This week, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Palestinians in the West Bank must be able to use Highway 443, which connects the city of Modi'in (and several other smaller communities) to Jerusalem. Although Modi'in is in Israel proper, the highway, which runs along an ancient route (while constructing the highway, builders found a tomb containing ossuaries inscribed with the name Hashmonaim) described in a multitude of a old texts, cuts through a corner of the West Bank.
Admittedly, local Arabs could make use of the 443 for quick access to a number of Arab villages adjacent to the highway. Unfortunately for them, the IDF deemed it necessary to disallow vehicles without Israeli plates from using the road after a series of shootings that killed six people during the second Intifada. To prevent access, the army placed concrete barriers where the highway meets village access roads. Since the closure, Palestinians have been required to leave their vehicles behind these barriers and walk up to the highway so they can catch rides, or walk to nearby villages (or use alternate roads.)
As the Supreme Court has decided, this situation has not been fair, and I'm admittedly conflicted on the subject. There's no question that denying anyone the use of this road has been as infringement of human rights; but as human rights go, nothing can be more important than the protection of human lives. I recognize the obvious inconvenience of my Arab neighbours; but, I must reconcile their inconvenience with the safety of my friends, and more importantly my wife who travels this road several times a week.
It's a complex issue, and the Supreme Court, recognizing the security needs of travellers, has postponed implementation of the decision for five months, so that the IDF can find another solution.
Yaacov Lazowick has written a useful backgrounder, which provides historical context and describes some of the political aspects of the problem.
I've been known to criticize journalists because too many are lazy, or lacking the skills or backgrounds to adequately fulfill their assignments. Nevertheless, for most reporters, those who aren't making millions on CNN, it can be a thankless, low-paying job. And as I've mentioned before, I'm particularly sensitive to the dangers experienced by field journalists.
Last week, Alberto Velazquez, who worked for the Mexican newspaper Expresiones de Tulum, was gunned down as he left a party, making him the 12th reporter killed in Mexico this year. Dozens more have been beaten, harassed or abducted.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an American-based non-profit organization established in 1981, reports at least 69 journalists have been killed in 2009. That number does not include Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang, who was killed Wednesday along with four Canadian soldiers when an IED detonated next to their armoured vehicle.
"Lang, on her first assignment in Afghanistan for Canwest News Service, had arrived in the country little more than two weeks ago. She won a National Newspaper Award last year for coverage of health and medical issues for the Calgary Herald." Colin Perkel, THE CANADIAN PRESS.
My condolences to their families, friends and colleagues.
This is the time of year (hint: December 25) when stories abound of Israel's unfair persecution of Christians. Unsurprisingly, Reuters, for example, attempts to put the damper on the holiday spirit by once again castigating the separation wall (which has dramatically reduced incidents of terror) as the author of Christian misery in Bethlehem. In the end, the best writer Erika Solomon can come up with is a quote denouncing the wall as a "huge visual impediment" and the old line that it represents a "land grab and a tool to consolidate Israeli control of Jerusalem." Like most uninformed writers, she fails to mention that the United Nations did exactly the same thing when it recommended the internationalization of the Jerusalem district (see my previous post), which included Bethlehem! Writers also fail to mention the effectiveness of similar separation walls, such as one in Belfast which has reduced tensions and violence between Catholics and Protestants.
Nevertheless, it's worth saying a few words about the status of Christians in Israel, Gaza and Judea and Samaria. It goes without saying, concern for Christian welfare in the region goes way back; I don't need to say too much on the origins and events of the Crusades. During the later centuries of Muslim rule, Christian communities enjoyed some good years and suffered some bad. Christians were subject to the same oppressive Dhimmi laws as Jews which required them to pay special taxes and obey rules meant to humiliate them into conversion. In many places Jews actually fared better; Christians were seen by many Muslims as idol-worshipers.
