Planning for Jerusalem in a Changing Political World
April 5, 2006Danny Seidman, presentation at Americans for Peace Now
On April 5, 2006, Jerusalem expert Danny Seideman, Consulting Legal Advisor and founder of Ir Amim, spoke at Americans for Peace Now. The event was co-sponsored by The Foundation for Middle East Peace and Americans for Peace Now.
Below is a summary of Seideman's presentation (see accompanying powerpoint document for slide references):
Slide 1: Greater Jerusalem, Post-1967 (the municipal area and its environs)
This is Greater Jerusalem. Looking at a radius of 20 kilometers from the Old City, the area is home to around 600,000 Israelis and 600,000 Palestinians. It is comprised of two overlapping metropolitan areas intersecting at the French Hill junction. Looking at East Jerusalem (Palestinian built-up areas in brown, Israeli built-up areas in blue) it is interesting to note that there is virtual numerical parity in the populations – the result of four decades of Israeli policy that sought to place as many Israelis as possible in East Jerusalem, in neighborhoods intertwined with Palestinian neighborhoods, for the express purpose of making the city indivisible. The irony is that today the political winds have shifted in favor of separation from the Palestinians, and Israeli policymakers dealing with Jerusalem are finding that, unlike a BMW, historical trends don’t turn on a dime. In many ways, Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem are akin to Siamese twins, sharing more and less vital organs.
Slide 2: The route of the barrier in Greater Jerusalem
Looking at this slide brings to mind the Israeli quip that “a camel is a horse built by a committee.” The route of the barrier looks like this because it reflects three simultaneous, often contradictory strategies and related goals.
First, there is the strategy of “pouring concrete” on the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem – a plan that, in a different time, was the favorite of then-Mayor Olmert (who has since undergone a change of thinking on the subject). There are several ideas that underlie this strategy. One is the idea is that the municipal boundary represents, legally, the path of least resistance, since in the eyes of Israeli law it is the border between the West Bank and Israel. In reality, though, this line is oblivious to the patterns of life in the city, since for forty years this line has existed only on paper, ignored by both Israelis and Palestinians. Another is the view that seeks to restore the sanctity of undivided Jerusalem, following Barak’s “deflowering” of Jerusalem at Camp David with open discussion about dividing the city. Erecting a barrier on the municipal boundaries was seen by some as an opportunity to reassert the conception of Jerusalem as “the-eternal-undivided-capital-of-Jerusalem-never-to-be-divided” (one word). And in some areas, like the southern part of Jerusalem, it actually made sense (an area that Danny refers to as “where Arik meets Yossi”). However, it doesn’t make any sense in the north and east of the city, where the barrier separates not Israeli from Palestinian, but Palestinian from Palestinian, wreaking havoc on any semblance of normalcy.
The second strategy the route of the barrier discloses is the strategy of optimal demography – seeking to gerrymander the borders in order to maximize the Jewish population of the city and minimize the Palestinian population (a strategy most evident in the Shuafat refugee camp area). However, this strategy runs headfirst into the law of unintended consequences: West Jerusalem residents have an annual income of around $17,000, West Bank residents have an annual income of around $1100, and East Jerusalem residents have an annual income of around $3500. In this economic reality, East Jerusalem has functioned for years as the lock in the canal between the two hugely disparate economies of Israel and the West Bank. For East Jerusalem residents, ending up on the “wrong” side of the barrier would plunge them almost overnight into poverty, reducing their standard of living by a third and cutting them off from their center of life – schools, health services, family, etc... Thus, the law of unintended consequences has meant that, as Israel has pursued a policy of using the barrier to gerrymander the borders in East Jerusalem, East Jerusalemites from the effected neighborhoods are moving to neighborhoods on the “right” side of the fence, increasing the overall percentage of Palestinians in Jerusalem. Even more ironic, this has led to such a steep rise in housing costs in Palestinian neighborhoods that many East Jerusalem Palestinians are renting in Israeli areas, in particular in the [East Jerusalem settlement of] Pisgat Ze’ev, where rentals are now cheaper than in nearby Palestinian neighborhoods. Some people joke that with this policy, Sharon has managed to truly unify Jerusalem, though probably not in the way he intended.
