books I'd read. When I submitted my doctoral proposal for research into the decision-making process in the SS, using Eichmann's office as a case study, I noted that a side affect of the investigation would be to bolster Arendt's Banality thesis with solid historical documentation.

Well, that didn't work out. As I ploughed my way through tens of thousands of pages of Nazi documents and secondary sources about it, I was forced to recognize that she had got it all wrong. There was no banality there whatsoever, but there was personal brutality and viciousness, in the context of a profound and all-pervasive hatred of Jews. I eventually published my findings, in Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil, which had a pretty good run as turgid history books go, and was published in four languages, but never made the tiniest dent in the popularity of Arendt's thesis. Which is OK, given her stature and my lack of one.

Von Trotta's film tells the story of the creation of the Banality of Evil book and its initial reception; the fun in watching it is that we all know the end of the story: while some folks didn't initially like it, eventually it became one of the more famous books of the 20th century, so that there was a happy ending, even if it took a while to arrive - after the end of the film.

I'm not going to argue with her anymore - I've moved on from that. It's a fine film, and I recommend it.

The point I'd like to make is about one of the most minor scenes in the film. In early 1961 Arendt arrives in Jerusalem. The film puts her in St Andrew's Scottish Church, which I think didn't happen but could have, I suppose. From the balcony there's a great view of the western wall of the Old City, and when she first arrives she meets an old friend, a fellow German-born Jew, and they briefly enjoy the view, while commenting "So this is your Jerusalem!"; the camera pans along the wall of the Old City.

Which is of course nonsense. In 1961 anyone sitting on that balcony looking at the view would have noticed that there was a harsh border running right down the middle of it, with hostile snipers occasionally shooting at each other across it. No one would have celebrated "their Jerusalem"; any sane person would have mourned the tragic tearing apart of one of the world's oldest and most famous cities. Indeed, a visitor to the city would have sought out such vantage points so as to see the extent of the travesty, and the imbecility of dividing a city.

A German film director born in 1942 and thus old enough to remember the division of Berlin and Jerusalem, of all people, could be expected not to be so silly. Or maybe not: maybe that's too much to expect.

Independence Day Flags

It's Yom Hazikaron today, the mournful day of commemoration for the 25-thousand-plus Israelis who have died in our century-long conflict with the Arabs. In a few hours it will morph abruptly from one of the two most solemn days of the year (the other is Yom Kippur) to Independence Day, one of the more joyous.

Israelis appreciate their country, and are proud of its flag. Earlier today I wandered around a bit and took some snapshots of flags.

OOPS!

Jerusalem: a functioning city or a political resolution: choose one

Matti Friedman has an interesting article at Time of Israel about how Jerusalem is becoming ever more integrated in the reality, even as "everyone knows" that it must be divided - and that the division contradicts this reality.

What he describes fits into my experience, too. Having lived in Jerusalem since 1967, the past few years have been characterized by a level of cohabitation between Jews and Palestinians and Haredi and secular which didn't previously exist. If anything, Friedman's description understates the reality: it isn't just three commercial areas, for example, where Jews and Arabs intermingle; it's dozens of them. Walk into any large supermarket (not the neighborhood ones) and see if you can disentangle the locals - customers and staff - according to ethnic lines. Nor is it a result of the train, which most Jerusalemites don't use because there's only one (long) line.

My unscientific guess? The fact that the Palestinians of Jerusalem by and large didn't join the 2nd Intifada; then their separation from the West Bank (which hasn't been total), then the mayorship of Nir Barkat, a right-winger hi-tech millionaire who's committed to serving all residents, and various other factors.

Photos from Jerusalem

I assure you, improbable as it may seem, that the following photos were all taken just the other day, within the municipal lines of Jerusalem. I know, because I was there, taking them.

After the Snow

I suppose I should start a photo-blog at Tumblr. But that would be yet another demand on my time. So here are a few pictures from the day after the big snowstorm of January 10th 2013; being Jerusalem and not, say, Chicago, the snow mostly melts within a day or two.

Snow in Jerusalem

This morning I woke up and decided I've been working too hard, so I'd take the day off. I spent the morning walking around, taking banal pictures of Jerusalem on a typical Thursdy morning:

Settlements in Jerusalem: Listing the Myths

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.