As the Zionist enterprise picked up steam during the mid-20th century, Arab Christians (most of whom are actually descendants of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians) were undoubtedly expected to take up the Palestinian cause. But, it's also likely many, especially those who had been living and working amongst Jews in Jerusalem and Haifa, were frightened of the prospect of an Islamic Palestinian state under the authority of Grand thug Al-Husseini. Most of the Christians appear to have sat out the war of independence; that's not to say they relished Jewish rule, but the alternative seemed so much worse. In Israel proper, Christians generally stayed put while their Muslim neighbours fled north and east. In the West bank, demographics changed overnight. Villages which had been predominantly Christian, such as Bethlehem (80% Christian before 1948) and Ramallah (90% Christian before 1948) became Muslim. Many Christians, who were generally well educated and enjoyed more economic prosperity during the British Mandate years, took any opportunity to leave.
As the 1948 war raged, Christian communities outside the region expressed concern for their brethren. British MP Thomas Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford riding, July 5, 1945 - February 23, 1950) made their case in the House of Commons:
The Christians of today in the older cities of the Middle East present a varied picture. They live dangerously. They live almost as the Christians of the pre-Christian Roman Empire lived. They follow cults and rituals of considerable perplexity. Some of them are Catholic, some Orthodox, and many of them most certainly heretical. Massacres live in their memory, and they are very much on the look-out at the present time for protectors. I think that it is quite natural that they should be critical of the Muslims among whom they live. There are the Syrian Jacobites, the Syrian Catholics, the Greek and Armenian Orthodox, the Latin and Armenian Catholics, the Maronites, whose figurehead is his Beatitude Arida, a man nearly 90 years of age, and many others.....
...The position of many Christian communities in the Middle East is especially precarious in these days. The traditional tolerance of the Arabs towards minorities in their midst has been very much strained, and has not lessened since the recent developments in Palestine, or since the announcement of the withdrawal of British troops from that country and Egypt and Iraq. Even though these people are perforce siding at the present time with the Arabs among whom they are living, this country, and I hope my right hon. Friend recognises it, should use its utmost influences to check all hostile tendencies towards them and remind the Arab States that we should view the actual persecution of all minorities in their midst with the gravest disfavour."
There's good evidence local Christians still suffer humiliation and harassment. A Feb. 2008 National Post Editorial described Palestinian Christians as living in "constant fear." ‘Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar, columnist for the Palestinian daily, Al-Ayyam reported last year that
"Christians are being persecuted...in most Arab countries, regardless of their numbers there. The problem is that it is not only Arab officials who are remaining silent [in the face of these crimes] - [they do so] because their primitive mentality is centered on the cult of the ruler - but, alarmingly, so are Arab intellectuals, the elites, non-government organizations, and leaders of the private sector. All these groups look on at these unprecedented [acts of] folly without apprehending the danger with which these crimes are fraught."
"Furthermore, there has been an attempt to marginalize Christian culture in Palestine, even though it is rich and deeply rooted [there]. This began with [accusations] of unbelief [against Christians] - a move that ultimately harmed Palestinian society as a whole...
"Despite all the injustices [against the Christians], no one has seen or heard of any constructive action to curb it and to [defend] the Christians' rights - whether by the elites, by any of the three branches (executive, legislative, and judiciary), by non-government organizations, or even by the political factions themselves. [Such action should have been forthcoming] not out of kindness and compassion, but [due to] regarding Palestinian Christians as indigenous to this land, and [therefore] no different from us, with the same rights and obligations [as Muslims]. "
"a systematic campaign of persecution...in the Gaza Strip, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank. The general silence surrounding this campaign aids its perpetrators. The victims are Palestinian Christians, in particular the small Christian community of Gaza."
"The trend became noticeable with a series of attacks on the Palestinian Bible Society's 'Teacher's Bookshop' in Gaza City last year. The shop was the subject of a bomb attack in April 2007. Its owner, Rami Khader Ayyad, was abducted in broad daylight, and found dead on October 7, 2007.
Over the following year, a series of bomb attacks on Christian institutions in Gaza took place. Particular attention was paid to places of education. The Rahabat al-Wardia school run by nuns in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, and the American International School in Beit Lahiya were both bombed, most recently in May 2008. The Zahwa Rosary Sisters School and the El-Manara school, both in Gaza City, were also attacked this summer. The YMCA Library was bombed, as was the Commonwealth War Cemetery."
A few weeks ago, a delegation of activists led by Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), visited Israel for a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities. According to El Shafie (who was born Muslim but converted), "every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries."
