The Costs of Giving Up Jerusalem
Israeli hysteric and Palestinian mouthpiece Akiva Eldar uses the editorial page of Ha'aretz to pass on the whines of intransigent Palestinians:
[Abu Mazen] will not utter pearls of wisdom such as "one million shaheeds [Islamic martyrs] in Jerusalem." However, a unification one day of East Jerusalem and the West Bank will not satisfy even one-eighth of the appetite of the Palestinian leadership that will be elected on January 9, no matter how pragmatic this leadership may be. A Palestinian leader who surrenders Palestinian interests in Jerusalem will not last long, which is unfortunate, politically speaking.
Ignore the usual absurdity, that Israelis have to appease the peaceful Palestinians, otherwise said peaceful Palestinians will unleash waves of violence. That comes up in all the other contexts.
Jerusalem is unique in the context of Israeli-Arab relations - the holiest Jewish city, the millenial center of the religion, and a place that, when Arab-controlled, was closed to Jews and systematically destroyed. Giving it up would devestate Israeli morale, and for what - so that we can try and fail to appease those final, hardline Palestinians who will never give up on their dream of destroying all of Israel anyway.
The arguments that she makes are not nonsensical, but they are so confused that they appear to be either poorly thought out or intentionally obfuscatory:
(1) Occupation: Sharon's diagnosis regarding the residents of Gaza and the northern West Bank, who are living under foreign occupation that cannot continue forever, is also true of the residents of East Jerusalem.
First of all, that's not Sharon's argument. He doesn't believe that Israeli control of Palestinian lands is unsustainable as such, only that demographics make democratic control of Gaza and parts of the West Bank unsustainable. Second, it's patently false - and it's hard to believe that Eldar doesn't know it. Polls consistently show that East Jerusalem Arabs actually prefer Israeli stability to Palestinian chaos.
(2) Security: Imposing the artificial separation from the Palestinian state-in- the-making, including centers of social services, education and culture, is liable to increase the motivation of young East Jerusalemites to harm Israel.
They can be as motivated as they want. They won't really be able to acomplish anything, because they won't have the infrastructure necessary to do so. And this argument relies on East Jerusalem Palestinians wanting to be part of a Palestinian state anyway, which is dubious.
(3) Demography: According to the forecast of Jerusalem demographer Prof. Sergio Della Pergola, in 2020 the number of Arabs in Jerusalem will reach 358,000, and the percentage of the Israeli population in the city will decline to 62 percent (as compared to 84 percent in the peak year - 1972).
This is a red-herring. The demographic argument for disengagement applies to the ratio of Jews to Muslims throughout all of Israel, not in specific areas. The Palestinians already control 20% of the Knesset, and while that's inconvienent, nobody reasonable considers it a harbinger of disintegration. Also, 62% isn't exactly am Israeli minority.
(4) Economy: In order to change the term "united Jerusalem" from a slogan into reality, it will be necessary to distance the poverty line in East Jerusalem from the level in Gaza, and to bring it closer to the poverty line in Israel, at the least. The budgets required for that will lead to a lengthening of the lines at the soup kitchens on the western side of the poorest city in Israel.
A cost of continued unification, to be sure. But it hardly justifies giving up the Golden City, destroying Israeli cohesion, and obliterating the status of the country as a protector of Jews. Maybe these arguments would matter if we were discussing an outlying area around Ariel. But this is the heart of Israel that Eldar is wirint about, and her arguments are barely coherent. One can't help but wonder whether she fully realizes the pyschological and social costs that would be incurred by giving up Israel's eternal capital - and if, rather than discounting them, she hopes to create and utilize them. Not that I'd want to call her a traitor or a self-hater, but she definitly has a very particular vision of what Israel should be, and like a good academic Leftist she wants the nation-state defanged, demoralized, and thus unable and unwilling to resist massive international pressure. Forcing Israel to reverse the triumph of regaining the Holy City would go a long way toward actualizing that vision.
[Abu Mazen] will not utter pearls of wisdom such as "one million shaheeds [Islamic martyrs] in Jerusalem." However, a unification one day of East Jerusalem and the West Bank will not satisfy even one-eighth of the appetite of the Palestinian leadership that will be elected on January 9, no matter how pragmatic this leadership may be. A Palestinian leader who surrenders Palestinian interests in Jerusalem will not last long, which is unfortunate, politically speaking.
Ignore the usual absurdity, that Israelis have to appease the peaceful Palestinians, otherwise said peaceful Palestinians will unleash waves of violence. That comes up in all the other contexts.
Jerusalem is unique in the context of Israeli-Arab relations - the holiest Jewish city, the millenial center of the religion, and a place that, when Arab-controlled, was closed to Jews and systematically destroyed. Giving it up would devestate Israeli morale, and for what - so that we can try and fail to appease those final, hardline Palestinians who will never give up on their dream of destroying all of Israel anyway.
The arguments that she makes are not nonsensical, but they are so confused that they appear to be either poorly thought out or intentionally obfuscatory:
(1) Occupation: Sharon's diagnosis regarding the residents of Gaza and the northern West Bank, who are living under foreign occupation that cannot continue forever, is also true of the residents of East Jerusalem.
First of all, that's not Sharon's argument. He doesn't believe that Israeli control of Palestinian lands is unsustainable as such, only that demographics make democratic control of Gaza and parts of the West Bank unsustainable. Second, it's patently false - and it's hard to believe that Eldar doesn't know it. Polls consistently show that East Jerusalem Arabs actually prefer Israeli stability to Palestinian chaos.
(2) Security: Imposing the artificial separation from the Palestinian state-in- the-making, including centers of social services, education and culture, is liable to increase the motivation of young East Jerusalemites to harm Israel.
They can be as motivated as they want. They won't really be able to acomplish anything, because they won't have the infrastructure necessary to do so. And this argument relies on East Jerusalem Palestinians wanting to be part of a Palestinian state anyway, which is dubious.
(3) Demography: According to the forecast of Jerusalem demographer Prof. Sergio Della Pergola, in 2020 the number of Arabs in Jerusalem will reach 358,000, and the percentage of the Israeli population in the city will decline to 62 percent (as compared to 84 percent in the peak year - 1972).
This is a red-herring. The demographic argument for disengagement applies to the ratio of Jews to Muslims throughout all of Israel, not in specific areas. The Palestinians already control 20% of the Knesset, and while that's inconvienent, nobody reasonable considers it a harbinger of disintegration. Also, 62% isn't exactly am Israeli minority.
(4) Economy: In order to change the term "united Jerusalem" from a slogan into reality, it will be necessary to distance the poverty line in East Jerusalem from the level in Gaza, and to bring it closer to the poverty line in Israel, at the least. The budgets required for that will lead to a lengthening of the lines at the soup kitchens on the western side of the poorest city in Israel.
A cost of continued unification, to be sure. But it hardly justifies giving up the Golden City, destroying Israeli cohesion, and obliterating the status of the country as a protector of Jews. Maybe these arguments would matter if we were discussing an outlying area around Ariel. But this is the heart of Israel that Eldar is wirint about, and her arguments are barely coherent. One can't help but wonder whether she fully realizes the pyschological and social costs that would be incurred by giving up Israel's eternal capital - and if, rather than discounting them, she hopes to create and utilize them. Not that I'd want to call her a traitor or a self-hater, but she definitly has a very particular vision of what Israel should be, and like a good academic Leftist she wants the nation-state defanged, demoralized, and thus unable and unwilling to resist massive international pressure. Forcing Israel to reverse the triumph of regaining the Holy City would go a long way toward actualizing that vision.
