The Old City of Jerusalem. The United States, like the rest of the world, hasn’t recognized the city as Israeli territory (NYT)
Jews leaving a section of Jerusalem’s Old City in 1948 (NYT)
Spot the error: Praying with their behinds towards their holy Muslim site?
Si je t’oublie, Jérusalem, Que ma droite m’oublie! Que ma langue s’attache à mon palais, Si je ne me souviens de toi, Si je ne fais de Jérusalem Le principal sujet de ma joie! Psaume 137: 5-6
Voici, je ferai de Jérusalem une coupe d’étourdissement pour tous les peuples d’alentour, et aussi pour Juda dans le siège de Jérusalem. En ce jour-là, je ferai de Jérusalem une pierre pesante pour tous les peuples; tous ceux qui la soulèveront seront meurtris; et toutes les nations de la terre s’assembleront contre elle. Zacharie 12: 2-3
When the Muslims in Jerusalem pray in their mosques, even in the « Al Aktza » mosque built on the edge of Temple Mount, they actually stand with their back turned to Temple Mount. And, when they bow down in their prayers they show their behind to the site of the Holy Temple. How consistent is that with considering it a Muslim holy site? Holyland
Je partage l’attachement à Israël, de tous les juifs, mais d’un autre côté, la décision de Trump me paraît catastrophique parce qu’elle risque d’embraser la région, parce qu’elle risque d’empêcher la reprise des négociations entre les Palestiens et les Israéliens. Les Américains auraient dû procéder tout autrement. Benyamin Netanyahu ne propose rien aux Palestiniens. Il les pousse au désespoir et à l’extrémisme. Alain Finkielkraut
If nothing else, Donald Trump’s decision on Wednesday to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital shows how disenthralled his administration is with traditional pieties about the Middle East. It’s about time. (…) What Jerusalem is is the capital of Israel, both as the ancestral Jewish homeland and the modern nation-state. When Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit the country in 1974, he attended his state dinner in Jerusalem. It’s where President Anwar Sadat of Egypt spoke when he decided to make peace in 1977. It’s what Congress decided as a matter of law in 1995. When Barack Obama paid his own presidential visit to Israel in 2013, he too spent most of his time in Jerusalem. So why maintain the fiction that Jerusalem isn’t the capital? The original argument, from 1947, was that Jerusalem ought to be under international jurisdiction, in recognition of its religious importance. But Jews were not allowed to visit the Western Wall during the 19 years when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian occupation. Yasir Arafat denied that Solomon’s Temple was even in Jerusalem, reflecting an increasingly common Palestinian denial of history. Would Jews be allowed to visit Jewish sites, and would those sites be respected, if the city were redivided? Doubtful, considering Palestinian attacks on such sites, which is one of the reasons why it shouldn’t be. The next argument is that any effort by Washington to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would set the proverbial Arab street on fire and perhaps lead to another intifada. But this misapprehends the nature of the street, which has typically been a propaganda tool of Arab leaders to channel domestic discontent and manipulate foreign opinion. And it also misrepresents the nature of the last intifada, which was a meticulously preplanned event waiting for a convenient pretext (Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 walk on the Temple Mount) to look like a spontaneous one. (…) Then again, recognition does several genuinely useful things. It belatedly aligns American words with deeds. It aligns word as well as deed with reality. And it aligns the United States with the country toward which we are constantly professing friendship even as we have spent seven decades stinting it of the most basic form of recognition. Recognition also tells the Palestinians that they can no longer hold other parties hostage to their demands. East Jerusalem could have been the capital of a sovereign Palestinian state 17 years ago, if Arafat had simply accepted the terms at Camp David. He didn’t because he thought he could dictate terms to stronger powers. Nations pay a price for the foolhardiness of their leaders, as the Kurds recently found out. (…) For the international community, that means helping Palestinians take steps to dismantle their current klepto-theocracy, rather than fueling a culture of perpetual grievance against Israel. Mahmoud Abbas is now approaching the 13th anniversary of his elected four-year term. Someone should point this out. Hamas has run Gaza for a decade, during which it has spent more time building rockets and terror tunnels than hotels or hospitals. Someone should point this out, too. It is indicative of the disastrous political choices that help explain 70 years of Palestinian failure. Meantime, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. For those who have lived in denial, it must be some sort of shock. Bret Stephens
