Pledge Of Allegiance

AP/Michel Eu ler

Israeli rally tells the world: Get your hands off our capital.

NAOMI SEGAL and JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

A

s U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak race to advance
an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal under
intense time pressure — Clinton leaves
office Jan. 20 and Barak faces elections Feb. 6 —
many Jews are balking at the concessions Israel is being
asked to make in its capital and on its holy sites. On
Monday night, more than 300,000 of them gathered
outside Jerusalem's Old City walls to say just that.
The rally, under the slogan, "Jerusalem, I Pledge
Allegiance," drew demonstrators not only from
the Orthodox and religious Zionist sectors, but
from. Israel's secular mainstream as well.
Organizers said 1,000 buses brought participants
from across Israel and from settlements in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Organizers initially had intended for rally partici-
pants to encircle the Old City's stone walls in a
human chain. But the plan was scrapped when
police barred access to primarily Muslim areas- out
of fear of violence.
In a stark reminder of the ongoing conflict, the
southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo once again
came under Palestinian rifle fire Monday night. No
one was hurt, but an apartment was damaged.

Rally organizers described
A youth waves an
the event as nonpartisan and
Israeli flag at the
sought to prevent political
Jaffa Gate entrance
statements and posters. But
to the Old City of
the gathering carried a dis-
Jerusalem on
tinctly political context, given
Monday.
the U.S.-led peace efforts that
contemplate splitting Jerusalem between Israel and
the Palestinians, and putting the Temple Mount,
the holiest site in Judaism, under Palestinian sover-
eignty.
Addressing the rally, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud
Olmert issued a direct appeal to Clinton, who had
hoped to send envoy Dennis Ross to the region

Detroit's Jerusalem

Former area residents rally for keeping the city united.

JUDITH SUDILOVSKY
Special to the Jewish News

ai

Jerusalem.

Ian and Bonnie Cohen, formerly of Oak
Park and West Bloomfield, had good rea-
sons for being at Monday night's massive
rally for Jerusalem.
For the last seven years . they have lived in the presti-
gious David's Village overlooking the Old City, where
they spend a good chunk of most of their days. Under
the American peace proposal for dividing control of
the city, they would be literally living on the border.
"\XTe have seen that all the shooting that has hap-
pened has taken place along the seams" between
Israeli-controlled areas and Palestinian-controlled
areas, said Alan 57, looking up at the ancient walls
around Jaffa Gate which face his house. "How.many
days do you think it would take for the Palestinians to

take up arms here and start shooting Jews?"
C6hen runs a software company for life insurance
firms out of California and volunteers for the Aish
HaTorah Yeshiva in the Old City. "If they use the
Clinton peace plan, no Jew would be safe going to the
Old City or to the Western Wall."
The future of Jerusalem should be as much of a
concern for Jews living in the diaspora as for those liv-
ing in Israel, he said.
"If I lived in Detroit,- I would be concerned because
Jerusalem is for all the Jewish people," he said. "This
is our ancestors' legacy and our heritage for our chil-
dren and grandchildren."
Another former Detroiter at the rally, 32-year-old
Alyssa Fein, scoffed at the idea of any peace having
been reached over the past seven years.
She said that perhaps a sort of "cold peace" could be
achieved with the Palestinians but she didn't think the
way peace was being approached by the government

on a last-ditch peace mission before he leaves
office on Jan. 20.
"How regretful it would be after eight years of
your term, brimming with friendship" for Israel,
"that what will be left is the fact that you, Bill
Clinton, are the first president in the history of the
United States to propose dividing Jerusalem,"
Olmert declared.
Natan Sharansky, the Yisrael B'Aliyah Parry
leader who quit Barak's government last summer
over expected concessions at the Camp David sum-
mit, said the gathering aimed to send a message to
the world, and to the Palestinians, that the Jewish
people will not abandon Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem is not a question of borders or secu-
rity, but a question of the identity of the Jewish
people," he said.
Clinton has suggested that the Palestinians be
given sovereignty over the surface of the Temple
Mount, which today houses the al-Aqsa Mosque
and the Dome of the Rock. Israel would have
some measure of control over underground areas,
where the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples are
believed to lie.
Under the Clinton plan, the Palestinians also
would assume control over Arab parts of
Jerusalem, which would become the capital of a
Palestinian state.
Barak has said he won't transfer sovereignty over
the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, but hasn't
ruled out letting a third party run the site.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians hardened their
stance toward Clinton's proposals, saying they did
not address Palestinian "rights." In a related move,
the grand mufti of Jerusalem, the Palestinians'
highest Islamic authority, issued a religious ruling
Monday declaring all of the Temple Mount, above
and below the ground, as holy Islamic land. ❑

of Prime Minister Ehud Barak would produce a sig-
nificant peace agreement.
"My concern is that dividing Jerusalem is suicide
for the State of Israel," said Fein, a business consultant
who used to live in Detroit's Palmer Woods and is
now studying at an ulpan (Hebrew classes) in
Jerusalem. "I'm not frightened directly by the current
situation, I've gotten used to it very quickly. But I am
frightened for the Jewish people as a whole. I'm con-
cerned for our well-being in the long haul."
Fein, who has been in Israel for the past five months,
said her time here has made her outlook more right
wing — especially after the Palestinian attack on
Joseph's Tomb following the Israeli forces withdrawal
from the site shortly after the outbreak of the hostilities.
"It showed a vindictiveness against Jews as a people
and a lack of respect for Jewish holy places. The
lynching in Ramallah [of two Israeli reserve soldiers]
showed me also that ... a trust at this stage between
the two parties is not possible."
Bonnie Cohen admitted she was a bit apprehensive
about the situation.
"I've always wondered how I would feel when things
got rough, but one thing I do know is that I am not
leaving. This is my home. We learned from the
DETROIT'S JERUSALEM on page 21

1/12
2001

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