Sadly, there will be those who will choose to ignore centuries of Muslim harassment of Christians preferring instead to censure an Israeli wall or a few checkpoints. But, the history of the region speaks for itself; blaming these inconveniences for the eventual demise of this ancient community is like obsessing over a patient's hangnail while he slowly dies of cancer.
It's been a few years since the international community has attempted to unilaterally impose its will on Judaism's holiest place, the city of Jerusalem. I'm not speaking of the Crusades, although I will. The last time was 62 years ago when the United Nations presented a plan to internationalize the city and the surrounding area. The Partition Plan - which included an internationalization scheme for Jerusalem (Corpus Separatum) and its environs - was criticized by all sides, and summarily rendered null and void by the ensuing attack against the nascent state of Israel by surrounding Arab states that had rejected the plan wholesale.
It is important to remember that the Partition Plan, a product of an appointed 11-member committee (UNSCOP) and the UN General Assembly, was a compilation of recommendations only, and did not represent binding international law. In the words of the UN’s first UNEF Commander, Lieutenant-General E.L.M. Burns, the United Nations has "almost no powers to oblige any nation to make peace. More explicitly, it lacks the power to impose terms of peace or a general settlement. The Security Council can recommend only; the limitations are set out in Chapter VI of the Charter." Unable to defend its plan, it was doomed to fail. In a secret report, American Consul General in Jerusalem, Robert Macatee, warned US President Truman that, "if the UN expects to be able to partition Palestine without forces to help maintain order and to enforce partition, its thinking is most unrealistic and its efforts will be in vain."
Nevertheless, the Zionists welcomed the endorsement of establishing separate states for Palestine's Jews and Arabs. To that end, Palestine’s Jews did just that, proclaiming statehood upon Britain’s departure from Palestine and enforcing, to the best of their ability, the borders recommended by the plan. They did so, despite the problematic nature of the borders; they were, after all, meant to be borders between Jewish Palestine and Arab Palestine, a state rendered stillborn by Jordan`s occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem. In a report to the UN Security Council, the Palestine Commission aptly described the problem: "Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein." (Report to UN, Feb 16, 1948)
By the end of the war, there was no Palestinian state, and Jordan held territories designated to the district of Jerusalem. The UN's brilliant rapporteur, Dr. Ralphe Bunche, was able to negotiate an Armistice, approved by the UN Security Council, between Israel and Jordan which ended the fighting. As such, it could be argued that the Armistice Lines between Israel and Jordan carry more weight than the internationalization plan. More importantly, the Armistice was never meant to be permanent – just the opposite – and it demanded final status be determined through negotiations of the warring parties; in fact, just such negotiations resulted in the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty, signed on October 26, 1994. The treaty "guaranteed Jordan the restoration of its occupied land (approximately 380 square kilometers) and ...defined Jordan’s western borders clearly."
The EU has now declared its desire to see Jerusalem divided, ignoring historical realities and international law. In a statement on the Middle East (2985th FOREIGN AFFAIRS Council meeting, Brussels, 8 December 2009), the EU has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of two states based on "pre-1967 borders."
Of course, Jerusalem has been divided before; but the years between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied east Jerusalem and the Old City, were disastrous. Sniper attacks were common, Jewish Holy sites and synagogues were destroyed and Jews were denied access to the Western Wall, all violations of the Armistice Agreement and international law. No sensible person would voluntarily agree to repeat the debacle.
There are a number of salient factors which demand the EU's consideration:
1. There has never been a time in history when the Jewish people's unassailable link to Jerusalem has been questioned. Until the appearance of the Palestinians, that is. Critics of Israel, for myriad partisan reasons, now brush off Israel's claim to Jerusalem as nothing but a religious connection (which is also challenged or dismissed as anachronistic), no stronger or weaker than that of the Christians and Muslims who also maintain Holy places in the city. These critics wilfully ignore a 2,500 year historical attachment to Jerusalem, documented by both Jewish and non-Jewish residents, as well as countless visitors to the region. The Arabs, for example, who invaded Jerusalem in the 7th century, adopted the name Beit al-Maqdes [or, al-Quds ("the sanctuary")] for the city, from the Hebrew term for the Temple Mount, בֵּית הַמִקְדָּש Beit HaMikdash, ("House of the Sanctuary").