Although Israel’s government has been located in Jerusalem since its founding in 1948, the United States, like the rest of the world, hasn’t recognized the city as Israeli territory, even after the Arab-Israeli War in 1967, when Israel drove back Jordan from East Jerusalem and occupied it. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel promised to negotiate Jerusalem’s future as part of a peace agreement. It has been assumed that under any deal, the city would remain its capital. Palestinians anticipated being able to locate their capital in East Jerusalem and to have access to Muslim holy sites there. East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967, but Israel has steadily built settlements there, placing some 200,000 of its citizens among the Arab population and complicating any possible peace agreement. Mr. Trump boasts of being a consummate dealmaker, but dealmakers don’t usually make concessions before negotiations begin, as the president has here. The big winner is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose hard-line government has shown no serious interest in peace, at least not a two-state solution that could win Palestinian support. The blowback was swift. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, warned of “dangerous consequences” to the peace process, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the royal palace said, cautioned against the move, “stressing that Jerusalem is the key to achieving peace and stability in the region and the world.” Turkey threatened to cut diplomatic ties with Israel; other criticism came from Egypt, the Arab League and France. King Salman of Saudi Arabia told Mr. Trump a decision on Jerusalem before a final peace deal would hurt talks and increase regional tensions. (…) But some analysts doubt Mr. Trump really wants a peace agreement and say any possible proposal may be intended as political cover so Israel and the Sunni Arabs, once enemies, can intensify their incipient collaboration against Iran. The constituency Mr. Trump is most clearly courting is his own political base of evangelicals and other pro-Israel hard-liners. His predecessors had also made pandering campaign promises in support of moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem. But once in office they chose not to prioritize their domestic politics over delicate peace diplomacy, and they put that promise on hold. Some optimists think that Mr. Trump could lessen the harm of a decision on Jerusalem by making clear he will not prejudge the future of East Jerusalem or other core questions like the borders of a Palestinian state. His track record so far gives little evidence that he has the temperament or skill to navigate such a nuanced position. The NYT
Seul contre tous. Donald Trump a ignoré tous les avertissements, polis ou pressants selon les dirigeants, toutes les suppliques, jusqu’à celle du pape François, avant d’annoncer, mercredi 6 décembre, sa décision de reconnaître officiellement Jérusalem comme capitale d’Israël. Les réactions d’alarme et d’indignation qui ont accueilli cette décision au sein de la communauté internationale – à l’exception du premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, qui a applaudi des deux mains – confirment, pour ceux qui en doutaient encore, que le président américain n’hésite à transgresser aucun tabou. Il est clair à présent que les Etats-Unis de Donald Trump ne se contentent pas de décider de façon unilatérale, en faisant fi de l’avis de leurs partenaires les plus proches. Ils ont entrepris le démantèlement d’un système de relations internationales qu’ils ont eux-mêmes édifié après la deuxième guerre mondiale. L’annonce de M. Trump sur Jérusalem est, tout simplement, un viol de la diplomatie comme mode de règlement des conflits. En vertu des accords d’Oslo, signés sous les auspices des Etats-Unis en 1993, Israël s’était engagé à négocier le statut futur de Jérusalem dans le cadre d’accords de paix. Le roi de Jordanie, l’un des dirigeants les plus modérés du Moyen-Orient, a souligné que la question de Jérusalem « est cruciale pour parvenir à la paix et la stabilité dans la région et dans le monde ». Le processus de paix lancé à Oslo est malheureusement aujourd’hui au point mort : il n’y a pas, à l’heure actuelle, de négociations de paix entre Israéliens et Palestiniens. Mais en rallumant l’étincelle de Jérusalem, le président américain prend ouvertement le risque d’accroître les tensions et de provoquer de nouvelles violences dans une région toujours au bord de l’explosion, sans pour autant préciser ses projets sur une relance d’un processus de paix. L’envoi du vice-président Michael Pence au Proche-Orient ne fait guère illusion à cet égard. Pis, par sa décision, M. Trump consacre la politique du fait accompli de M. Nétanyahou. Si le gouvernement israélien a été installé à Jérusalem dès 1948, Jérusalem-Est était entièrement arabe jusqu’à 1967. [sic] Depuis, à la faveur de colonies de peuplement construites par Israël, quelque 200 000 Israéliens se sont installés parmi les Palestiniens, rendant la question du statut de la ville encore plus complexe. Jérusalem capitale de l’Etat d’Israël est « une réalité », clame Donald Trump, évitant soigneusement de mentionner Jérusalem-Est comme possible capitale d’un Etat palestinien. Logiquement, ce raisonnement entérine aussi les colonies de peuplement dans les territoires occupés comme « une réalité », au mépris du droit international. Mais, pas plus que l’art de la diplomatie, le droit international n’entre visiblement pas dans les paramètres de la politique étrangère trumpienne, tout entière guidée par son obsession de rompre avec ses prédécesseurs et ses impératifs de politique intérieure – en l’occurrence le souci de satisfaire les chrétiens évangéliques et les lobbys pro-israéliens. La liste des engagements internationaux auxquels M. Trump a tourné le dos depuis son entrée en fonctions, en janvier, s’allonge (…) Le moment est venu de prendre acte de cette réalité. Comme cela se fait déjà pour l’accord sur le climat, il faut apprendre à contourner une administration fédérale américaine engagée dans une dangereuse déstabilisation de la communauté internationale. Le Monde