The third strategy disclosed by the route of the barrier is the Greater Jerusalem strategy, which was that ultimately adopted by Ariel Sharon. Here it is interesting to note Sharon’s gradual evolution with respect to the idea of a barrier. Initially Sharon was dead-set against the idea. Eventually, he grudgingly accepted it, recognizing how popular it was with Israelis. In the end, he wholeheartedly embraced the idea as a way to expand and cement Israeli hegemony in the public domain over Great Jerusalem – something that had always been his goal (as opposed to the mantra of the eternal, undivided Jerusalem) – with the approval of the U.S. Administration. Sharon’s Greater Jerusalem strategy is the genesis of the “cloverleaf” design of the barrier, with each leaf extending far beyond the municipal boundaries of the city to take in a settlement bloc and surrounding areas. Sharon evolved in this area as well, with his earliest conception of the cloverleaf including leaves that extending right up to the outskirts of Ramallah, the Jordan Valley, and Bethlehem.
Slide 3: Planned Governmental Settlements in Greater Jerusalem, 2006
The Government of Israel is taking steps to change the situation on the ground in Jerusalem, with most of these steps taking place below the radar.
First, the Government is seeking to line the route of the security barrier with settlements – a policy that has the potential to transform a reversible measure (the barrier) into an irreversible one. You can see this happening in the east with E1, which would close off Jerusalem from the West Bank on its 12 o’clock to 3 o’clock quadrant (using the Old City as the center of the clock’s face). You can also see this starting to happen in the south, where a chain of settlements is planned (the plans included on the slide are digitized versions of plans held in the Ministry of Construction). These settlements are still in the embryonic stage, largely because they are planned for land that, for the most part, is owned by Palestinians. The future of these plans depends on the success of current efforts (by Danny) to get the Israeli Supreme Court to force the Attorney General of Israel to abide by his own ruling, in which he stated that the use of the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem was illegal. Looking at the totality of these settlement efforts on Jerusalem’s periphery, it is clear that the goal is to use settlements to sever East Jerusalem from its West Bank environs, consistent with Sharon’s long-held view that East Jerusalem must be cut off geographically, and consequently politically, from the West Bank.
Slide 4: Settlements in the Historic Basin
Second, there is a new and extremely dangerous trend in recent months: the Government of Israel has begun handing over control of some of the most highly contested areas of Jerusalem to the most extremist Jewish organization in Israel, El Ad. The large national park that surrounds the Old City to its south and east has been handed over to them – they control the area and hold the keys to the religious and historic sites. If you visit a site in this area and buy an admission ticket, the fee goes to El Ad. When thousands of Israeli soldiers and tens of thousands of other Israelis go to visit the area over Passover, they will be given tours of the historic sites by El Ad tour guides, who preach their own brand of extremist, exclusionist history. Another planned national park northeast of the Old City is also planned to come under Israeli, perhaps settler, control. And all of this is illegal.
Slide 5: Settlements in the Old City
In addition, in recent months the Jerusalem settlers have once again begun taking over Palestinian properties and intensifying activities in the heart of the Moslem Quarter and its visual basin (sometime referred to as the Holy Basin). This is a resurgence of a trend that existed in the 1980s, and was stopped when it was challenged in court. At that time, Danny and his colleagues were able to stop the settlers by “cracking the genetic code” of how it was being done. This time, the code has not yet been cracked. What is clear is that the settlers could not be doing this without the consent, collusion, and active support of the Israeli government. Given Sharon’s strong historical support for such efforts (and direct involvement in them in the past) it is hard to imagine that he did not give the green light for this new wave of takeovers. The approval last year of massive Israeli government funding to restore the Old City and its environs on the order of 60 million shekels per year for 7 years is in all likelihood a slush fund for settler activities in the area.
