The lead article above the fold in Sunday’s New York Times teases President Obama’s visit to Israel by focusing on what it represents as a serious threat to the chances of peace: the building of homes by Jews in Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. As the piece states, the government of Israel is not looking to provide any pretext for a fight with the Obama administration. So there will be no announcements of government-sponsored housing starts in the capital that have been portrayed as “insults” to the U.S. in order for the president to gin up spats between the two allies. As Eli Lake writes today in the Daily Beast, a “détente” now exists between the two governments that de-emphasizes the moribund peace process with the Palestinians and is allowing them to cooperate more closely on the nuclear threat from Iran. But for those determined to pin blame on Israelis for the lack of progress toward an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, Jerusalem remains a hot-button issue.
As the Times reports, the purchase of property in the Old City and in other parts of Jerusalem that are majority Arab is viewed as an unwelcome provocation by the United States, but it can’t pin the blame for it on Prime Minister Netanyahu since these are private initiatives. In the past, Obama foolishly picked fights about building in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that even he understands would remain part of Jerusalem in the event the Palestinians ever decided to make peace. Such building in those places as well as in the settlement blocs that Israel would also retain has no effect on the prospects for peace. But peace plans backed by the U.S. and offered by past Israeli governments did offer the Palestinian Authority sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods in the city. So would the presence of a few scattered groups of Jews in those areas really “complicate” a solution for peace if the will for peace existed on both sides? The only honest answer to that question is no.
It should first be understood that the whole discussion of what Israeli policies would or would not enhance the chances for peace is itself something of a diversion from reality. Successive Israeli governments, including the present one, have endorsed a two-state solution. Three times—in 2000, 2001 and 2008—it offered the Palestinians an independent state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem that would include the areas that are discussed in the Times feature. Each time, they rejected the offers.
While critics of Israel keep saying that settlements are precluding the chance of peace, were the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table (which they have refused to do since the end of 2008), these offers might or might not be put back in play. Especially after the disastrous withdrawal from Gaza, which resulted in the territory becoming a huge terror base rather than advancing the chances for peace, the Israeli people are far more skeptical about such schemes. But were the PA ever to show its commitment to ending the conflict, anything would be possible.
But in the absence of such a commitment, talk about Israeli home building preventing peace is simply an attempt to divert attention from Palestinian rejectionism.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas did take up Netanyahu’s offer to conduct peace talks anywhere, anytime. Would the building in Arab areas stop such an initiative from succeeding?
As the Times relates, the sum total of Jews living in those neighborhoods amounts to approximately 2,200 people living in scattered homes and apartments. They, like the Jews living in far-flung settlements deep in the West Bank, would oppose being put into a putative state of Palestine. But were such an agreement truly promising peace, rather than a truce that would only postpone further Palestinian efforts to destroy Israel, it is not likely they would prevail in stopping such an agreement from being ratified or implemented. But if peace were really in the offing, the question arises: why would the presence of a few Jews in parts of their ancient capital be so offensive to the Palestinians?
The fact is, it is not a few people whom the Times characterize as extremists that oppose a partition of Jerusalem. The overwhelming majority of Israelis think division of the city is unworkable and not likely to enhance the chances of peace. Moreover, unlike the editors of the Times and others who insist that only an Israeli commitment to leave parts of Jerusalem will bring peace, most Israelis understand the Palestinians aren’t remotely interested in peace on virtually any terms that would require them to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Given the ongoing Palestinian hostility to Israel’s existence and support for terror, many Israelis would question the wisdom of further entangling the Jewish and Arab populations by building in Arab neighborhoods. But few would question the right of Jews to live there.
As the final Palestinian quoted in the piece says, the Arabs are still laboring under the delusion that the Jews can be made to think Jerusalem isn’t “their place” or “their land” and will be made to leave. So long as attitudes such as these prevail, peace is truly impossible no matter what Israel’s government or its citizens say or do.
That the New York Times and the Palestinians think it's a problem that Jews live in Jerusalem IS the problem.