Amidst some questionable journalism about the American move to acknowledge the location of Israel’s capital, a passage in yesterday’s New York Times editorial stands out as particularly stunning and perverse. The editorial, titled « Does Trump Want Peace in the Middle East, » effectively ratifies the cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem’s Old City and other formerly Jewish areas of Jerusalem during the 1948 Independence War. In a paragraph criticizing the return of Jews to what the newspaper describes as « settlements » in those parts of Jerusalem, the editorial bases its disapproval on the fact that « East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967. » It is true that this section of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967. This is because Jews, long a majority and plurality in these parts of the city, were forced out in 1948, when the area was seized by Jordanian troops. Jerusalem neighborhoods like the Jewish Quarter, Shimon Hatzadik, and Silan indeed became Jew-free, their synagogues razed and their cemeteries desecrated. To consider the 19-year period during which Jews were exiled from the Old City and surrounding areas as the starting point of history, and to use it as a bludgeon to attack Israel and delegitimize the presence of Jews in eastern Jerusalem, effectively communicates the newspaper’s acceptance of the expulsion of the Jews and seeming endorsement of an ethically cleansed eastern Jerusalem. In 1948, the New York Times published the following account of Jews pouring out from the Old City walls: Thus the Jews have been eliminated from the City of David for the first time since the sixteenth century. Except for sixty years in the sixteenth century they are believed to have been there continuously since the return from the Babylonian captivity. New Jerusalem was largely created in the last seventy years. All last night and early today the noncombatants were trekking out through the Zion Gate over Mount Zion and through the Valley of Hinnon to the Yemin Moshe quarter from where they were driven to billets in the Katamon quarter. They are mostly orthodox and poor. This is why « east Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967, » as today’s editorial writers who represent the voice of The New York Times know. To omit the purge of Jews from their neighborhoods and holy places while approvingly citing the ethnically « exclusive » nature of eastern Jerusalem amounts to the promotion of a revisionist history by The Times. Camera
Attention: un nettoyage ethnique peut en cacher un autre !
Voir aussi:
Ignoring Exile of Jews, NY Times Approvingly Notes East Jerusalem « Was Exclusively Arab in 1967 »
Gilead Ini
Camera
December 7, 2017
Amidst some questionable journalism about the American move to acknowledge the location of Israel’s capital, a passage in yesterday’s New York Times editorial stands out as particularly stunning and perverse.
The editorial, titled « Does Trump Want Peace in the Middle East, » effectively ratifies the cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem’s Old City and other formerly Jewish areas of Jerusalem during the 1948 Independence War.
In a paragraph criticizing the return of Jews to what the newspaper describes as « settlements » in those parts of Jerusalem, the editorial bases its disapproval on the fact that « East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967. »
It is true that this section of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967. This is because Jews, long a majority and plurality in these parts of the city, were forced out in 1948, when the area was seized by Jordanian troops. Jerusalem neighborhoods like the Jewish Quarter, Shimon Hatzadik, and Silan indeed became Jew-free, their synagogues razed and their cemeteries desecrated.
To consider the 19-year period during which Jews were exiled from the Old City and surrounding areas as the starting point of history, and to use it as a bludgeon to attack Israel and delegitimize the presence of Jews in eastern Jerusalem, effectively communicates the newspaper’s acceptance of the expulsion of the Jews and seeming endorsement of an ethically cleansed eastern Jerusalem.
In 1948, the New York Times published the following account of Jews pouring out from the Old City walls:
Thus the Jews have been eliminated from the City of David for the first time since the sixteenth century. Except for sixty years in the sixteenth century they are believed to have been there continuously since the return from the Babylonian captivity. New Jerusalem was largely created in the last seventy years.
