There
Will Have to Be an International
Solution for Jerusalem
By JONATHAN
POWER
August 2, 2000
LONDON - If it seems almost impossible to conceive
how the Israelis and the Palestinians will progress
further in their negotiations following the failure of
Camp David, it gives some comfort to see how far they
have come.
Less than a decade ago they didn't even talk to each
other. Israel said it would never accept a Palestinian
entity much less a state. As recently as early 1999,
shortly before prime minister Ehud Barak was elected,
deposing the rightist Benjamin Netanyahu who resisted
even the tiniest compromise with the Palestinians, Yossi
Beilin, a well-known dove of Barak's Labour party and
Michael Eitan of the opposition Likud party drew up an
informal cross-party proposal for a Palestinian state. At
the time it was regarded as a stalking horse for Barak.
It was considered as bold as it was stark. But Israel
would retain all water resources, maintain complete
sovereignty over Jerusalem and the settlements on the
West Bank- including the surrounding lands for "natural"
growth. Israel would continue to hold responsibility for
security along the Jordan river. Thus Israel would still
control 50-70% of the West Bank and around 35% of the
Gaza strip. The question of the return of the Palestinian
refugees to their former homes in Israel, from whence
they were evicted during and after the 1948 war was
ignored.
As the London-based International Institute for
Strategic Studies commented at the time, "even if such a
Palestinian "state" contained all of the Occupied
Territories' Palestinian residents, it would be little
more than an archipelago of isolated enclaves, with
little prospect of developing the communication and
economic structures necessary to operate as a real
sovereign entity."
What happened at Camp David, by this light, was simply
a miracle. Not only did Barak offer the Palestinians a
real state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, he
put forward a sensible proposal for the solution of the
Palestinian refugees and he broke the great Israeli taboo
of discussing the future of Jerusalem with a proposal
(albeit in mosaic form) of Palestinian administrative
control and sovereignty over the Arab areas of Jerusalem
and the Muslim Holy sites.
As we all now know Yasser Arafat did not consider
Barak's offer on Jerusalem enough. "The Arab leader has
not been born who would give up Jerusalem", he was
reported as saying. A "special regime" or autonomy over
Palestinian neighbourhoods in the Old City is not
sovereignty, say the Palestinians, but that's as far as
Barak would go, although in international law Jerusalem
is occupied territory.
A week after Camp David, as the full impact of what
was and was not achieved sinks in, what moment of truth,
if any, is at hand?
It all depends on where you sit and who you are. There
are Palestinians of influence who have said to Arafat,
"close the deal". And it is more than a question to
wonder if Arafat had said "yes" whether Barak would have
been able to maintain the equilibrium of his government
long enough to deliver on the deal. The voting down of
Shimon Peres for president, Israel's heroic peace maker,
confirms that Barak walks on a knife edge.
Even assuming there is a moderate middle on both sides
large enough to push through such a deal as presently
constituted the fact remains that the fringes of
opposition on both sides are large and substantial enough
to wreck havoc.
There is, to be blunt, no point in considering the
deal over Jerusalem - the most sensitive part of the
negotiations - if it means another assassination in
Israel and it means revolution in Palestine in a year or
two's time when a new or outside generation comes to
power determined to declare war on the Jewish state.
There has to be a full peace that is manifestly
acceptable to something over 80% of Israeli and Arab
opinion (including good majorities of Arab opinion
throughout the Middle East and the Maghrib).
At the time of the ending of the British mandate,
Jerusalem belonged to the Palestinians. Only in 1948 did
Israel capture west Jerusalem and only in 1967 during the
Six Day War did Israel capture and annex east Jerusalem.
UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967 calls
on Israel to withdraw from "territories occupied". Until
this piece of history is put right, no deal will have
anything like 80% of Palestinian opinion behind it.
This is not meant to be provocative. It is simply
stating reality - a state of affairs that is non-viable
cannot be turned into the acceptable by the willpower of
politicians alone. Too much water has gone under the
historical bridge.
For now what needs to be bought is time. Time for both
a Palestinian state to be created (covering 90% or so of
the West Bank as Barak offered) and time after that for
Palestine to learn to live cheek by jowl with Israel, and
vice versa. One day, perhaps, not too far into the
future, there can be a common market and free migration
of labour (which both sides desperately need, as any
economist on the spot will tell you). From that could
grow a joint sovereignty over the heart of Jerusalem.
(There has never been a need, accept a rhetorical one, to
talk about the whole of Jerusalem - this is a city that
is over four times the size it was in 1948.)
Meanwhile, both sides should step back from their
confrontation over the city and make the heart of
Jerusalem an internationally administered city of peace.
Let the local government of this part be run by neutral
outsiders for a decade or two whilst the two communities
learn the art of making the most of their proximity. Is
not this city, holy to three great religions, meant to be
for all of them the earthly prototype of the heavenly
Jerusalem?
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright ©
2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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