Mr. Tobin writes: "…In the past, Obama foolishly picked fights about building in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem…" n nWhat makes anyone think it was "foolishly"? Those fights were VERY deliberate, especially the 2010 Ramat Shlomo announcement when Biden was in Israel. n nYou really do need to understand that Obama's base is more hostile to the idea of Israel having ANY Jews than you can imagine. n nI still have the MyBo emails and comments that cyber-bullied ANYONE who supported Israel out of the Obama campaign in 2008, including me. n nI am not observant at all, but I find it so distressing that so many pro-Israel pundits go along with trashing the Haredim, whether they live in Borough Park, NY; or Ramat Shlomo. n nShame on all of you for giving him any benefit of a doubt about his postmodern secularism that blames slavery and colonialism for all the evils of today. n nI figure I am already on his drone hitlist, so, … n n
Birnbaum is not writing for TNR. It is now "New Republic", owned by Chris Hughes, creator of MyBo. No one now writes for the new NR unless it echoes the Obama party line. n nAnd, it is offensively intolerant and discriminatory to think that Jews can not live wherever they want, especially in Jerusalem, which NO Islamic state-let can claim for their capital.
Let’s not be pedantic. I know TNR has “rebranded ” itself as “New Republic.” I comment there frequently and aTNR is both easier shorthand and everyone knows what it stands for. NR would be way confusing. Its content is improving since its launch, though it’s avowedly liberal to be sure. See the recent essay by Ben Schwartz on The Quiet Man, for example. It’s great. I wouldn’t worry too much about the offence, intolerance or discrimination if a real peace can be made. A majority of Israelis at least at one time used to think so pace Olmert’s offer, and Rabin’s offer before him. But it seems now no division may be possible, and with that no peace becomes possible. What Jerusalem housing policy should be given that escapes me, which is to say I have mixed feelings about the answer. But in any event the impossibility of peace seems the looming reality. What that portends for Israel over time isn’t encouraging, at a minimum.
What peace will there ever be without a divided Jersualem?
Arab neighborhood=neighborhood from which Arabs drove out or slaughtered Jews and unlawfully kept them out until Jordan lost the city in 1967 after foolishly disregarding Israel's plea to stay out of the war.
What peace will there be without a divided Jerusalem?
What peace was there with a divided Jerusalem? Those Arabs who won't agree to peace with an undivided Jerusalem won't agree to peace with a Jewish state. Kid yourself if you want, but don't expect Jews whose lives depend on it to kid themselves to make you feel better.—
On please, I don't need anybody to do anything to make me feel better, kidding themselves or not. I'm just observing that if Israel makes policy premised on the impossibility of peace, then that's one thing, a tragic thing to be sure, but one thing. If Israel wants to make policy on the possibility of peace, then she won't sanction Jerusalem housing policy that makes dividing the city more difficult than it already is. These are just observations. I'll of course leave it to Israelis to figure out where their best interests lie.Sent from my iPad
How many times will we hear this drivel coming from well meaning people? If there cannot be peace without an undivided Jerusalem, so be it. If there cannot be peace unless you make Jerusalem judenrein, then that peace is worthless. We, as jews have not come so far, after two millenia of persecution and murder,to compromise on our own lands. Let there be no peace- the losers are the Arabs.
Israeli policy in Jerusalem is not premised on the impossibility of peace, burt on the recognition of history and fact. Among those facts: When the Arabs are ready to make peace (and I pray that will be soon, though I doubt it will be), Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem will not be an obstacle, much less the presence of Jews in or near Arab neighborhoods. Until then, no Israeli concession will satisfy those who cannot tolerate the idea of a sovereign Jewish state, or the idea of Jews having control over any part of Jerusalem, or Jews living in any way except upon the sufferance of those who would just as soon see them murdered. A divided Jerusalem did not bring peace befopre and will not bring peace again. All it did was bar Jews from their holy sites and expose them to sniper fire as they tried to go about their day to day lives.
