Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990 TAG: 9003143126
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/7 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: G.G. LABELLE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: JERUSALEM LENGTH: Medium
Dayan's decisive action ended a division that existed since the Jewish state was founded in 1948.
He brushed aside fears of some Israeli officials that fighting would break out between Arabs and Jews, recalling in his biography that he told them, "we could deal later with whatever problems may arise."
On Tuesday, 23 years later, the sensitive problem of Jerusalem was largely to blame for the collapse of Israel's coalition government in a dispute between Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud bloc and the center-left Labor Party.
Labor accepted U.S. proposals to include east Jerusalem Arabs in a Palestinian delegation to peace talks with Israel. Likud was opposed, fearing Israel's control of all Jerusalem could be called into question.
The dispute reached a crisis when Shamir hardened his stance after a comment by President Bush equating the Jewish suburbs around Jerusalem with settlements in the occupied West Bank.
"I hear the voices coming today from Washington on the issue of Jerusalem, things that enrage every Jew in Israel, and I have to react," the 74-year-old Shamir angrily declared.
Bush had said nothing to change American policy, which has never recognized the annexation of the Arab sector into Israel's "eternal, undivided capital" after the land was seized from Jordan in the 1967 war.
But the American president reignited an issue that is the most emotional one of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Jerusalem is a city holy to both Jews and Moslems.
For Jews, it is at the heart of Israel's very existence, the site of King Solomon's ancient temple, the symbol of God's promise to return the Jews from exile.
While many Israelis can accept trading the West Bank and Gaza Strip for peace, few are willing to give up any part of Jerusalem. Even those who are not deeply religious think of the city as theirs.
In the hilltop, fortress-like suburb of Gilo that Israel has built on captured territory south of the city, laborer Menachem Ben-Tlulia was asked his views of living on "occupied" land.
"I don't understand all this politics," said Ben-Tlulia, who immigrated six years ago from Morocco. "I feel like I live in the city of Jerusalem, our city, all of it."
In East Talpiot, another suburb once in Arab territory, Shlomo Einstein complained about Bush comparing parts of Jerusalem to the settlements where Jews live among the 1.7 million Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza.
"I don't feel like I live in a settlement," the 56-year-old psychologist said. "Areas outside Jerusalem are settlements."
Gilo and East Talpiot are among seven neighborhoods built by Israel on 18,000 acres of Arab land it annexed.
On Tuesday, Housing Minister David Levy, a Likud member, laid the cornerstone for a new development to house 3,500 Israelis.
The Hebrew daily Haaretz wrote that building of the Jewish suburbs was "based on a policy intended to emphasize the constant Israeli presence in all areas within the boundaries of Jerusalem's jurisdiction."
Now, 120,000 of Jerusalem's 340,000 Jewish residents live in these suburbs, virtually surrounding the city's 140,000 Palestinian residents.
For Palestinians, Jerusalem also is a religious and political heritage.
The Dome of the Rock mosque, built in the 7th century, stands on the spot where Moslems believe Mohammed ascended to heaven. For Palestinian Christians, the city is a living reminder of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
The leading Palestinian families - the Husseinis, the Nashashibis, the Nusseibehs - have lived in Jerusalem for centuries. The PLO's Parliament-in-exile, founded in east Jerusalem in 1964, declared two years ago that the city was the capital of its would-be Palestinian state.
Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian professor of philosophy, echoes Israeli politicians when he says the question of Jerusalem "is not subject to negotiations."
"East Jerusalem is the capital of the occupied Palestinian state," Nusseibeh said. "The unilateral action of Israel having annexed it does not change the historical facts and the political facts."
Housing Minister Levy was just as determined when he inaugurated the new Jewish suburb Tuesday in east Jerusalem. "Building determines our future here," he said. "This is our united capital. Jerusalem is the heart of every Jew, eternally."
For most of the past 23 years, the Arab-Israeli dispute over Jerusalem remained largely beneath the surface. But it burst forth at the start of the Palestinian uprising 27 months ago.
East Jerusalem's Palestinians joined those in the occupied lands in resisting Israeli rule. In the first year of the revolt, police found 1,229 illegal Palestinian flags flying in Jerusalem. The slayings of four Israelis and six Palestinians in the city have been linked to the uprising.
by CNB