Barack Obama’s commitment at AIPAC to an undivided Jerusalem lasted less than 24 hours, when it was “clarified” beyond recognition. A better, longer-lasting articulation of the commitment was done by Benjamin Netanyahu in his welcome to President Bush at the Knesset last month (as quoted by U.K. Likud-Herut chairman Zalmi Unsdorfer in the current issue of The Jewish Press):
[T]here is one other thing which we must preserve. It is not strictly confined to issues of secure borders or territory but rather to a central factor in our national existence: Jerusalem!
In your previous visit here, Mr. President, I presented you with a coin from the period of the Jewish revolt against the Romans. One side of the coin was inscribed with the words "Shekel of Israel," and the other side "Year Three [of Israel’s Independence]" and the words "Jerusalem the Holy."
Mr. President, this coin was minted in 70 C.E. The Roman legions had already gripped Judea and were strangling Jerusalem. The city’s Jewish defenders knew that the end was near. They minted this coin not for commercial purposes but as a message for future generations — as a message for us: that the Jewish People would return to its land and rebuild Jerusalem and its independence.
This is the source of our identity and the thrust of our millennial yearnings. . . . In all the centuries of our exile and even with the advent of independence, we never forget for an instant the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the Old City.
Forty years ago, we liberated Jerusalem and reunited it. Our first act was to ensure the freedom of religion which had previously been denied. That religious freedom, which is so cherished by the citizens of the United States and so vital to world peace, will be preserved as long as Jerusalem remains united under Israeli sovereignty. . . .
But to do so we must remain true to our principles: That freedom should be protected, that enterprise should be nurtured, that peace should be defended, that Jerusalem should remain united.
The rebirth of Israel is one of history’s great parables. It is the story not of the Jews alone, but of a human spirit that refuses to succumb to history’s horrors. It is the incomparable quest of a people seeking, at the end of an unending march, to be a free people in its own land, the Land of Zion and Jerusalem.
At Realistic Dove, the indispensable Yael left this comment in response to the assertion that Obama at AIPAC would “disappoint Palestinians, the Arab world and the pro-Israel left by stating his commitment to an ‘undivided’ Jerusalem.”
[Y]ou state that the “pro-Israel left” would (obviously?) be disappointed by an Obama “commitment to an ‘undivided’ Jerusalem.” I truly can’t understand why anyone, especially a Jew, would want to see Jerusalem divided and parts given over to the Arabs, as was the case from 1948 to 1967.
Do left-wingers not understand that under Arab control, the most important Jewish cemetery in the world (Mount of Olives) was bulldozed and desecrated to build a Jordanian hotel? That the Arabs demolished 58 synagogues in Jerusalem’s Old City? That Jews were forbidden any access whatsoever to the Kotel (Western Wall)? I would think that all people of good conscience would automatically abhor such a situation and wouldn’t want to see it repeated.
The answer given to Yael acknowledged the unfortunate history but asserted that a division of Jerusalem was nevertheless necessary for “peace.” In his new book “Defending Identity,” Natan Sharansky effectively responds to that point, in the course of recounting the two times he resigned from Israeli governments:
The first time was when Ehud Barak, in his negotiations with Arafat, offered more and more concessions to the Palestinians, including a pledge to divide Jerusalem. He was ready to give to Yasser Arafat everything he thought was important to Arafat: the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Temple Mount, and special arrangements would be made for Jews to be bussed to the Western Wall.
To Barak, these concessions were a price worth paying for a peace agreement. He even thought of a deal whereby everything on the surface of the Temple Mount would belong to the Palestinians and everything under the surface would belong to the Jews. It was as if he felt that our identity belonged only to an archaeological museum, not to our present and future.
Barak explained his logic to me, hoping to convince me to stay in the government and even to go with him to Camp David. Natan, he said, if Arafat accepts this proposal, then however painful these concessions are, we will have peace and that is the most precious thing we wish for. But if Arafat refuses such a generous offer, he continued, the sympathies of all the world will be with us and no one will have any doubts as to the justice of our position and our struggle.
. . . There is no chance, I warned my prime minister, that your sacrificing our identity for the sake of peace will deliver peace from Camp David. When we are demonstrating such extreme weakness and fear, wanting peace at any price, the response can only be war. . . .
[Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin] was explaining to me that if we gave the Moslem and Christian Quarters of Jerusalem to Arafat, there was a good chance we could have a deal with him. I objected, stating that this contradicted what Arafat himself was saying – that Arafat was demanding much more than this, not just the Muslim and Christian Quarters but also the Temple Mount and beyond.
But I said to Beilin: Put aside the Moslem Quarter for a moment – why give to them the Christian Quarter and its holy places . . . . Does Arafat have more right to the Christian Quarter than we do? Will he protect freedom of worship for Christians better than Israel has? Every place that has come under the control of Arafat had quickly been Islamicized. In Bethlehem, for the first time in centuries, there were fewer Christians than Muslim.
Beilin looked at me in sincere surprise. If he wants it, let him have it, he said. Why should we care about giving the Palestinians control of the Christian Quarter to obtain peace? I answered: Arafat knows why. If he controls the Christian Quarter, he controls the most sacred places in the world for one billion Christians, an influence he will use not for strengthening peace but against Israel. . . .
Under Barak’s leadership, an absurd situation developed. For Arafat and his supporters, nothing was more important than Jerusalem. For Israeli leaders, Jerusalem became a bargaining chip . . . .
True to form, despite all the concessions he was offered at Camp David, Arafat turned Barak down. . . . and despite Barak’s prediction, the world was just as hesitant to back Israel’s struggle as it had been before.
Sharansky’s account of the second time he resigned is equally telling, but this post is already too long — so buy the book. And read "Revisiting Obama’s Speech to AIPAC."
Barack Obama’s commitment at AIPAC to an undivided