All last night and early today the noncombatants were trekking out through the Zion Gate over Mount Zion and through the Valley of Hinnon to the Yemin Moshe quarter from where they were driven to billets in the Katamon quarter. They are mostly orthodox and poor.
New York Times Downplays Judaism’s Ties to Jerusalem
Ricki Hollander, Tamar Sternthal
Camera
December 7, 2017
In advance of President Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, The New York Times engaged in historical revisionism about Jerusalem with the publication of a lengthy background essay that minimizes historic Jewish ties to the city (« The Conflict in Jerusalem Is Dinstinctly Modern: Here’s the History« ). The article was filled with erroneous assertions, misleading quotes and belittling aspersions about Jewish belief.
The article’s historical departure point is « 1917-48: British Mandate, » and it begins with a quote, devoid of context, to imply that Jerusalem was relatively unimportant to Jews both before and during that time:
« It was for the British that Jerusalem was so important – they are the ones who established Jerusalem as a capital, » said Prof. Yeshoshua Ben-Arieh, a historical geographer at Hebrew University. « Before, it was not anyone’s capital since the times of the First and Second Temples. »
Not mentioned in the article is that the same professor noted in his book, Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, that under the Ottoman empire, in the 19th century, « Jerusalem became the principal town of Eretz Israel (or Palestine, as it was then known). » He wrote that the Jewish population comprised a majority in Jerusalem’s Old City, which prompted construction of new Jewish neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City to accommodate the population growth. « By the start of the First World War, » Ben-Arieh wrote, « the Jewish community in Jerusalem numbered about 45,000, out of a population of 70,000 (with 12,000 Muslims and 13,000 Christians). »
Why would so many Jews want to live in Jerusalem, if it was unimportant to them? As the author explained in his book:
The basis for the great increase in the Jewish population of Jerusalem was the intense yearning for the eternal city and the flow of immigrants into it, which began, for religious motives, in the 1840’s. Jews continued to come to Jerusalem in the periods of the First and Second Aliyah as well.
During the period of early Zionism, Ben-Arieh acknowledged, Jews flocked more to Jerusalem than to the agricultural settlements outside the city because « many Jews preferred to come and settle in Jerusalem. »
Contrary to the article’s implication, Jerusalem remained the central focus of tradition, prayer, and yearning for the nearly two millenia after the destruction of the second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. Daily prayers (said while facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site) and grace after meals include multiple supplications for the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple. Jews observe the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the date on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, as a day of mourning. The Jewish wedding ceremony concludes with the chanting of the biblical phrase, « If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning, » and the breaking of a glass by the groom to commemorate the destruction of the Temples. And Yom Kippur services and the Passover Seder conclude each year with the phrase « Next Year in Jerusalem. »
While ignoring the inconvenient facts mentioned in Ben Arieh’s book, the article continues to offer quotes from those identified as experts to suggest that early Zionists did not care for Jerusalem.
« Zionism recoiled from Jerusalem, particularly the Old City…Jerusalem was regarded as a symbol of the diaspora… »
« Jerusalem was something of a backwater, a regression to a conservative culture that they were trying to move away from… »
And later:
The early Israeli state was hesitant to focus too much on Jerusalem, given pressure from the United Nations and from the European powers, according to Issam Nassar, a historian at Illinois State University.
Having accepted the idea of international control of Jerusalem, the early Israeli leadership sought alternatives for a capital, perhaps Herzliya or somewhere in the south. They also realized that not having control of Jerusalem’s holy sites might have some advantages, according to Dr. Ramon.
These quotes and paraphrases, however, are completely belied by the direct statements of Israel’s early leaders. Although they accepted the temporary exclusion of Jerusalem as part of the partition proposal, they did so very reluctantly, with the hope and belief that the status of the city would change in the intended referendum following the planned 10-year-period of internationalization. Below are excerpts from their statements, ignored by the article, which eloquently articulate Jerusalem’s place in pre- and early-state Zionist thinking:
Chaim Weizmann (Statement to Jerusalem’s Advisory Council, December 1, 1948):
Jerusalem holds a unique place in the heart of every Jew. Jerusalem is to us the quintessence of the Palestine idea. Its restoration symbolizes the redemption of Israel. Rome was to the Italians the emblem of their military conquests and political organization. Athens embodies for the Greeks the noblest their genius had wrought in art and thought. To us, Jerusalem has both a spiritual and a temporal significance. It is the City of God, the seat of our ancient sanctuary. But it is also the capital of David and Solomon, the City of the Great King, the metropolis of our ancient commonwealth.