You are correct that Israeli policy is not premised on the impossibility of peace and if I intimated that, I was sloppy. But if the cumulative effect of discrete housing policy decisions, which seem, I don't know, both national and municipal,is the impossibility of a divided Jerusalem, which some commentators think is now the case, then I see no chance for peace because the Arabs will not, I don't think, accept anything less, Israel having already made that offer, and it having international legitimacy and sanction.I suggest that you have no basis for your certitude that the Arabs will ever forgo Jerusalem as their capital.I agree with your view that as it stands now no concessions will satisfy the Arabs. That's where I run into personal confusion about the should of Israeli housing policy in Jerusalem in my own mind. But the issue is not, as I read you to put it, whether a divided Jerusalem will or won't bring peace. The issue is if there is a two state peace to be had, a divided Jerusalem, as I see things, must be an element of it.The best thinking on these matters is that which is congruent with Israel's best interests. For I fear without of course knowing what the unresolved future holds. Considering the demographic disparities, the possible waning of indispensable U.S. support, the increasing indifference or even alienation of American Jewry, the mounting power of international disapprobation, at a minimum Israel would be wise, consistent of course with the primacy of her security, not to overreach in creating facts on the ground that in the end stand to hobble the possibility of peace. After all, dramatic breakthroughs have not been unheard of the region.Sent from my iPad
"The issue is if there is a two state peace to be had, a divided Jerusalem, as I see things, must be an element of it." nWhy? Because the Arabs rejected a UN partition plan in 1947, illegally invaded Jerusalem, expelled a centuries old Jewish community, razed the Jewish quarter, deliberately desecrated Jewish holy places, and for 19 years barred all Jews of whatever country from visiting the Old City, let alone living there? n n I don't understand why that 19 year stretch trumps nearly a millennium of Jewish presence in the Old City that preceded and followed it. Such an argument has no basis in morality, history, tolerance, human rights, military strategy, state craft or any other basis you care to name. It will not bring peace. I see nothing to recommend it beyond the trendy insistence of those well meaning but feckless advocates who should know better, people who are ignorant of history, and people who have shown themselves to be either indifferent or hostile to Jewish survival and sovereignty, who have duped the first two groups into spreading propaganda for them.
Simple answer here: a divided Jerusalem must be a constituent of a peaceful resolution because it's (I hope still) achievable, Israel can live with it if there is a genuine peace at hand, and the Arabs will accept nothing less. If the choice boils down to a real peace with a divided Jerusalem or no peace, to me that's a no brainer. But since there's no real prospect for peace right now, what the housing policy should be is a more fraught question. I can see the argument on both sides of that issue, and have waffled over the line myself. My present thinking, however, is as I have expressed it. I see that according with my sense of what's best for Israel in the sense of what's in her best interest measured by what's conducive to her long range viability, even survival, all mytho-historic claims notwithstanding.Sent from my iPad
No, that is a simplistic answer, not a simple answer. The simple answer is this: If the Arabs will accept nothing less, they are not ready to make peace, and they will not accept even a divided Jerusalem as being enough. Israel cannot be asked to accept a supposed resolution that puts her citizens in range of rifle fire from the other side of a divided city, or that abandons her holy sites to a people who has shown time and again a propensity to abuse and desecrate those sites. n nMay G-d protect Israel from people who urge her to suicide for her own good. And from people who dismiss her history out of hand, but grant the Arabs 'historic rights' arising from the Arab's 19 year illegal occupation committed in the process of their genocidal campaign of subjugation and ethnic expulsion.
If the Arabs will not agree to conditions that enure to Israel's security and that she pragmatically requires, there will never be peace. That is a real possibility. And a bad fate in that event may await Israel. But if Israel by her actions forecloses the possibility of peace by continually expropriating Arab neighborhoods and tries to create like “facts on the ground” making a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem unachievable, she will only, I'm very afraid, hasten, and be–it's a terrible indictment–a proximate cause of her own foreseeable doom as a Jewish state. That is the ultimate measure of Israeli interest. For you have no answer to the central qestion of what will happen to her should there be no two state solution and you are silent on the real likelihood of the existentially threatening consequences I've averted to. Those consequences are exacerbated by international perceptions of Israeli conduct; what the world thinks isn't inconsequential, though most important is what America thinks. In general terms what will then be will be an outcome and not a resolution. Finally, I surmise, I could be wrong, the untold secret of this exchange is that you would never countenance a divided Jerusalem for mytho-historic reasons, even at the price of peace.
