Daniel Seidemann, the author of “The Myth of Undivided Jerusalem,” published by The Atlantic, is the founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an “Israeli” non-governmental organization that works to prevent developments, even if good for the city’s residents, from taking place if said developments leave the city indivisible. The top three donors of this NGO are The Norwegian Foreign Ministry, The Swiss Foreign Ministry, and The British Foreign Ministry -- all of whom want Jerusalem divided -- according to the organization’s own website.
The article is part of the effort of The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace to “help reach a just and comprehensive peace that will bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
As laudable as the search for peace is, many would argue, as I do, that agreeing to the terms of the PA -- or the EU, for that matter, not to mention Hamas -- would not result in peace in our time any more than such wrangling did in Chamberlain’s time. Furthermore, advocating for “peace” presupposes that the PA, to say nothing of Hamas, would sign an end-of-conflict agreement, abandon the so-called right of return, and recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Their charter and their leaders say otherwise. Thus, an end-of-conflict peace agreement is unattainable and should be replaced by a more realistic goal.
Seidemann begins by affirming the attachment of the Jews to Jerusalem:
“The Jewish attachment to Jerusalem is incontestable. For millennia, Jerusalem has been central to Jewish identity in the Diaspora; since the birth of the state of Israel, the importance of contemporary Jerusalem as Israel's capital has become part of the ethos shared by Israelis and Jews around the world. Jewish attachments to Jerusalem are embodied both in the religious and historic sites in and around the Old City and in the modern Israeli city that has been built beyond its ramparts in the past century.”
The same cannot be said for the Muslims or even the Christians. Because Jerusalem is so central to Judaism, and because Jews have prayed for 2,000 years for the return to Jerusalem, and because Jews have shed considerable blood when losing it and when regaining it, it is beyond comprehension to think that the Jews would squander the city -- or that anyone would demand that they do so.
But Seidemann does. And so do the Obama administration and the EU.
Seidemann is wrong to suggest that Israel’s policies are unsustainable or “embody an exclusionary vision of Jewish Jerusalem, ignoring the complexity of the city and its universal importance” and to suggest that Israel has implemented “a planning and zoning regime that limits Palestinian construction to a bare minimum”. or has effectively barred Palestinian "immigration" into East Jerusalem.
In fact, Seidemann’s testimony is libelous. Israel is planning for a united Jerusalem in which the Arabs represent 40% of the population, which is far from “exclusionary.” Only by keeping it united under one administration can one take into account the complexity of the city. What is unsustainable is a city frozen in time but not governed in a way that unites it even more.
Seideman also accuses Israel of effectively barring Palestinian "immigration" into East Jerusalem. Why not, it has been annexed to Israel since 1967.
A little bit of history is in order. The Jews constituted a majority of the residents in Jerusalem during the hundred years preceding the creation of Israel in 1948. In 1947, the UNGA passed Res. 181, which recommended a two-state solution and suggested that Jerusalem, according to the boundaries therein set out, be a Corpus Separatum, a separated city, administered by the U.N., for an interval of ten years, after which the city’s status was to be re-determined by referendum. The Jews were confident that they would win the referendum.
Six months later, the State of Israel was declared within the boundaries laid out by said resolution. The surrounding Arab countries rejected this resolution and invaded Israel with the intention of destroying it and massacring the Jews living therein. This war ended in 1949 with an armistice agreement which defined the ceasefire line with a green pencil, and thus we have the “green line.” As a result of the war, the referendum was never held, and Jerusalem became a divided city, with a no-man’s-land separating both sides.
And so it remained until the Six-Day War in 1967, whose Jordanian aspect was initiated by the Hashemite Kingdom despite Israel's offer to it to stay out of the war. Israel was victorious and conquered all of Judea and Samaria, including Jerusalem inter alia. Seventeen days later, Israel redrew the boundaries of Jerusalem to include 70 square kilometers of the conquered land lying to the north, east, and south of Jerusalem. She did so because she wanted to make Jerusalem defensible and because it was her right. After all, the Mandate gave Jews the right to reconstitute their homeland in the land then called Palestine and to settle in all parts of it.
Seidemann now wants Jerusalem to once again be divided as if that was a good or workable thing in the first place. You will recall that the Communists had to build a wall through the middle of Berlin to keep it divided, and you will recall how the world and the residents rejoiced after Berlin’s reunification. A divided city is an abomination and an administrative nightmare.
Ir Amim reports:
“70,000 Palestinians lived in the annexed territory in 1967, and found themselves under Israeli rule. Israel offered these residents citizenship, which was rejected collectively. [...] Therefore, the residents of East Jerusalem received the status of permanent residents of Israel
“ After the annexation of 1967, 70,000 Palestinians held blue identity cards; at the beginning of 2010 the number was estimated at 300,000. In 1967 they constituted 25% of the total population of the "united" Jerusalem, now they constitute more than 35%. At the current rate of growth, their share in the total population of the capital of Israel will be 40% by 2020, according to accepted projections”
It is important to note that Israel did not expel these Arabs and instead offered them citizenship. They collectively refused the citizenship and so Israel offered them legal residency with blue cards entitling them to many benefits. Now they constitute about 35% of the Jerusalem’s legal residents. In 9 years, it is expected to reach 40%. This flies in the face of Seidemann’s allegations above noted.
The recent polls, which Seideman dismisses without evidence as “problematic,” support Arab preference for Israel.
The poll brought below was conducted by American Pechter Middle East Polls for the Council on Foreign Relations together with the head of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion.
It showed that if Jerusalem were divided as part of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, East Jerusalem Arabs would prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty and that their opposition to Jerusalem's division is so intense that they would rather move to a new home within Israel's borders rather than live under the authority of a Palestinian state.
The poll showed that Jerusalem's Arab residents want to retain their Israeli Identity cards and continue to benefit from Israel's health and social services. About 35% said that they prefer Israeli citizenship, 30% chose to be citizens of a Palestinian state when established and 30% said that they didn't know, or preferred not to answer the question.”
Seidemann complains that “Israel still does not provide most normal services or even build sufficient classrooms in much of East Jerusalem.” While this has been true, Seidemann ignores the fact that Jerusalem has begun correcting the matter. Just last month, Israel21C reported:
“When the 2011-2012 school year began in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, millions of shekels in sparkling new or renewed classrooms, computers and sports facilities greeted 42,153 students and their teachers.
“The mayor and municipal professionals work regularly with members of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem through the leadership of the community centers as well as organized groups of residents such as the Mayor’s Forum of Eastern Jerusalem Principals and the Mayor’s Forum for Welfare in Eastern Jerusalem,” Miller tells ISRAEL21c.
“New schools, including approximately 200 classrooms, have been built in the eastern part of the city. The municipality is currently investing the unprecedented sum of NIS 300 million (about $69 million) in the planning and construction of 285 additional new classrooms for Arab schoolchildren.
“New classrooms wouldn’t be as valuable without updated equipment inside them. So with the assistance of Israeli branches of companies such as Ernst & Young and Intel, the municipality rang in the new school year by distributing 1,720 mobile and desktop computers to schools, kindergartens and teachers in eastern Jerusalem.
“An additional 350 new donated computers were given to schoolchildren to take home.”
Accordingly, Seidemann is totally wrong to write that Jerusalem Arabs lack basic educational and welfare services.