To the followers of the two other great monotheistic religions, Jerusalem is a site of sacred associations and holy memories. To us it is that and more than that. It is the centre of our ancient national glory. It was our lodestar in all our wanderings. It embodies all that is noblest in our hopes for the future. Jerusalem is the eternal mother of the Jewish people, precious and beloved even its desolation. When David made Jerusalem the capital of Judea, on that day there began the Jewish Commonwealth. When Titus destroyed it on the 9th of Av, on that day, there ended the Jewish Commonwealth. But even though our Commonwealth was destroyed, we never gave up Jerusalem….
…An almost unbroken chain of Jewish settlement connects the Jerusalem of our day with the Holy City of antiquity. To countless generations of Jews in every land of their dispersion the ascent to Jerusalem was the highest that life could offer. In every generation, new groups of Jews from one part or another of our far-flung Diaspora came to settle here. For over a hundred years, we have formed the majority of its population. And now that, by the will of God, a Jewish Commonwealth has been re-established, is it to be conceived that Jerusalem – Jerusalem of all places – should be out of it?
David Ben Gurion (Statement to Knesset, December 5, 1949):
…Jewish Jerusalem is an organic and inseparable part of the state of Israel, as it is an inseparable part of the history and religion of Israel and of the soul of our people. Jerusalem is the very heart of the State of Israel. We feel pride in that Jerusalem is sanctified – also in the eyes of adherents of other faiths, and we freely and willingly are ready to make all the necessary arrangements to enable the adherents of the other faiths to enjoy their religious needs in Jerusalem. Moreover, we will give to the United Nations all our assistance to assure this. But we cannot conceive that the United Nations will try to tear Jerusalem form Israel or to impair the sovereignty of Israel in its eternal capital.
David Ben Gurion (Statement to Knesset, December 13, 1949):
From the establishment of the Provisional Government we made the peace, the security and the economic consolidation of Jerusalem our principal care. In the stress of war, when Jerusalem was under siege, we were compelled to establish the seat of Government in Ha’Kirya at Tel Aviv. But for the State of Israel there has always been and always will be one capital only – Jerusalem the Eternal. Thus it was 3,000 years ago – and thus it will be, we believe, until the end of time.
The article further deceives by suggesting that Jewish attachment to the city is an invention of recent decades, following Israel’s victory in the Six-Day-War. The article deceptively talks of a « new emphasis on Jerusalem as integral to Israel’s identity. »
This is obviously false. The newspaper’s current journalists authors and editors would be well-served by acquainting themselves with the history they purport to write about, perhaps even by reading archived editions of their own newspaper. Nearly seventy years ago, the New York Times, reporting on the expulsion of Jews from eastern Jerusalem, wrote:
Because it was important to religious Jews and also to many non-religious Zionists that Jews should live in the « City of David » at the spiritual center of Zion beside the Wailing [Western] Wall, which they consider to be part of the western wall of King Solomon’s Temple, the army of Israel was willing to pay a high price to defend this quarter. (May 30, 1948)
But apparently, the current crop of journalists at the New York Times prefer to rely on Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American propagandist and PLO associate under Yasir Arafat who is quoted in support of their false assertion:
« [After 1967] Jerusalem became the center of a cult-like devotion that had not really existed previously, » said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. « This has now been fetishized to an extraordinary degree as hard-line religious nationalism has come to predominate in Israeli politics, with the Western Wall as its focus. »
« Cult-like? » « Fetishized? » « Not existed previously? » Not only is this quote outrageously dishonest, it diminishes and deprecates the reverence for Judaism’s holiest sites. It is hard to imagine the Times relying on similar slurs about Muslim devotion to Mecca, Medina or even the Al Aqsa Mosque.
In December 1917 — 100 years ago this month — the British general Edmund Allenby seized control of Jerusalem from its Ottoman Turkish defenders. Dismounting his horse, he entered the Old City on foot, through Jaffa Gate, out of respect for its holy status.
In the century since, Jerusalem has been fought over in varying ways, not only by Jews, Christians and Muslims but also by external powers and, of course, modern-day Israelis and Palestinians.
It is perhaps fitting that President Trump appears to have chosen this week to announce that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, despite concerns from leaders of Arab countries, Turkey and even close allies like France.