Looking at the map and looking at recent actions of El Ad and its fellow extremist group Ateret Cohanim, it is clear that the battle for the Old City and the Holy Basin is underway. The targets of recent settler activities include:
- the Shepherd’s Hotel, which is set to be demolished imminently to make way for a new privately funded settlement compound;
- a new Israeli Government settlement project inside Herod’s Gate, in the heart of the Muslim Quarter;
- the takeover of two Palestinian hotels at Jaffa Gate (giving them a key point of control at this vital location where the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters all come together);
- the takeover a two homes in A-Tur, on the Mount of Olives, the first time settlers have ever succeeded in making inroads in this densely populated Palestinian neighborhood overlooking the Old City;
- a new project handed over to the Ateret Cohanim settler organization by the Government of Israel to restore a 3000 year-old quarry running under the Old City from Herod’s gate 180 meters toward the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif (funded by an Israeli fund from the Ministry of Infrastructures intended for the rehabilitation of quarries – i.e., modern quarries that have left a blight on the land, not a 3000 year-old underground quarry which must be preserved, rather than “restored”);
- the beginning of construction of the police station in E1;
- the imminent handover of the current police station in Ras al Amud to the settlers;
- the planned construction of an isolated Jewish settlement in Abu Dis, known as Kidmat Zion
- the takeover a Palestinian home in Silwan (involving the eviction of a family that had saved Jews in 1929, and their extended family).
Slide 6: Strategic Settlement Rings - 1
Looking at the patterns of settlement activity in Jerusalem discloses a great deal about the intentions and motivations of the settlers, revealing three “rings” of settlements. Two of these reflect religious/messianic ideology, and the other reflects a political/strategic plan for the city. Clearly, the settlers have a “thermal” map of Jerusalem – not all areas resonate equally for them, and they concentrate their energies on those areas that resonate the most strongly.
First, plotting the settlement activities inside and immediately around the Old City reveals the first ring – a band of settlements extending from Herod’s Gate, through the Old City, to Silwan. By establishing a presence in these areas, the settlers are seeking to “ring” the Temple Mount and cut it off from the Palestinian population. This ring reflects the strategies of the messianic settlers, who have clear aspirations on the Temple Mount.
Slide 7: Strategic Settlement Rings - 2
Plotting the settlement activities in the areas beyond the Old City but still within Jerusalem’s municipal borders, the settlements clearly delineate the larger area of greatest importance to religious/messianic Jews – the Old City and its visual basin (i.e., the surrounding areas and those areas looking out onto the Old City from the Mount of Olives). Ironically, the Jerusalem delineated by the settlers is almost identical to the municipal boundaries designated by Jordan between 1949 and 1967.
Slide 8: Strategic Settlement Rings - 3
Finally, plotting settlement activities further from the Old City, on the periphery of the municipal borders, reveals a third ring of settlements – one which defines the shape and scope of Sharon’s concept of Greater Jerusalem – disclosing Sharon’s long-held view that cutting geographic contiguity between the West Bank and East Jerusalem is an effective means of ensuring that there is no political contiguity between the two.
Slide 9: Sharon’s Greater Jerusalem
Taking everything we have seen so far and plotting it on a map, we get a very clear idea of Sharon’s conception of Greater Jerusalem. The area includes all of the sections of the city that resonate religiously or historically for Jews, and extends out to in a “cloverleaf” to encompass the major settlements and sever East Jerusalem from its West Bank environs. This was the border Sharon was going for, and thought he could get the U.S. to accept.
Slide 10-11: Olmert’s Potential Municipal Jerusalem - Options “A” and “B”
The Changing Concept of the Security Barrier: When looking at what Olmert is likely to do in Jerusalem it is first important to note the changing concept of the security barrier. In the previous election, what resonated among Israelis was the issue of security, and the need to build the barrier in order to achieve security. In this latest election, the issue was not primarily security (although this indeed “hovered” over the new agenda) but borders, and the need for Israel to define its borders. This speaks to the Israeli craving for a border, for identity – to know “who we are” and “where we start and where we end” – a longing for normalcy. This changing concept of the role of the security barrier is important. This is the current “zeitgeist”
Will Olmert be a good Prime Minister? Little in Olmert’s less than sterling performance as mayor of Jerusalem should serve as an indication of the qualities he may possibly achieve as Prime Minister. The mediocre mayor may well become a good Prime Minister. It is important to keep in mind that on the day that Olmert takes office, he will be the most moderate of any Prime Minister entering office in Israel’s history. Given that Israeli prime ministers tend to come to office with views that become more pragmatic over time (as reality sinks in), this is indeed promising.
