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Why Should Israel Have Jerusalem?

[Commentary] David Hazony - In the interest of fostering a constructive dialogue with an American diplomatic universe that seems to have no interest whatever in Israel's position on Jerusalem, I'd like to toss out a few brief reminders. Israel should have Jerusalem, first of all, because it already does. Jews have been a majority of the city consecutively since the middle of the 19th century. There is no issue here of occupation, of a Jewish minority displacing Palestinians in their land. Over the past century and a half, the city was divided for 19 years by an accident of war, split between Israel and Jordan, whose occupation failed to earn international recognition; and then it was reunited. The Jordanians cleansed the eastern city of its Jews and burned down its synagogues. Then the Jews came back in 1967 and gave the city a greater degree of not only economic success but also religious, cultural, and political freedom than it has ever enjoyed. Israel should have Jerusalem because it is more important to Jews than it is to Muslims (or Christians, or anyone else). The fact is that there is a difference between the "most important" holy city and the "third most important" city that is far more than quantitative. This is the geographical heart of biblical Israel, the focus of its golden age of David and Solomon, the focus of three millennia of Jewish prayer. This is the heart of everything, and that heart beats in eastern Jerusalem, at the site where the First and Second Temples stood for about a thousand years. Israel should have Jerusalem because there is no practical way to divide the city that would satisfy both sides. Separation - a full border, with strict crossings and a fundamental divorce of economic life - is anathema to the Palestinians themselves, who rely heavily on Israeli jobs for their living. Jerusalem is not just a consensus issue in Israel but also a deeply personal one. There is no erasing the thousands of years of yearning for Jerusalem in Jewish texts, nor the national catharsis of its reunification in the Six-Day War, nor over four decades of astonishing development and construction and tourism and flourishing of religious life for all faiths since then. The idea that now, suddenly, a new American president, speaking of "settlements," will change this reality is not simply offensive and alienating to Israelis only, but also to Jews the world over. Israelis do not like to be bullied, and this is far more likely to steel the Israeli public's resolve against American pressure than weaken it.
2009-07-21 06:00:00
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