Centuries before the Arab conquest of the city, Christian documents attest to the mistreatment of the Jews, their desire to return, and Roman attempts to re-colonize the city with outsiders. Jerome, a Church father most famous for translating the Jewish Bible into Latin, wrote that, "It is forbidden for the treacherous citizens [Jews] to enter Jerusalem...they may enter only to lament there and they have to pay for the right to weep over the ruins of their state." (Jerome, 392 CE)
In a letter written nearly 1,000 years after the Roman expulsion, Rabbi Chisdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915 - c. 990 CE) of Andalusia described himself as, "Chisdai, the son of Yitzchak, the son of Ezra, from the descendants of the exiled of Jerusalem who now live in Spain...we have been waiting many years, while we have been transferred from one captivity to another, and from exile to another...we live in the Diaspora and there is no power in our hands."
Things got much worse before they got better. Christian Crusaders massacred thousands of Jewish and Muslim Jerusalemites during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to the region. Beginning in the late 1300's, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of the land.
In 1517, The Ottoman's defeated the ruling Mamelukes and Palestine became part of the Turkish Empire. The Sultan invited Jews fleeing the Spanish Catholic Inquisition to settle in the Turkish Empire, including several cities in Palestine. Although the Ottoman Turks were generally fair-minded toward Palestine's Jews, by the 17th century, as the Turks' dominance was in decline, local bands of Bedouin, Druze and Maronite Christians rebelled against their authority and fought amongst themselves. To assuage local tyrants, the Turks granted them some autonomy in exchange for their services as tax collectors. These local authorities cared little for the rights or wellbeing of the Jews. At the same time, Latin and Orthodox Christians were competing between themselves - and vying for Turkish recognition - for control of Christian Holy sites. The Jews, as in other places, were often caught in the middle of these feuds, and suffered as a result.
In 1658, English Christian minister Henry Jessie described the dire situation of Jerusalem's Jewish inhabitants:
"The state of the Jews at Jerusalem of late was such that they could not live and subsist there, without some yearly supply and contribution from their Brethren abroad, because the place doth yield them little or no trading, whereby to maintain themselves; but their love for the place prompts them to remain there, albeit in great poverty and want. And their brethren abroad among the nations have been willing to uphold them there at Jerusalem, that the place should not be left destitute of some considerable number of their Nation, to keep as it were possession or at least some footing in it, and to show their hopes, till a full restitution come."
[Quoted in "The Jews in Palestine in the eighteenth century: under the patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine," Jacob Barnai, 1992, pg. 14]
Documents such as these testify to the enduring desire, but inability of returning in large numbers to the Holy Land. But, despite desperate living conditions, Jews did return to Jerusalem, in increasing numbers proportional to improved freedom of movement and prosperity after European emancipation, and advances in rail and sea transportation from Europe to the Near East. By the mid-1800's Jews again represented the majority of the population of the city despite all of the hardships they had to endure, a fact repeatedly confirmed in documents of the era.
2. Jerusalem has always been revered as a unique entity, distinct from the surrounding region, its special place in history always acknowledged. Even the Ottoman Turks, who otherwise deforested and despoiled Palestine, invested in improving Jerusalem. It's worth noting that the Turks also altered the size and shape of Jerusalem. In the year 1548, [the Turks] "caused the city to be enclosed within a new wall, changing the line of the old one. Thus the city has been contracted on the south, where is Mount Zion, and enlarged towards the north."
After taking the city from the Ottoman Turks in 1918, the British began almost immediate work on restoring Jerusalem to her former glory. Technically, British military occupation last only two years, from 1918 to 1920 after which time responsibility for the city reverted to Civil Administration, beginning on July 1, 1920.
Although Israel is often accused of altering Jerusalem's character, it was actually the British who saw to it that strict measures were "enforced for the preservation of the traditional building style of Jerusalem, offensive and unsuitable materials [were] prohibited or removed, and an effective control of new buildings and town planning sections [was] instituted." The British, through the Pro-Jerusalem Society, recommended a modernization plan and expanding the borders of the city, permitting new Jewish neighborhoods to be built. In recognition of the growing population of the city they examined proposals for what was termed, "the Jewish Garden Cities", plus "English, Greek, and Muslim building projects in...the south-western area of the city." While there's no argument that a number of Arab villages surrounded the city, most new Arab neighbourhoods were a direct result of Arab population growth due to Jewish and British investment in the city.
