On April 25, 2007, the Palestine-Israel Journal (PIJ) held a
Palestinian-Israeli roundtable discussion at the American Colony
Hotel in East Jerusalem, on Jerusalem: 40 Years Later. The Israeli
participants were Dr. Menachem Klein, policy advisor to former FM
Shlomo Ben-Ami on Jerusalem, Dr. Moshe Amirav, policy advisor to
former PM Ehud Barak on Jerusalem and former member Jerusalem
Municipality and Prof. Ruth Lapidoth, a Hebrew University expert on
legal status of Jerusalem. The Palestinian participants were Dr.
Riad Malki, director of Panorama, Ramallah; Dr. Nazmi Ju'beh,
Geneva Initiative negotiator on Jerusalem; and attorney Mazen
Qupty, a legal expert on Jerusalem. The moderators were PIJ
co-editor Ziad AbuZayyad and Le Monde Diplomatique correspondent
Amnon Kapeliouk.
Hillel Schenker: Welcome, all of you, on behalf of the
Palestine-Israel Journal to our special roundtable on Jerusalem.
Our new issue will be devoted to "Jerusalem: 40 Years Later," and
the roundtable will deal with Jerusalem past, present and
future.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Today and after 40 years of the Israeli occupation
of Jerusalem, do you think Israel succeeded in bringing Jerusalem
out of the state of war to become a city of peace between Israelis
and Palestinians, or the opposite?
Menachem Klein: In my view, we are closer to ending the occupation.
I'm not sure that we have achieved peace in this city. There is a
kind of coexistence between the two sides in the city, but it is
coexistence with a large degree of animosity. We have borders in
the city and we are closer to removing the borders, or to moving
from a situation of occupation to a settlement. Looking 40 years
back, the first 20 years were very quiet. It seemed then that the
Israeli occupation project and annexation had succeeded. But after
20 years, in 1987, when the first intifada broke out, this marked
the beginning of the end of the occupation. Then the Israelis
became aware that the Palestinians in the city are part of the
collective Palestinian national movement. Israel is trying to play
between the extremes: on the one hand, to exclude the Palestinians;
on the other, to control them through walls - small walls, the big
[separation] wall, checkpoints, and all these kinds of tools of
control. Every day the Israeli control is harder, tougher than
before, and using more force is an expression of the Israeli
bankruptcy of the annexation. At some point it will end.
Riad Malki: The city itself contains within it all the dimensions
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are talking about
territory, demography, refugees, settlements, security - everything
is embedded within the city itself. That is why no one can assume
that Jerusalem, by the fact of annexation and by the fact of the
unilateral imposition of Israeli laws, the city becomes a city of
peace. When we talk about peace, we have to talk about two levels:
First, the coexistence that exists between the residents of the
city, and here the Palestinians maintain a high level of tolerance,
which does not mean acceptance. They try to benefit to the maximum
from the services, but it doesn't mean that these people have given
up on their fight for identity, for freedom within the city itself.
This means that the inner peace does not exist within the city,
despite the fact that you see tranquility and normality. If we hear
the Israeli official position, they might say: "Yes, it's a city of
peace." But if you ask the Palestinian people and leadership, they
will say: "It's not." So how do we judge if it is really a city of
peace or not? There has to be some coherence between the two sides
and an acceptance by the two sides of the same norms. And since the
Palestinians are in total contradiction to what the Israelis are
proclaiming about the city itself, then I cannot speak about
Jerusalem being a city of peace.
