WORLD PREMIERE MINI-SERIES
Jerusalem:
The Last Taboo
Is there any room for compromise over the city both
Jews and Arabs claim as their capital?
LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
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etween Yassir Arafat's ji-
had for Jerusalem and
Ariel Sharon's Jewish
counter-jihad; between
Jerusalem the eternal, united
capital of the State of Israel and
Jerusalem the capital of some fu-
ture State of Palestine, there is
something called reality.
Roughly 150,000 Jews and
150,000 Arabs live in eastern
Jerusalem, the part Israel con-
quered from Jordan in the Six-
Day War. Neither the Jews nor
the Arabs are about to live under
the other's rule, not in any
arrangement that might be called
a peaceful settlement. Which is
why all the recent wrangling over
east Jerusalem sounds futile, a
case of shouting past the prob-
lem, an unwillingness to recog-
nize that neither side can have it
all.
In recent weeks, Israel has
railed over the "Palestinization"
of east Jerusalem, how the PLO
is gradually setting up a "shad-
ow government" there to run the
affairs of Gaza and Jericho. The
right-wing plans to mobilize hun-
dreds of thousands of Jews to
block Mr. Arafat's path to the
Temple Mount, if he ever dares
try to make that pilgrimage.
No Israeli politician of any
standing, left or right, is ready to
suggest— at least not publicly—
that Israel will eventually have
to give the Palestinians some part
of east Jerusalem to get them to
finally make peace. After Israel's
recognition of the PLO, its grad-
ual military withdrawal from
Gaza and the West Bank, its will-
ingness to give up some if not all
of the Golan Heights — a unified,
indivisible Jerusalem is the last
taboo.
How do the Palestinians see it?
Dr. Ahmed Tibi, special adviser
to Mr. Arafat, said: "Personally,
I don't think the city should be
physically divided. We are talk-
ing about arriving at a situation
of peace — there's no need for a
Berlin Wall, it's already been torn
down."
Furthermore, Dr. Tibi said, the
Palestinians don't want the whole
city: "East Jerusalem should be
the capital of an independent
Palestinian state, with west
Jerusalem as the capital of Is-
rael."
But what would happen to the
150,000-plus Jews of Gilo, Ramot,
French Hill, east Talpiot, Pisgat
Ze'ev and all the other post-1967
neighborhoods?
"I am talking about sover-
eignty, not living," he said, im- (
plying that the Jews of East
Jerusalem could remain where
they are, only under a Palestin-
ian flag.
And the Jewish Quarter of the
Old City, including the Western
Wall?
"It was all occupied in 1967,"
Mr. Tibi replied. "The Western
Wall is a Jewish religious site, as
the mosques on the Temple
Mount are Islamic religious sites,
as the Christians have their reli-
gious sites. There should be free-
dom of access to all places of
worship, but these areas were oc-
cupied in 1967, and, therefore,
should be under Palestinian sov-
ereignty."
Good luck. There are few Jews
alive who would agree to that.
What we're left with, so far, are
the official Israeli and Palestin-
ian non-starter positions on
Jerusalem.
These positions are also held
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The Dome of the Rock dominates this view of Jerusalem.