Europe Moves To Divide Jerusalem
Led by Sweden, there are reports that 27 member states of the European union are prepared to recognize a portion of Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian State.
This unprecedented campaign has united Israel's political parties as never before. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu's bitter rival, Tzipi Livni, has condemned this action.
The Europeans have become aggressively active in a desperate attempt to save the collapsing government of Palestinian Authority. Ever since Hamas won the "elections" in Gaza, the PA has been fighting an uphill battle to stay relevant. All indicators are reporting that with each day the PA and its President Abbas are growing weaker and weaker.
With negotiations with Israel at an impasse, Hamas is fully engaged in talks over a possible prisoner exchange to gain the freedom of abducted soldier Shalit. Hamas is effectively acting like the representative of the Palestinians.
Caught in this bind, Abbas has reached out to his European allies and subsidizers to marginalize Israel by recognizing a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital. Even Israelis like Livni and Peres who support this solution adamantly oppose this conclusion being imposed on Israel. They believe this should be a result of final status talks.
But it is important to understand that this is not just a debating point. Israel is now faced with a very serious challenge. How can it function in an international community that feels it can impose its will on Israel without consent of this democratic government.
Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government's moratorium on construction in the West Bank is causing civil strife in Israel. Communities are opposing the presence of building inspectors in their areas. Foreign inspectors are demanding the right to monitor their activities.
Did Israel agree to this? Did Israel agree to give up its sovereignty over its own territory and people?
"How can it (Israel) function in an international community that feels it can impose its will on Israel without consent of this democratic government."
Seventy years ago the international community made very clear what its intentions toward the Jewish people were. Very little has changed during this period of time. The State of Israel has been seduced into believing that it is an equal member of the global community. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There was a time not so long ago when Jerusalem was anything but an open city. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion invaded eastern Jerusalem, occupied the Old City, and expelled all its Jews - many from families that had lived in the city for centuries. “As they left,’’ the historian Sir Martin Gilbert later wrote, “they could see columns of smoke rising from the quarter behind them. The Hadassah welfare station had been set on fire and . . . the looting and burning of Jewish property was in full swing.’’
For the next 19 years, eastern Jerusalem was barred to Jews, brutally divided from the western part of the city with barbed-wire and military fortifications. Dozens of Jewish holy places, including synagogues hundreds of years old, were desecrated or destroyed. Jerusalem’s most sacred Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. It wasn’t until 1967, after Jordan was routed in the Six-Day War, that Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty and religious freedom restored to all. Israelis have vowed ever since that Jerusalem would never again be divided.
And not only Israelis. US policy, laid out in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, recognizes Jerusalem as “a united city administered by Israel’’ and formally declares that “Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.’’
As a presidential candidate, Obama said the same thing. To a 2008 candidate questionnaire that asked about “the likely final status of Jerusalem,’’ Obama replied: “The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement . . . Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.’’ In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Council, he repeated the point: “Let me be clear . . . Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.’’
Palestinian irredentists claim that eastern Jerusalem is historically Arab territory and should be the capital of a future Palestinian state. In reality, Jews always lived in eastern Jerusalem - it is the location of the Old City and its famous Jewish Quarter, after all, not to mention Hebrew University, which was founded in 1918. The apartment complex that Obama opposes is going up in what was once Shimon Hatzadik, a Jewish neighborhood established in 1891. Only from 1948 to 1967 - during the Jordanian occupation - was the eastern part of Israel’s capital “Arab territory.’’ Palestinians have no more claim to sovereignty there than Russia does in formerly occupied eastern Berlin.
The great obstacle to Middle East peace is not that Jews insist on living among Arabs. It is that Arabs insist that Jews not live among them. If the Israeli government can’t grasp that the world simply doesn't care what the difference is, they stand to lose their hard-won capital - and may their right hands wither, may their tongues cleave to the roofs of their mouths.