Nazmi Ju'beh: I think we are witnessing now the collapse of the
different illusions about Jerusalem. Forty years of Israeli
occupation, control and administration of the city did not convert
the city into a united one. I think the enmity in the city is much
more than after June 1967, after the war. The Israelis enjoyed some
kind of tranquility in the city in the first two decades for sure,
as Menachem mentioned earlier. But I think it is not only due to
the rise of the Palestinian national movement in the city that
these illusions are collapsing one after another, but because
of the mismanagement of the Israelis of East Jerusalem. If I look
at my community, I hardly know one individual who is not in direct
conflict with the Israeli establishment, on different levels - with
taxes, with the municipality, with licenses, with the crossing of
checkpoints, losing land. I hardly know any family that does not
have reunification problems. I hardly know any family that is not
accumulating paper after paper in order to prove they are living in
the city. I don't know of a similar place anywhere in the world. My
wife carries whenever she goes to the Ministry of the Interior a
pack full of documents: rates invoices, water bills, electricity
bills, school certificates, just to prove that she is still living
in the city. I think the miscalculated Israeli policy in the city
has converted the slightest percentage of people who were ready to
live in coexistence in the city into very bitter enemies.
I want to tell you one example. I remember when we began the
negotiations in 1991 and I had my first meetings with Yasser Arafat
and the clique in Tunisia. I was telling them: "Look, you will have
a problem to attract Palestinians in East Jerusalem to be part of
the Palestinian National Authority which you are intending to
establish, because a lot of people are enjoying life: social
security, health insurance, etc.," and I would say that maybe
40-50% of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were willing to
live under Israeli administration; they preferred it to the
Palestinian. But now I am saying you will not find 2% of
Palestinians in East Jerusalem who are ready to live under Israeli
administration. The major element is the Israeli mismanagement of
East Jerusalem. They converted most of our neighborhoods into
slums. The only growing refugee camp in the West Bank is the
Jerusalem refugee camp of Shu'fat. More than 60% of the
Palestinians living in the refugee camp are not refugees, but
people who lost their social status because of the socioeconomic
policy implemented in Jerusalem, and it is cheaper for them to live
in the camp rather than in other neighborhoods.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Ruth, how do you see Jerusalem? Do you see it as a
liberated city, an occupied city, a unified city or an annexed
city?
Ruth Lapidoth: I never use these four expressions because I
think what is important is to find compromises. I think Jerusalem
has four big problems that are worse in Jerusalem than anywhere
else in the country. Problem number one is the very strong feelings
that people have about it, Palestinians and Israelis. We have to
teach people to tone down the feelings because you cannot find a
compromise if you have such strong feelings. Of course there is a
problem of sovereignty. Sovereignty will always be an obstacle for
peace, and an obstacle for compromise. We should find solutions
without dealing with sovereignty. The second problem is the
holiness: the city is holy for three main religions and it has many
holy places that are holy not only to those living in the city but
to 3 billion people who live elsewhere. This makes it even more
complicated. The third problem is the heterogeneity of the
population. I heard the former mayor of the city, Teddy Kollek,
saying once that there are 40 different ethnic or religious groups
in Jerusalem. Each community should have the possibility to
organize its life as much as it can, according to its own
traditions. And the last problem, whatever the future is of this
area, Jerusalem will always be on the border between the
Palestinian state and the Israeli state and, therefore, we must
find a way to allow the people who live around the city to continue
to use Jerusalem as an economic and cultural center, irrespective
of politics and borders because now, except for the wall, it is
such a center and it is very important that it continue to play
that role. It must be a place where you feel that you have your
cultural and economic center irrespective of the political
borders.
Ziad AbuZayyad: How do you define the situation of Jerusalem today
from a legal aspect?
Ruth Lapidoth: I don't think you can put it into a legal concept.
It is so different from other situations that it would be very
difficult to put it into any of these little holes that we know.
Jerusalem is different; we cannot compare it to any other
situation.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Do you agree, or disagree that Jerusalem is an
occupied city?
Ruth Lapidoth: I laugh and I say, you can call it occupied, you can
call it liberated, you can call it shared, whatever; I think the
best is to say it is a shared city.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Mazen, what is your comment?