Where to begin responding to so many misconceptions? nFirst, some of these 'expropriated Arab neighborhoods' were never ANYONE's neighborhoods – they were simply undedveloped land, rocks and gravel and last owned by the Ottoman government. n nOthers were in fact Jewish neighborhoods that were expropriated by Jordan. n nThird, Israel does not 'expopriate' anything. Like the US and the UK, it does at times appropriate land and pay the value of the land to the record owner. Some would call that an important difference. n nFourth, there is no moral or military imperative to accommodate those who view the mere existence of Jews among them as a causus belli. One might well argue there is an imperative not to. But where Jews are concerned, rules change. You would have been justifiably appalled had someone argued that Blacks should not move into any white Chicago neighborhood where the locals felt strongly enough to react violently. [cont'd]
[cont'd] n nFifth, Israel needs to find ways to live with the lack of a two state solution. She has done so since independence in 1948 and will continue to do so, without my proffering contra-factual solutions. Suicide based on the fantasy that it will bring peace is not a solution, and my inability to posit one does not make your solution any the wiser or any less immoral. n nFinally, it is you who are basing your argument on myth, not I. Your myths include the fanstasy that the Arabs want to make peace, the myth that a united Jerusalem stands in the way, the myth that redividing the city would in any way be practical or safe, and the myth that internatiopnal perceptions are based on more than a knee jerk distaste (at best) for the Jewish state, and not an eagerness to believe the worst of people that Europe quite successfully wiped out. (Although 2/3 of the world's Jews managed to survive, precious few were in Europe, and European Jewish culture was ended, period.) International misperceptions of Israel's conduct are fostered by people who refuse to debunk those misperceptions. n nBut I grow tired or repeating myself. You have offered nothing new. Consider that despite your obvious good intentions, you are functioning as a mouthpiece for the forces of hate, not the forces of peace.
Thanks for this. I'll respond as soon as I'm able to.Sent from my iPad
I’m not going to follow strictly your numbering but I’ll try to respond to all the points you try to make. n nYou dramatically understate Israeli policy since annexation, policy aiming to keep Jerusalem essentially a Jewish city, with a desired population ratio of 73.5% Jewish to 26.5% Arab. That ratio has been the basis of Israeli policy but has not been achievable due to high Arab birth rates. n nIn round numbers, since annexation Israel has expropriated 1/3 of the annexed territory on which she has built 50,000 housing units in 12 created Jewish neighborhoods. About 195,000 Israelis live there. As well, about 2,200 settlers live in compounds in the middle of Palestinian neighborhoods like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah near the Old City. By their presence they undermine proposals to divide Jersualem, torpedoing any chance, as I’ve noted, of a two state solution. n nIt is to be noted as Yafit-Holzman Yafit argues, “The legal tool used by the authorities to acquire land in East Jerusalem was the AO, the general expropriation law” since annexation meant the application of Israeli law to annexed Jerusalem. One could note in passing, demolition too as a means of clearing Palestinians out–since 67, 2,000 homes have been demolished, 670 between 2000 and 2008, with 20,000 demolition orders outstanding. n nNow with the promotion of Maalot David and Beit Orot Israel is “ringing” or encircling the Holy basin of sites. Daniel Luria is quoted as saying, “What has happened since 1967 in the Old City and around the Old City has made any discussion of dividing Jerusalem …irrelevant, because on the ground it ain’t going to happen.” n nSo projects like Maalot David, Beit Orot, Maale Hazeitim, and Nof Zion come at a most critical time when in the judgment of some observers the very feasibility of the two state solution hangs in the balance, underscored by Netanyahu’s position that Israel can build anywhere in the city as annexed. n nSo much for your one and three: I missed two. And what I have described answers your fourth point as well. What’s described doesn’t involve Judenrein. It involves the policy driven attempt to Judaize Jerusalem as annexed rooted in policies taken since 1967 and continuing with little restraint. You should review U.N.S.C Resolution 