Differences between Olmert & Sharon: In speculating on what Olmert will do, the place to start is to look at how Olmert and Sharon are the same, and how they are different. Looking at Olmert’s statements on the issue of Jerusalem – going back to before the election campaign, and before Sharon fell into a coma, to the time when it looked like Olmert might not even manage to be elected to this Knesset, it is clear that Olmert and Sharon are the same when it comes to what resonates for them in Jerusalem. Both of them believe that Israel cannot ever give up control of the Old City, the visual basin of the Old City, and the East Jerusalem central business district (i.e., Salah Eddin Street, Zahra Steet, etc).
However, Olmert differs from Sharon in several important ways. First, Sharon was a devout unilateralist – in this he was a Jesuit, absolutely committed to his belief. He did not believe in negotiations and entered into them only halfheartedly to please the U.S. Olmert, too, is a unilateralist, but for him it is a political position, not an article of faith. If there were the opportunity for bilateral negotiations, Olmert would in all likelihood pursue it. With the Hamas victory in the elections, this may be a distinction without a difference, but we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, it seems likely that Olmert will try to at least appear to be pursuing every chance for negotiations for the next year or so – as he indicated when, immediately after the elections, he announced that he welcomed talks with Abbas – if only to demonstrate to Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef that he has genuinely tried (since Yosef is opposed to unilateral moves but supports territorial compromise via negotiations). If after a year Olmert has not managed to achieve a bilateral process, he can at least go to Yosef and say “I tried everything” and make the case that in order to save human lives – pikuah nefesh – it is necessary to proceed unilaterally.
Olmert also differs from Sharon in his conception of the optimal outcome for Jerusalem. Where Sharon was devoted to the idea of Greater Jerusalem, Olmert is more focused on demographics – achieving a strongly Jewish Jerusalem. Thus, he is far less interested in maintaining Israeli control in some areas – like the Shuafat refugee camp. In this regard, Olmert also differs from Sharon on the key issue of re-drawing Jerusalem’s borders. In the months leading up to Sharon’s incapacitation, there were rumblings that Sharon was thinking about the issue and might support such a move, but they were never more than rumblings. People who briefed him on the issue said he took copious notes but never said a word. Whether he was really ready to countenance the idea of re-drawing the city’s borders is something he will take to his grave. Olmert, on the other hand, has already made it clear – in statements he began making in recent years, let alone recent months – that he is ready to re-draw the borders.
Finally, Olmert is both in a stronger and a weaker position than Sharon was as Prime Minister. In terms of his coalition and the Knesset, he is stronger, since he won’t have Likud rebels breathing down his neck and undermining him at every turn. On the other hand, as a leader of the nation he lacks the “gravitas” of Sharon. This latter fact is both positive and negative. Negative in the sense that he will have a more difficult time if he wants to take bold action, as Sharon did with the disengagement from Gaza. Positive in the sense that when Sharon wanted to do something that was harmful to the prospects for peace, he was unstoppable, bulldozing his way over all opponents, including the U.S. Administration.
The Olmert Map(s) of Greater Jerusalem: Taking all of this and plotting it on the map, the result is a pretty good guess as to what Olmert will aspire to in Jerusalem (and a similar map has been generated, independently, by another prominent Israeli think tank, which engaged independently in the same exercise). What these maps disclose is the effort to hold onto key areas, get rid of Palestinians, and not disturb a single settler. To make this map a reality would require a special majority of 61 in the Knesset – required to change Jerusalem’s borders and strip the Palestinian residents left outside the new borders of their residency rights. This would probably (but hardly certainly) be doable – reducing the number of Palestinians inside Israel is a popular idea in Israel.
Obstacles to Implementing the Olmert Map: There are two important things that stand in the way of Olmert actually carrying out this plan. First, the plan is predicated on the assumption by Olmert that he will be able to obtain legitimacy both for the moves he makes and for the border that results. Ideally he would like to see the U.S. recognize his actions as Israeli implementation of UN Resolution 242. This is unlikely to happen, although it seems possible that he could get some U.S. statement of acceptance of the action as a long-term, interim arrangement, taking into account the impossibility of dealing with Hamas and possibly as a reward for unilateral actions elsewhere in the West Bank, such as consent to the construction of E-1.. Given the Israeli craving for a border, discussed earlier, it is not certain that this would be enough for Olmert or for Israelis.