Mazen Qupty: You have the two official positions: You have the
Israeli official position which sees East Jerusalem as part of
Israel, and the Palestinian Arab's, which sees East Jerusalem as
occupied territory. The fact that Israel annexed this occupied
territory later on, and whether this annexation is legal, and
whether it is according to international law or not, there is a
very big dispute even among Israeli scholars. One of the major
problems is the fact that Israel is every day creating facts on the
ground in East Jerusalem. When you start thinking about dividing
Jerusalem and having two capitals, the facts on the ground make it
this solution harder to implement.
Amnon Kapeliouk: For all the years of the Israeli occupation, the
Israeli authorities and also the ordinary people thought that all
the changes on the ground would be accepted sooner or later by the
Palestinians. Moshe, you have followed the situation of Jerusalem
from the beginning, what do you think?
Moshe Amirav: Jerusalem for me was a kind of a dream. I will start
with a small story from my book that's coming out next week,
Jerusalem Syndrome, which describes a pathological-psychological
phenomenon. We have about 200 cases of this every year, of people
who get mentally ill when they meet up with Jerusalem. Their
disconnection from rationality is a phenomenon that we have only in
Jerusalem, of all the cities of the world. I was sick once with
this Jerusalem Syndrome. When I was young, I was in the Betar youth
movement and I dreamed that, one day, I will see the city united. I
was so anxious to do it that, when I was 16, I went on Yom Kippur
to Jerusalem's Mount Zion intending to cross the border into
Jordanian-occupied territory and blow a shofar near the Wailing
Wall. I thought that we had to take the other side of Jerusalem and
unite the city. I was crazy. I was a lunatic. I called my book
Jerusalem Syndrome because I see this syndrome among the
leadership. After 40 years, we have failed in almost every national
target for Jerusalem. All researchers agree that, on the
demographic level, on the diplomatic level, international
legitimacy - the last two embassies: Costa Rica and El Salvador
left months ago - we have failed. And one of the major goals was to
make Jerusalem big, strong economically, and it is now the poorest
big city in Israel. When we come to coexistence, the big dream was
about this mosaic: Everybody would live together and be happy and,
of course, we had this intifada which ended this coexistence. But I
still say that, in Jerusalem, in this small place, one square
kilometer which is the Old City of Jerusalem, I think we should
share something. Because if we, Palestinians and Israelis, don't
share anything, we are doomed to live in hostility and separation
forever. On the rest of the issues we will divide. This is my dream
now to have a shared city of Jerusalem.
Riad Malki: A recent public opinion poll in the Palestinian
territories asked: To which part of Palestine are you most
connected? The pollsters expected answers such as Jaffa, or the
city or the village their ancestors came from before 1948. The
majority said Jerusalem. A colleague who works with me, and who
comes from the north of the West Bank, tells me that he has never
been in Jerusalem. He's about 27 years old, and he's not the only
one: most of the new generation of Palestinians has never been in
Jerusalem. And he is constantly asking me to find him an
invitation, a conference so he could go for even one single day. He
tells me, "I want to live that moment." A person like him - he is
going to get married, has a master's degree from Birzeit University
- is telling you that, if this situation continues with Jerusalem
closed to all Palestinians, then you are pushing the Palestinians
to take a different approach. You waited for 19 years since the
1948 war to "go back" to Jerusalem. He has been waiting for 27
years to see Jerusalem, and he has never seen it.
Ziad AbuZayyad: I want to mention that since March 1993, when the
Israelis started the policy of closures, Palestinians in the West
Bank are not allowed to visit Jerusalem without a permit. There are
Palestinians who live within 3 kilometers from Jerusalem, but have
not been able to visit for several years.
Menachem Klein: The Israeli settlement project has succeeded in
bringing to the occupied territories about 500,000 people. Half of
them are in the Jerusalem area - East Jerusalem or annexed
Jerusalem - the rest spread all over the West Bank, 80% of them
adjacent to the Green Line. Israel failed to realize its grand
strategy of the late '70s to bring 1,000,000 settlers to the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip. It failed to change the demographic
situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The only place where
Israel has succeeded in changing the demography was in Jerusalem.
However, Israel acknowledged the shortcomings of the project by the
fact that the city is actually divided into two ethnic groups. In
the late '90s, definitely in Camp David 2000, the taboo over
dividing the city was broken and the Israeli public is ready to
divide and the question is where to divide. The principle was
broken and this is good news for every peacemaker.
Ruth Lapidoth: With regards to demography in Jerusalem, I have read
that when the Israelis took control of Jerusalem, there were 28%
Arabs and the rest were Jews; and today there are 34% Arab and the
rest are Jews, so I wouldn't say that the demographic situation has
changed in favor of the Jews.
Ziad AbuZayyad: The number of Jews in East Jerusalem was zero
before the June, 5, 1967, and now it is about 250,000 after 40
years of occupation. Do you think that bringing Jews to live in
East Jerusalem, brings us closer to peace, or draws us further away
from peace?
Menachem Klein: Acknowledging the failures of the project brings us
towards peace. There are no mixed settlements or neighborhoods for
Jews and Arabs together. All of the 12 new neighborhoods are Jewish
neighborhoods. The number of Jewish settlers residing inside Arab
neighborhoods is less than 2,000. So Israel has also failed to
change the demography of Palestinian neighborhoods, and these small
Jewish clusters are built along the same system as the Israeli
outposts in the West Bank. The Israeli authorities think that they
can spread points of control all over the Palestinian populated
areas. This will fail. The failure will bring us closer to
peace.
Nazmi Ju'beh: I think the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem will
be a problem even after the peace. These settlements will make any
agreement in the future very fragile, since they are interlocking
with the Palestinian neighborhoods. The division will look like a
form of an apartheid regime where certain people are allowed to
drive in one street, the others are not allowed, and anybody who
wants to sabotage the agreement will have a great chance to do so.
These settlements did not manage to bridge between the two peoples,
but, on the contrary, they have managed to build more hostility
between the peoples. I am living just close to the Neve Ya'akov
settlement. Between my house and the next house in Neve Ya'akov
there are less than 50 meters and we are living with our backs to
each other. No one has any relationship with the next neighbor. We
don't know who is living there; we don't want to know. They never
even look on our side from Neve Ya'akov, and vice versa.
Moshe Amirav: I want to relate to the idea of the settlements in
East Jerusalem as an obstacle to peace. I want to say that this is
not an obstacle to peace and the proof is Camp David. At Camp
David, the obstacle had nothing to do with territory or with
people, or with demography, but with the holy places, with the
Temple Mount, al-Haram al-Sharif. The Palestinians accepted the
Israeli facts on the ground. They agreed that one-third of East
Jerusalem, which is now occupied by new neighborhoods, would be a
part of Israel. In other words, the problem between Israel and the
Palestinians or between Israel and the Muslim world, or the Arab
League, is not the settlements in East Jerusalem. The big problem
is the Old City, the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. These are the
two very small places that are the obstacles to peace, not the
settlements.
Mazen Qupty: I do not agree. I think the settlements in East
Jerusalem could be not an obstacle for an agreement of peace, but
they are obstacles to peace. It could be that both parties,
Palestinian officials and Israeli officials, will come to an
agreement dividing the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and
put them under Israeli sovereignty. They can get to such an
agreement, but whether this agreement will keep peace between
Palestinians and Israelis in East Jerusalem? I don't agree. To make
a separation between the settlements and Shu'fat and Beit Hanina,
you have to make a wall, you have to make borders and you cannot do
it. To make a separation between Sheikh Jarrah and French Hill and
Shu'fat, you cannot do it. You are going to have walls and
suffering by the Palestinian population of all these areas, which,
ultimately, is not going to lead to a real peace, but to a sort of
imposed peace. To keep settlements under Israeli sovereignty in
East Jerusalem, it can succeed only if you keep an open city, so
everybody on both sides can have free access to the area of the
whole Jerusalem.
Nazmi Ju'beh: I was one of those who negotiated the agreement on
Jerusalem in the Geneva Accords where we accepted the existence of
the Jewish settlements. The question is whether these groups of
settlements are helpful for peace or not. I think not. You can find
the physical solution for their existence. But this will make the
whole agreements fragile. Hence the connection between the
different neighborhoods with their hinterland will be through the
other's land. And that will be very problematic to protect in the
future. This is the ultimate outcome of these solutions, which I
agreed upon. This will shape our city into a citadel rather than a
living city with two parts. I am not so romantic as to think that
we can leave Jerusalem as an open city for everyone. This solution
could have been implemented maybe 20 years ago, but today it is
really difficult to have a big open city. I am in favor of the
division of the city.
Riad Malki: The whole Israeli settlement policy in the occupied
Palestinian territories was taken unilaterally, was decided by
Israel without consulting with the Palestinians. Whatever is
unilateral is not legal and cannot really function, so you cannot
base any negotiating process in the future on unilateral actions.
There will be no peace together with the settlements.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Does anyone disagree that the settlements are
illegal and are a violation of the Geneva Fourth Convention because
no occupying country has the right to settle in occupied
territory?
Ruth Lapidoth: Politically, I think it is wrong. Legally there are
very different opinions, although the International Court of
Justice says it is illegal. So I don't want to go into the legality
here. In Israel, we have 20% Arabs, why shouldn't we have some Jews
in the Palestinian state?
Ziad AbuZayyad: Because the Arabs were there before the creation of
Israel and remained to live in their lands and houses while the
settlers were brought into the Palestinian Occupied Territories
under the protection of the guns of the occupation. Any settler who
wants to be a citizen of the Palestinian state - no
objection.
Mazen Qupty: We can divide again one whole country into two states
according to the 1967 borders. If you agree on the principle which
says I am ready to put the settlers who are living in the West Bank
under Palestinian sovereignty and they can choose whether to stay
or come back to Jerusalem; in addition, we remove the borders issue
which will be agreed upon by both parties, then the main problem we
will have here will be the Old City.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Taking into account the sensitivity of the issue of
the holy places in Jerusalem, do you think changing the status quo
of the holy places will contribute to making peace and stability in
the city?
Mazen Qupty: Any solution has to provide free access for all people
from all religions to the holy places in Jerusalem. There is a real
challenge between Israelis and Palestinians saying which status quo
are you talking about? The Israelis will say, the status quo is
what exists from 1967. The Palestinians will say, let's go back to
what was before 1967. Many Jewish religious leaders will not allow
Jewish people to go to al-Haram al-Sharif and pray there. If you
are not talking about sovereignty, I think we don't have a problem
of control. The Western Wall is under full control Israeli control,
and even in the Camp David proposals there was readiness from the
Palestinian side to keep the control of Israel on the Wailing Wall.
I think control of the Haram al-Sharif has to be fully in the hands
of the Palestinians. The Christian community is not asking for
control over the Holy Sepulcher.
Menachem Klein: The way to achieve an agreement over the holy
places is to disconnect between the holy places, religion and state
sovereignty. That is the only way to achieve a peace agreement and
coexistence, to inject some kind of rationality into these places.
Otherwise, if we fan the flames of the religious and historical
fires, we end up in a real catastrophe. Each side is ready to
acknowledge the historical and cultural attachment of the other
side to the place. It is unwilling to acknowledge the sovereignty.
I don't see any option of having a special regime in this area
because it is the most sensitive place for Israelis and
Palestinians in a city that will be two capitals.
Ruth Lapidoth: When we come to the holy places, I think it is
essential not to worry about sovereignty. You will never reach an
agreement about sovereignty. I have suggested some time ago that
everyone should agree that sovereignty belongs to God. Sovereignty,
not for a state-like entity. And then we have to speak about
division of power. Freedom of access is very important, but we
should not have any illusions because not all people are very nice
and reliable. There must be limitations for purposes of smuggling
and of security, so there must be some kind of control. After
making peace, we must make sure that those people who want to
destroy our peace cannot come into the city and blow up everything.
Even if it is completely free for access, you must have some
control of the borders or at the entrance to the holy places. It's
too dangerous. I think even if you go to the Vatican there is
control there, although they don't have enemies in the city. So
freedom of access, yes, but still careful, and I suppose that the
control should not be by any of the states concerned, but by an
international police force, so that nobody can say there is
discrimination or something like that. The problem with freedom of
worship is the problem that Jews are not allowed to pray on the
Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif). There is no problem with Christians
and Muslims visiting the Wailing Wall, but in the Dome of the Rock,
only Muslims may enter.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Each one in control of his holy places can take all
the needed precautions to guarantee that he is safe. We should not
speak about an era of peace while still continuing to live with the
siege mentality, and checkpoints, and closures, and passages, and
restrictions, and all other things.
Ruth Lapidoth: I agree with you, but at the moment there is not
much trust between Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore, I would
say that if we reach peace - and I am not a pessimist - if we reach
peace, it can be great but for the first 5-10 years we need some
kind of international help because there is so much lack of trust
between the two parties.
Amnon Kapeliouk: When Ehud Barak gave his proposals to the
Palestinians in Camp David, he touched on the al-Haram
al-Sharif (Temple Mount) and the proposal was to divide them. And
when the Palestinians - Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] - saw it, he was
frightened. He said to President Clinton, Give me the signature of
King's Fahd and Hassan II, and then we will see, but it is
unacceptable. Why Barak did it, according to me and others who
covered the Camp David talks, was because he did not want a
solution. When he begins with Jerusalem holy places it will stop,
they will not advance to a solution and his real aim was to show
Arafat as responsible for the failure of this summit and to blame
him.
Nazmi Ju'beh: There is no holy sites conflict; there is one holy
site conflict: Haram al-Sharif. I think that the other sites are
not problematic. For instance, if Hebron's Haram al-Ibrahimi (Tomb
of the Patriarchs) falls in the Palestinian territories, Israeli
visiting arrangements can be solved; it is not a problem. That will
include Rachel's Tomb, Nabi Samuel - there is no really big problem
there; we can reach arrangements. We have one sensitive site,
that's it, and this site is liable to blow everything up. The
Palestinians will say: "If I do not gain full control over Haram
al-Sharif, there is no agreement." The Israelis are saying: "If you
don't recognize our attachment to this site, there is no
agreement." I don't have a solution that everyone can be satisfied
with, but I, as a Palestinian, cannot sign any agreement without
full Palestinian control over Haram al-Sharif; otherwise I will
lose credibility and maybe existence - not only with the
Palestinians, but in the Muslim and Arab world as a whole.
Ziad AbuZayyad: I cannot deny by any means the spiritual and
emotional attachment of the Jews to Jerusalem, or to what they call
the Temple Mount. They cannot deny me my emotional and spiritual
connection to and love for Jaffa and all the places of Palestine. I
love them. But at the same time, I cannot say because I love Jaffa,
I want Jaffa back or I want to control Jaffa. So we should
differentiate between emotional or spiritual attachment and
practical control. I agree with you that no Palestinian will agree
that Israelis will have authority over the Haram al-Sharif, but no
Palestinian has the right to tell the Jews that you should not be
emotionally or spiritually attached to any place in the
world.
Nazmi Ju'beh: They are asking for recognition of the
attachment.
Moshe Amirav: Out of experience, I think we can say that the minute
we brought the issue of sovereignty to the flag, any flag, we were
getting into a deep problem, because only one flag can be there.
Anwar Sadat asked Menachem Begin if he was willing to have a flag
there and he responded: "Which flag?" The minute we get into flags
or sovereignty, we have a big problem. We saw it in Camp David;
Barak was ready for a compromise, which means that Israel would not
have sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif. I can tell you about Barak
that he was ready to have this attachment or a kind of sovereignty
over the bottom or under the mountain. The idea was that a solution
can come only if we don't have flags, and Arafat said: "I want to
have a Palestinian flag, and I'm not ready to have a green flag of
Islam, I want a Palestinian flag."
Riad Malki: Is it possible to raise the Palestinian flag when the
areas under Palestinian control do not have sovereignty?
Moshe Amirav: Israeli flag, no solution, Palestinian flag, no
solution. We don't need flags there. The solution can be in all
kinds of arrangements. Ruth Lapidot can give you 10 options for an
arrangement for the Temple Mount without the flag or sovereignty.
If we take out the flag, then we can come to a solution. The issue
is not only between Palestinians and Israelis; it is an issue
between more than 1 billion Muslims who are attached to this place.
I have spoken with Muslims in Indonesia and in Morocco and in Egypt
who told me they are very much attached, and why are we dealing
only with the Palestinians. We are speaking of a problem of Muslims
and Jews. It's not between Palestinians and Israelis.
Menachem Klein: The same Muslim in Indonesia is also attached to
Mecca but he never challenges the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia over
Mecca. My experience with Barak and Shlomo Ben-Ami is totally
different. Barak never gave up the Israeli overriding sovereignty
by not having veto power over the excavations or building on the
al-Haram or having sovereign power over the underground. Barak
refused to accept President Mubarak's proposal after Camp David
that the division of sovereignty will mean that Palestine would
enjoy full sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif and Israel would
enjoy full sovereignty over the Wailing Wall. For Barak and other
Israelis, the Wailing Wall is our asset, so it is out of any
negotiation, off the negotiating table. For the Palestinians, it is
part of the negotiations, and from a religious point of view, they
are right. One cannot deny that the holiness of the Wailing Wall
comes from the Temple Mount. The issue of al-Haram al-Sharif cannot
be solved separately without including the symbolic issues of the
1948 refugees. Because the two core emotional historical issues of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are Jerusalem and 1948, and anyone
who asks the Palestinians to make concessions on refugees, should
take into account that the Palestinians cannot agree to make
concessions on two issues simultaneously - refugees and Jerusalem.
Either you accept the Palestinian stand on refugees and they will
make concessions on Jerusalem, or you give up sovereignty over
al-Haram al-Sharif.
Ziad AbuZayyad: Is the problem solvable or not?
Mazen Qupty: It is important which part of Jerusalem we can agree
upon and which part we cannot agree upon. There is no dispute about
most of the areas of East Jerusalem. The Old City is the place
where Palestinians and Israelis will have a hard time to reach a
solution. If we can get a resolution about the Old City, I think
the issue of Jerusalem will be solved.
Riad Malki: There are two schools of thought: one that talks about
enlarging the city and having it big enough to absorb all the
concerns and to have parity between the Palestinians and Israelis
within some kind of special regime; there is another school of
thought that says that small is beautiful and you make it as small
as possible, and then you try to find ways of how to solve the
conflict. I am in favor of going to the smallest possible and
identifying the areas of conflict and limiting it to that area.
When you are talking about sovereignty, I believe that the
Palestinians will never give up their sovereignty, but a diluted
sovereignty might be a way to deal with this issue.
Moshe Amirav: There are three Jerusalem circles. The first one is
the big circle of Jerusalem, which is bigger than Tel Aviv and
Haifa together and this should be divided between Israel and
Palestine. The East should be the recognized capital of
Palestinians and the West of Israel. The second point is the Old
City should be under a special regime which should also be united
like an urban city arrangement. The Old City should have a special
status because it's too small to divide. The third circle has to do
with Haram al-Sharif. And this is the only place where we have a
conflict. It's not a political conflict. I said that to Barak, he
almost fainted. I said we have to give up on Haram al-Sharif, and
give it to Islam, not to Arafat, to Islam. This is a holy place for
Islam. Let's give it to them. These are the three elements of
Jerusalem in my vision towards a solution, and then for the first
time in its history Jerusalem will be a city of peace, because it
was occupied in the last 3,000 years.
Ziad AbuZayyad: For more than 13 centuries Jerusalem was not
occupied; it was under Islamic rule. It was ruled by Muslims and
citizens of the city, not as occupiers. The occupation started with
the First World War, with the British occupation.
Nazmi Ju'beh: I am terrified when I hear Moshe saying we can give
up on the Haram to anybody but, of course, not to the Palestinians.
To me the ideal solution is to have Jerusalem as large as possible
as an open city for both people. I know this is wishful thinking
and not practical anymore, especially for the Israelis; they go for
division. Division is ugly and destructive for the city, and very
hostile, but I accept it, and only for a transitional period
because I think we will laugh about this division a few years
later. Because how can you divide Abu Tor and at-Tor by a wall?
It's very ugly and impossible - unless there are a lot of openings
in it. Nobody will oblige me in the future to go to Bethlehem using
the road to the east of Ma'ale Adumim and then to go up to
Bethlehem. I can accept it only for a transitional period. But
after 10 years, if this is not going to be dismantled and the city
will not be open, the whole peace will collapse. Nobody will accept
it forever because it will be impossible to carry out. So I feel
that we have to go in Jerusalem for division in order to create
suitable conditions for a better future for the city, because the
division between 1948 and 1967 converted the city into a frontier.
And we remember the walls how ugly they were in the city. I was
very happy to see the walls removed in 1967. The idea of uniting
the city again to me is a dream but not in the form of
unilateralism and of occupation, but rather in the form reflecting
the needs of the people.
Ziad AbuZayyad: I think Moshe described the solution in a very
simple and clear way: We want an open city, one city but divided
politically.
Menachem Klein: I think technical solutions can be found how to
divide the Jewish and Arab cities physically. I do not have the
right to decide for the Palestinians where their Jerusalem begins
and ends. I have the full right to decide what I, in Israeli
Jerusalem, want to have. I find it necessary for Israel to give up
Giv'at Ze'ev and Ma'ale Adumim - exclude them from Greater
Jerusalem. For the benefit of Jewish West Jerusalem. We cannot, in
the long run, hold settlement fingers of Ma'ale Adumim and Giv'at
Ze'ev going into the State of Palestine. No Israeli citizen will
agree to live there; it is a burden. The Israeli authorities
acknowledge that the E1 plan of Greater Jerusalem is planned to
keep Ma'ale Adumim and this endangers the character of the Jewish
city. I am in favor of going back to a smaller, more manageable
Israeli capital in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, with a
physically divided city, but done not as brutally as this wall
divides the city. Without a comprehensive deal on
Israeli-Palestinian peace, the city cannot survive the division. It
is part and parcel of a package deal.
Amnon Kapeliouk: I like this city very much, but I like justice
before love. My solution is to give back the occupied Jerusalem,
with free access, and to give back the sovereignty of the Arab
part.
Ziad AbuZayyad: I hope that our future Jerusalem will be a center
of coexistence and cooperation between the State of Palestine and
the State of Israel. We can make Jerusalem a model of coexistence,
working together in all aspects of life in the city of Jerusalem. I
identify myself with those who believe that Jerusalem should be
physically united but politically divided. West Jerusalem can be
the capital of Israel, East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine.
Each side will control its holy places, and two municipal Councils,
with a coordination committee between them will develop joint
services. Having one city but divided politically will give us the
opportunity for enhancing cooperation between the two political
identities, and this cooperation will be an example to spread to
the wider arena of cooperation between the two states, Palestine
and Israel.