476. (If someone wanted to get technical about it they’d cite1949 U.N. General Assembly Resolutions 181and 303. But let’s let those go.) n nAs to your second fourth, where does it come from? I offer no solution based on any fantasy of anything and stipulated the primacy of Israeli security in any peace deal to be made, if any. You’re attributing notions to me I never expressed. n nSimilarly, I never said the Palestinians want to make peace but rather that Israeli policy should not foreclose that possibility. I never said that an undivided city stands in the way of the Arab desire to make peace but rather that an undivided city would stand in the way were the Palestinian will to make peace emerge, which Israelis must hope for and work towards not scuttle, as is your seeming bent. I’ll let Israelis decide on the safety or practicality of a divided capital, not you. Perhaps you know something Olmert and Livni did not. n nPenultimately, you can ascribe all the malice you want to what the world thinks, and to some extent you’re right. But again you miss the issue, which isn’t righteousness, it’s the need for as much international legitimacy as Israel can garner, especially in the case of the United States. Unnecessary and provocative conduct like 2010 housing announcements and the continued usurpation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the present aggressive intention to build more housing units in Palestinians' midst are perverse in relation to what I have explained is the ultimate Israeli interest, viability, indeed survival, over time as a Jewish state. n nFinally, your silence on whether you’d countenance a divided Jerusalem for the sake of peace suggests to me your willingness to sacrifice that ultimate interest on the altar of a kind of Messianism. By all means correct that impression if you're of a mind to.
"So projects like Maalot David, Beit Orot, Maale Hazeitim, and Nof Zion come at a most critical time when in the judgment of some observers the very feasibility of the two state solution hangs in the balance." n nTwaddle. Pious, contra-factual twaddle. In "the judgment of some observers"? In the judgment of some observers, Israel is an apartheidt state and an illegitimate entity no matter where its borders are. In the judgment of some of observers the shoah never occurred.You're going to have to do better than that, and you haven't. n nIf, as and when the Arabs are ready to make peace, Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, or the presence of Jewish neighborhoods in the portions ceded to the Arabs who unlawfully invaded Jerusalem in 1947-49, will not be a problem. If it is a problem, then that is a clear sign they are not ready to make peace. If they or the rest of the world have objections to Jerusalem being Judaized, they are going to have to deal with the fact that the dirty Jews have had their dirty Jewish selves in Jerusalem on a continuous basis far longer than anything else. Time and again the world demands that Israel commit suicide to gain the world's approval, and no matter how many risky concessions Israel makes, at the cost of countless Jewish lives (or, as the world views it, worthless lives, met with silence when children are slaughtered and an unspoken 'good riddance' when adults are murdered), that approval is somehow never granted. n nThis grows tiresome and repetitious. Good day to you, Scrumptious. n n
Good day to you too my zealous friend. You have no case and your potion is bad for Israel. But by all means keep talking to yourself secure in your messianism, which is now beyond doubt. I'll listen to Olmert before I listen to you.Sent from my iPad
What peace will there ever be without a divided Jerusalem?
I want the NYT to endorse the ethnic cleansing of the 30,000 or so Israeli ARABS who applied for and were given legal residency in 'East' Jerusalem since 1967. Since we're scolded by them that they're certainly not antisemites and they merely viciously criticize "Israeli policies" then I want them to stand front and center and endorse the removal, violent if necessary, according to their own statements, of all the Israelis there who, through no fault of their own are Arabs not Jews. Then and only then will we be convinced they're not Jew haters. n nCan someone prod them to do this?
what a joke! Israel is not ready to make concessions???? and the Arabs are…..what? ready to compromise? what drivel!
Wow. If you click on the New York Slimes link you will find a graph of Jerusalem. Even within the enclave of Hebrew University that NYT times considers a 'settlement.' What a sorry excuse of a newspaper.