O Jerusalem, capital of Israel
IF respected Israeli journalist Yossi Melman had his way, Israel would give up Jerusalem as its capital, albeit temporarily.
According to Melman’s plan, published this month in Ha’aretz, Israel should move its capital to another city, say Tel Aviv, or Be’er Sheva perhaps. Visiting prime ministers and presidents will be received there and government and Knesset gatherings will be held there too.
Melman’s rationale is that Jerusalem is the perennial obstacle to peace, and that “symbolically, suspension of Jerusalem as capital will neutralise the religious basis of this bloody conflict”.
Besides, Melman concludes, the past 42 years of Israeli sovereignty has led to Jerusalem becoming “one of the poorest, dirtiest and most failed cities in Israel” and even Saudi Arabia did not choose Mecca or Medina, Muslim’s holiest cities, as its capital, but rather Riyadh.
This kind of a night-shelter solution should not come as a shock to anyone. The rumblings around dividing Jerusalem are becoming louder and louder. US President Barack Obama has this year delayed any moves to relocate the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite assuring the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on June 4, 2008 that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided”.
No wonder Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had this to say when he met Obama in May of this year: “The new US Administration informs us with intolerable ease that we have to give up Jerusalem.”
And two weeks ago, European Union (EU) foreign ministers voted for a proposal that envisioned Jerusalem as the future capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state. The EU statement was a softening of a Swedish draft that declared East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The original Swedish draft did not recognise that Israel has any rights in East Jerusalem or western Jerusalem, and would have led ultimately to anyone wanting to visit the Kotel to produce a passport and cross a border manned by Palestinian soldiers. Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt has told Israel the EU was united on the issue of Jerusalem and warned the Jewish State not to try and play “divide and rule”.
Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, is hardly an honest broker. When, four months ago, the Swedish daily Aftonbladet published a blood libel claiming the Israel Defence Forces was harvesting the organs of Palestinians, the Swedish government stood by and said nothing.
Luxembourg’s foreign minister summed up the European feeling when he told journalists that he could not understand why Israel did not accept that Palestine included the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
One wonders why the Europeans feel they have the authority and jurisdiction to decide how Jerusalem should be divided. After all, Europe’s record in Jewish history and its concern for Israel’s safety are, shall we say, problematic.
The EU resolution, coming just days after Netanyahu announced a 10-month freeze on construction in West Bank settlements, is reflective of the international mood and is highly problematic. For one thing, it presupposes the future status of Jerusalem even before negotiations have resumed. Secondly, it does not recognise that there could be changes to the pre-1967 borders, ignoring Resolution 242 that acknowledged that the 1967 lines were only armistice lines and may change.
In his response to the Swedish proposal, the mayor of Israel’s capital, Nir Barkat, called on the EU to back an open Jerusalem that enables more than 3.4 billion people “to visit … and practise their faith freely without a divisive wall of the sort that devastated the city of Berlin”.
Netanyahu has made it clear where he stands. In a 2009 Jerusalem Day ceremony, he stated, “United Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided.” In September, the Knesset voted to approve a “continuity law”, beginning the process that would obligate any government to go to a referendum before withdrawing from East Jerusalem, giving citizens a say on such a crucial issue.
There is a clear message for the Israeli government. It must increase its diplomatic efforts to explain Israel’s rights to the city and stress the way it has protected the holy sites. A history lesson about the fact that when Jordan ruled the Old City from 1948 to 1967, Jews and Christians were denied access to the holy sites, and a reminder that synagogues were desecrated and destroyed and gravestones were turned into latrines is also crucial.
A recent BBC radio documentary that ignored the Jews’ ancient connection to Jerusalem and gave the impression that it is the Jews who are the newcomers to the city should set the alarm bells off.
If the government fails to do so, the support for a divided Jerusalem will become the consensus, even in Israel.
Dr Dvir Abramovich, the Jan Randa senior lecturer in Hebrew and Jewish studies, is director of The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Jewish History and Culture. He is also president of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies.