About Us

IMRA
IMRA
IMRA

 

Subscribe

Search


...................................................................................................................................................


Monday, July 27, 2009
Mordechai Kedar: An Israeli concession on Jerusalem or parts of the city constitutes surrender to a baseless Palestinian, Arab and Islamic demand and could endanger both the capital of Israel and the entire Zionist enterprise

AN ISRAELI VIEW
A Jewish obligation to live in Jerusalem
by Mordechai Kedar
Published 27/7/2009 © bitterlemons.org

Recently, pressure has been applied by US President Barack Obama to prevent
the construction of a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, the capital of
Israel. If Israel deserves the title "state" it has to stand united in an
effort to rebuff this pressure resolutely.

There are several justifications for this strong Israeli stand. First, the
struggle over settlement in Jerusalem is at heart a struggle over Israeli
sovereignty in the city, based on 3,000 years of Jewish history in the holy
city, long before Washington was the capital of the United States, Paris the
capital of France and Cairo the capital of Egypt. Jerusalem, and
particularly the area of the Temple, embodies the hopes and is the focus of
the prayers of the Jewish people since it went into exile 1,940 years ago.

Zionism is based on the idea of returning to Zion, meaning to Jerusalem, not
to Beersheva or Haifa or Jaffa. Every year at this time, during the month of
Av, we weep for the destruction of Jerusalem, with mourning for Yavne,
Tzippori, Masada and Gamla added to the mourning for Jerusalem. The prophets
of Israel prophesied the salvation of Jerusalem and no other city. Conceding
any portion of the city, especially the Temple Mount, would create a sense
of destruction among many Jews. They then might lose their faith in the
Zionist enterprise and react in ways that could endanger the unity of
Israeli society.

Second, if the state of Israel concedes the Temple Mount and other parts of
Jerusalem it would be signaling world Jewry that it has lost its link to
Judaism and would thereby risk losing the support of many Jews in the world
who would consider this an act of treachery against our religion, our
history and the Jewish hope of salvation that was realized in part 42 years
ago.

Third, Jerusalem never was, even for a day, the capital of a Palestinian or
Arab entity. After the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, the capital
was Ramleh, located 40 km from Jerusalem. Even Jordan, which ruled East
Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 did not make it its capital. Accordingly,
the Palestinian demand to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine
has no basis in history.

Fourth, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the issue of
Jerusalem does not stand alone: if Israel shows even a little flexibility on
this question, it will invite pressures to concede "just a little" on the
issue of refugees and the crack in the dam will widen and wreak destruction
on the entire Zionist enterprise.

Fifth, concessions offered in neighborhoods adjacent to Jerusalem would
place the capital of Israel within range of light weapons, enable snipers to
target pedestrians and return the city back to the pre-1967 days of
protective walls. Today the city is already within range of missiles and
rockets from Ramallah and Bethlehem; moving the attackers even closer,
within the line of sight of Jerusalem, would only increase their appetite
for rendering the lives of Jews unbearable. No one in Israel or beyond can
assure us that a future Palestinian government will deal with these
attackers efficiently, without the bother of High Court injunctions and
appeals from human rights activists.

Sixth, the territory of East Jerusalem was never under Jordanian
sovereignty. Hence it is impossible to argue that East Jerusalem is
"occupied territory". At most this is disputed territory, to which the
non-Jewish contender cannot be defined in sovereign terms since it is not a
state. Accordingly, Israel has a considerable judicial advantage in seeking
recognition of its annexation. Only politics is delaying this process.

The conclusion that emerges from this discussion is that a concession on
Jerusalem or parts of the city constitutes surrender to a baseless
Palestinian, Arab and Islamic demand and could endanger both the capital of
Israel and the entire Zionist enterprise. Israel must expand and enrich
Jewish residence in the historic capital of the Jewish people in order to
eliminate once and forever the possibility of partitioning the city. We
don't have to generate superfluous friction by placing Jews in crowded Arab
neighborhoods. But housing construction in the Shepherd Hotel location is
important, if only because of the link between this structure and the Mufti,
Haj Amin al-Husseini, who volunteered to recruit tens of thousands of
Muslims for the Nazi extermination machine.

The entire city of Jerusalem should be developed on the basis of Jewish-Arab
equality; interested Arab residents should be granted full Israeli
citizenship. Israel should declare for all to see and hear on road signs, in
official documents and in the language used by the Broadcasting Authority
that the name of its capital is Yerushalaim, not Urshalim and certainly not
al-Quds. The Islamic conquest of this country ended with WWI and there is no
reason to perpetuate the name that desert tribes gave the eternal city of
the Jewish people.-

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a lecturer in the Department of Arabic and a research
associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan
University.

Search For An Article

....................................................................................................

Contact Us

POB 982 Kfar Sava
Tel 972-9-7604719
Fax 972-3-7255730
email:imra@netvision.net.il IMRA is now also on Twitter
http://twitter.com/IMRA_UPDATES

image004.jpg (8687 bytes)