The second and perhaps more important thing that will stop this plan from being put into effect is reality. Olmert says he wants to redraw Jerusalem’s borders to strengthen the Jewish character of the city and end the occupation – and he should be taken at his word that he really means this. However, Bibi Netanyahu has criticized the plan, arguing that it would leave Israel with a “hemorrhaging border” in the heart of the city, since in East Jerusalem the new border would in some areas be a backyard wall or a secondary road (since, as noted earlier, policy over the past four decades has sought to irrevocably intertwine the populations). Former GSS Chief Avi Dichter has responded, on behalf of Olmert, that this would not be a problem, since the Israeli withdrawal from the “Palestinian” side of the barrier would only be civilian, and the Israeli military would be present on the Palestinian side to ensure Israel’s security.
So how, then, would this be an end to occupation? An area that one day is part of East Jerusalem – with residents enjoying an annual income of around $3500, good health care, access to jobs and schools, and no military presence except at checkpoints leading out of the city – is virtually overnight plunged into poverty and simultaneously becomes host to an Israeli military presence that treats them as a threat. This is clearly not an end to occupation – rather, it is the intensification of occupation. But if the plan were carried out and the Israeli military were not present on both sides of the border, then Netanyahu is quite possibly correct – a Palestinian population that remained quiescent during both the first and second Intifadas, suddenly plunged into misery, will quickly become a massive security threat to Israel. What this means is that the complex reality of Jerusalem might not permit Olmert’s conception to be implemented.
Slides 12 & 13 – Olmert’s Greater Jerusalem, and Olmert vs. Sharon on Greater Jerusalem
Taking everything we have seen so far and plotting it on a map, we get a very clear idea of Olmert’s conception of Greater Jerusalem. The area includes all of the sections of the city that resonate religiously or historically for Jews as well as the major settlement blocs, but differs from Sharon’s map in that it cuts out parts of the city that are in no way sacred to Jews in order to improve the city’s demography.
Slide 14 – Olmert’s Unilateral Jerusalem vs. Geneva’s Bilateral Jerusalem
An interesting exercise is to compare the Olmert unilateral map to the “end-game” map created as part of the Geneva Initiative. Superficially the maps appear very different, with hugely different conceptions about the size and shape of Jerusalem’s “cloverleaf.” In reality these differences are not that significant – they are a question of the size of the settlement blocs (with Olmert including large areas around the blocs, and Geneva limiting the blocs to the built-up areas), and the way the blocs are attached to Jerusalem (with Olmert attaching them via land bridges, and Geneva via umbilical cords). These differences are finite and quantifiable, and ultimately resolvable via negotiations. If this were the only way the plans differed, there would already be clamoring from Israelis asking Olmert, “if you would be willing to go so far unilaterally, why not go the rest of the way and get a negotiated deal?” However, the real issue is the other areas where the maps differ – the Old City and historic basin surrounding it. Here, Geneva laid out plans for dividing sovereignty and sharing the city. For Olmert, such a plan is a non-starter.
Were it not for the Hamas victory – which for the now absolves Israelis and others from the burdens of a bilateral process – many Israelis would be asking Olmert: “if you are willing to go so far unilaterally, in determining a ‘border’ that will not bring ‘closure,’ why not go the last mile to a bilateral, conflict-ending accord that is not so different from the unilateral boundary?”
Slides 15-18 – Jewish, Christian, and Moslem Dimensions of the Old City
Mapping out Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sites of the Old City and its visual basin shows just how delicate the balance in these areas is. Past negotiations over Jerusalem were a spectacular failure, mainly because the negotiators treated this area as “real estate” – measurable in square meters, and divisible horizontally, vertically, or on an angle. They failed precisely because this not regular real estate and it resists being treated as such. It is sacred space, an arena of sacred narrative, wherein reside two overlapping and conflicting national narratives, and three overlapping and conflicting religious narratives.