The British also proposed a massive program of conservation and restoration in the Old City, which was literally crumbling away due to negligence. In the end, the British, from both lack of will and insufficient funding, were prevented from fully implementing their plans for the city, but they successfully augured in a new era for Jerusalem and began a process of expansion and growth which continues today. More importantly, they recognized and promoted Jerusalem’s unique status designating, for the first time in over 700 years, Jerusalem the capital of the country.
The UN acknowledged this special status by recommending internationalization for the Jerusalem district. Although rejected, it’s clear from the plan that no part of the city was intended to be allocated to an Arab state, let alone be its capitol. And although the plan was never realized, it’s significant that the internationalization scheme was also never meant to be a permanent solution; the plan calls for a referendum after 10 years in which the citizens of the city - which has had a Jewish majority for at least 150 years - should decide their own fate. (Note: The UN’s plan to extend Jerusalem’s borders around Bethlehem was an obvious contrivance to give the district a Muslim majority, which it did by just 5,000 people).
In 1967, the city was reunited by Israeli forces forced to respond to Jordanian shelling of Jewish neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem. When the fighting stopped, Israel was in possession of the Old City, east Jerusalem and the West Bank. But again the UN confirmed that Jerusalem's status was unique. In the two significant resolutions approved after the war, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, neither mentions Jerusalem. Arthur Goldberg, the US Ambassador who helped draft 242, made it clear at the time that the resolution "in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate....Jerusalem was a discrete matter, not linked to the West Bank." Nevertheless, the UN amended this position with UN Security Council Resolution 252 (adopted on May 21, 1968) which called on Israel to desist from all legislative and administrative measures, including land and property expropriation, which might change the legal status of Jerusalem. It's a tendentious, politically motivated resolution at best, which actually condones the 1948 division of Jerusalem by war - a contravention of the partition plan - and implies that Israel was the aggressor in 1967, even though it was Jordan which had attacked Jerusalem, despite pleas from Israel - transmitted through the UN - to stay out of the war. 3. The only time Jerusalem was ever divided was during the illegal Jordanian occupation (1948-1967) during which time Jews were forcibly expelled from the eastern and southern neighbourhoods, synagogues destroyed and Jewish cemeteries desecrated. The ancient Mount of Olives cemetery was particularly hard hit. "Workmen came during the day and pulled apart the stones and the tombstones and at night the army lorries came, loaded up the tombstones and drove off. The rest of the stones were taken by the merchants," recalled Khalil Ibn Sadar Khalil, son of Sadar Khalil, who had served on behalf of the Jordanian Government as caretaker of the cemetery.
When the Mount of Olives cemetery was recaptured by Israel in 1967, inspectors discovered open graves, human bones scattered around the area. Parts of the cemetery had been converted into parking lots, a filling station, a road, and even a latrine. In 1964, the Jordanians had even built a hotel, the Seven Arches Hotel (formerly the Intercontinental Hotel) on top of the cemetery, a blatant violation of Article VII of the 1949 Israel-Jordan General Armistice Agreement (GAA).
Newsreel footage from 1967 covers the cease fire, UN debates, and the reunification of Jerusalem.
4. Arab neighbourhoods incorporated into Jerusalem after 1967 included areas which had been Jewish or mixed neighbourhoods before the Jordanian annexation on April 4, 1950. In 1948, the Arab Legion captured approximately 2,000 sq. miles of Judea and Samaria west of the Jordan River, and the Old City of Jerusalem, whose 1,300 Jewish residents were expelled or taken to Jordan as prisoners. Jews living in east Jerusalem were forced to flee after sustained attacks by Arab gangs and troops from Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.