This is where we see what it comes down to today: the conflict is being reduced to its volcanic core – the Old City, where these narratives coexist, mutually exclusive and none dominating the others. This is the most highly contested area in Jerusalem and probably in the world.
Context: The conflict is being reduced to its volcanic core at precisely the same time that the city is being hermetically sealed along its borders: when the only Muslims in the world who can come to Al Aqsa to pray are Israeli-Arabs and Palestinian men over the age of 45. It is happening at precisely when Hamas is ascendant, with its own deadly brand of fundamentalism, and when there is a deepening rift between Islam and the West. It is happening at a time when Christian pilgrims cannot travel between the two existential poles of Christianity, and their physical embodiments – Nativity, from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to Crucifixion at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - without first standing in line and being searched by Israeli soldiers. It is happening at a time when Christian evangelicals are supporting (and bankrolling) radical settlers in Jerusalem, in the hopes of hastening the onset of the Apocalypse in their own literal and figurative interpretation of “God’s little acre”.
And most troublingly, it is happening at a time when the government of Israel has decided to allow and abet the extremist, messianic settlers in their efforts to take control of the area. Settlers who seek to change the situation from one in which mutually incompatible narratives coexist peacefully, if uneasily, in the same space, to one where a single narrative – the Jewish one – establishes physical dominance over the area, to the exclusion of the other narratives. Settlers whose activities are the seed that could transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a nasty but manageable and ultimately soluble territorial conflict into a nasty, zero-sum religious conflict with the potential to spill over into the region and around the world.
The Old City as a detonator: Looking back at history, it should be recalled that most of the major periods of violence in Jerusalem in the past century started in precisely this area: the 1929 Palestinian riots, caused by a dispute over prayer arrangements at the Western Wall; the 1968 riots after an Australian tourist set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque; the violence on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif in 1991, after messianic settlers laid a “virtual” cornerstone for the Temple; the riots in 1995 following the opening of the Hasmonean tunnel; and the riots in 2000, following Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif.
Jerusalem has the reputation of being nitroglycerin – undeservedly. It is not every little bump in the road that sets it off. Jerusalem is more like an atomic device – it needs critical mass and a detonator. Current developments are building that critical mass, and the settlers seem intent on providing the detonator.
What can be done? This is stoppable. The key is to stop the settlers immediately and undo the damage that has already been done. Historically, all Israeli governments have recognized the importance of respecting the unique multi-religious, multi-cultural balance of the city. This policy must be restored. And there is good news. This is not popular among Israelis or even the majority of the Israeli government. Aside from the messianic settlers, very few Israelis want to see the conflict with the Palestinians transformed into a religious conflict. The messianic settlers are not liked or widely supported in Israel, but many in government fear them. And they are well-funded, including in large part from the U.S. (Irving Moskowitz).
And on the other side, while the Palestinians clearly have their own dangerous religious zealots, the majority of Palestinians does not want to see this conflict with Israel devolve into a religious war.
This is stoppable and it must be stopped now. Actions taken now are akin to preventive medicine – they will have a very low cost and a very high success rate. Failure to take action now will mean that the world will have to intervene later, but this time it will be trauma medicine. High cost, much riskier, much higher mortality rate.
Opportunity for Engagement on Jerusalem: Finally, the other goods news is that perhaps for the first time, the world may be positively inclined when it comes to getting involved in Jerusalem. In the past, many governments have preferred to focus their efforts vis à vis the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza, viewing activities in Jerusalem as less urgent or too controversial (from the perspective of Israel, the PA, or both). In the current situation, where the Hamas victory has caused most international donors to withdraw or significantly reduce programs in the West Bank and Gaza, Jerusalem should emerge as the easiest and most effective place to redirect program funding. An effort should be made to identify Palestinian grassroots civil society actors – many of whom have emerged in order to fill the void created by the longstanding neglect of the Palestinian sector by both Israel and the PA (this sector falls into a generally un-served “grey area”). Programs to support these actors would create capacity in this sector, strengthen a new generation of leaders and activists who are proudly Palestinian yet independent of the Hamas controlled PA, and generate much need political capital for countries that, as they reduce programs in the West Bank and Gaza, want to make it clear that they are not abandoning the Palestinian people or allowing Israel to predetermine the future of Jerusalem.