Sheik Jarrah is a case in point. Historically, this area included two Jewish sections known as Nahalat Shimon (founded in 1891) and Shimon HaTzadiq. The area is also home to the American Colony compound, St. George's Anglican Cathedral, and an ancient mosque named for one of Saladin’s troops. Significant to Jews is the 'Tomb of the Kings', which contains sarcophagi of various Jewish figures; in 1874 the site was purchased by a Jewish banking family, the Péreires, from an Arab real estate owner and given to the government of France on the condition that it maintain the site in respect of "the faithful of Israel.” [From ראובן קשאני (Reuben Kashani) ירושלים: אתרים היסטוריים במקורות ובמסורת הדורות pp 74-75 (1968)]
In 1948, Jewish residents of the neighbourhood endured repeated attacks by a Syrian-trained Arab Gang, known as Shabbab. Dozens of Jewish residents were killed or injured by snipers. Then, on April 13, 1948, 78 doctors and medical staff were killed and 20 wounded when a convoy of ambulances on route to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed (within 200 yards of a British army post which observed the attack but did not interfere) while passing through Sheik Jarrah. The onslaught, ostensibly in retaliation for Irgun's attack on Deir Yassein, was likely carried out by Shabbab and Arab Irregulars who contemptuously ignored a request (in a January 1948 Memorandum) by the Palestine Arab Medical Association to refrain from attacking hospitals, ambulances, and medical personnel. A small British unit, under the command of Major Jack Churchill, did offer to try to ferry out the beleaguered medical staff, but would not engage the Arabs. Nevertheless, one of his men was killed while trying to render assistance. The Jews refused the offer, believing the Haganah - which was being prevented from entering the area - would come to their rescue.
In response, on April 25, 1948, the Haganah’s Harel Brigade attacked Sheik Jarrah. They had succeeded in securing the neighbourhood until they came under heavy fire from British forces using tanks and artillery. The Haganah men were battered until they agreed to withdraw, although only on the condition that the neighbourhood remained neutral territory. The British agreed, but subsequently turned Sheik Jarrah over to Iraqi troops who had entered Palestine illegally (between November 1947 and May 1948 the British permitted 10,000 foreign invaders to enter Palestine). [Ben Dunkelman, amongst others, describes the attack in detail in his autobiography, "Duel Allegiance"]
Jordan’s well-trained army successfully conquered the Old City and a number of neighbourhoods in the eastern and southern parts of the city including Sheik Jarrah. During the unrecognized occupation, former Jewish homes were seized (under Jordan’s Enemy Property law) and in 1958 turned over to Arab families as part of an UNWRA relief project. According to the UNWRA agreement, new homes would be built on "formerly Jewish property leased by the Custodian of Enemy Property to the Ministry of Development, for the purpose of this project" [Agreement Between The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East for An Urban Housing Project at Sheikh Jarrah.]
In recent court battles over these properties, original Ottoman ownership papers have been dismissed by lawyers for Arab tenants as "forgeries." The dispute rages on. Unsurprisingly, as politicians debate, Um Kamel al-Kurd, an amiable Palestinian woman removed from her home of many years, recognizes Jerusalem's challenge: "We don't need donations of tents or clothing from the international community...all we need is our rights. No one can simply overthrow the rights of others.... We need all the three groups here - Jews, Christians and Muslims - to live in peace and equality together."
Whether it's the result of decades of paternalistic conservation of the Palestinians (i.e. racism) or an inability to accept Jewish nationalism (i.e. also racism), which, ironically, was heavily promoted by Christian Zionists in the 19th century, the European Union seems determined to deny Jerusalem’s citizens the inherent right to settle their own differences and decide their own futures.
And while a European aversion to further conflict is admirable, they would do well to remember that their sense of compromise and esprit de corps was not so easily achieved, manifesting only after centuries of relentless, bloody conflicts, most especially the horrors of the Second World War. But, Europe’s traumatization is not Jerusalem's; it cannot be imposed or transferred.
It is also ironic that the EU, which itself represents a union of European economics and politics, is pursuing the opposite strategy for the Middle East. The last thing Jerusalem needs is further division; social and cultural differences are challenge enough. The EU would be better advised to promote détente and cohesion in the fractured city, with Europe as a model. There are many options for Jerusalem, from declaring itself an autonomous district to multiple citizenships. Division is not a solution; it is a cop-out, and an arrogant one at that.
UPDATE: I've changed a photo which I had thought was of divided Jerusalem (Thanks Yaacov Lozowick for the eagle-eyes.) A groovy colour photo of Dr. Ralph Bunche has been inserted in its place. Also, added an important quote about Resolution 242 and info on Resolution 252.