Conflicts over Jerusalem go back thousands of years — including biblical times, the Roman Empire and the Crusades — but the current one is a distinctly 20th-century story, with roots in colonialism, nationalism and anti-Semitism. The New York Times asked several experts to walk readers through pivotal moments of the past century.
1917-48: British Mandate
“It was for the British that Jerusalem was so important — they are the ones who established Jerusalem as a capital,” said Prof. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, a historical geographer at Hebrew University. “Before, it was not anyone’s capital since the times of the First and Second Temples.”
The three decades of British rule that followed Allenby’s march on Jerusalem saw an influx of Jewish settlers drawn by the Zionist vision of a Jewish homeland, while the local Arab population adjusted to the reality of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the city since 1517.
“Paradoxically, Zionism recoiled from Jerusalem, particularly the Old City,” said Amnon Ramon, senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research. “First because Jerusalem was regarded as a symbol of the diaspora, and second because the holy sites to Christianity and Islam were seen as complications that would not enable the creation of a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Many early Zionists were secular European socialists, motivated more by concerns about nationalism, self-determination and escape from persecution than by religious visions.
“Jerusalem was something of a backwater, a regression to a conservative culture that they were trying to move away from,” according to Michael Dumper, professor in Middle East politics at the University of Exeter in England. “Tel Aviv was the bright new city on a hill, the encapsulation of modernity.”
For Arabs, he said: “There was still something of the shock at not being in the Ottoman Empire. There was a reordering of their society. The local Palestinian aristocracy, the big families of Jerusalem, emerged as leaders of the Palestinian national movement, which was suddenly being confronted by Jewish migration.”
Opposition to that migration fueled several deadly riots by Palestinians, while Jews chafed at British rule and at immigration restrictions imposed in 1939 — restrictions that blocked many Jews fleeing the Holocaust from entering. After the war, in 1947, the United Nations approved a partition plan that provided for two states — one Jewish, one Arab — with Jerusalem governed by a “special international regime” owing to its unique status.
1948-67: A Divided City
The Arabs rejected the partition plan, and a day after Israel proclaimed its independence in 1948, the Arab countries attacked the new state. They were defeated. Amid violence by militias and mobs on both sides, huge numbers of Jews and Arabs were displaced.
Jerusalem was divided: The western half became part of the new state of Israel (and its capital, under an Israeli law passed in 1950), while the eastern half, including the Old City, was occupied by Jordan. “For the Palestinians, it was seen as a rallying point,” Professor Dumper said.
Israel and Jordan, he said, were largely focused elsewhere. Israel built up its prosperous coastal areas — including Haifa, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon — into a thriving commercial zone, while the Jordanian king, Abdullah I, focused on the development of Amman, Jordan’s capital.
The early Israeli state was hesitant to focus too much on Jerusalem, given pressure from the United Nations and from the European powers, according to Issam Nassar, a historian at Illinois State University.
Having accepted the idea of international control of Jerusalem, the early Israeli leadership sought alternatives for a capital, perhaps Herzliya or somewhere in the south. They also realized that not having control of Jerusalem’s holy sites might have some advantages, according to Dr. Ramon.
While Israel moved many government functions to Jerusalem during the country’s first two decades, foreign governments largely avoided Jerusalem and opened embassies in Tel Aviv, in recognition of the United Nations resolution.
1967-93: Two Wars and an Intifada
No event has shaped the modern contest over Jerusalem as much as the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, in which Israel not only defeated invading Arab armies but also seized control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria.
“The turning points in 1967 were two: the great victory, including the fast shift from fears of defeat before the war to euphoria and the feeling that everything was possible, and the emotional impact of occupying the Old City,” said Menachem Klein, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Images of Israeli soldiers praying at the Western Wall, to which they had been denied access during Jordanian rule, became seared into Israel’s national consciousness.
“Jerusalem became the center of a cultlike devotion that had not really existed previously,” said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. “This has now been fetishized to an extraordinary degree as hard-line religious nationalism has come to predominate in Israeli politics, with the Western Wall as its focus.”
The victory of the right-leaning party Likud in 1977, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, helped solidify this new emphasis on Jerusalem as integral to Israel’s identity. Religious settlers became more prominent in political life in Israel, beginning a long ascendance that has never really halted. Old-line socialists with roots in Russia and Eastern Europe gave way to a more diverse — and also more religious — population of Israelis with origins in the Middle East, North Africa and other regions.
As part of this shift, Jerusalem’s symbolic importance intensified. Its role in Jewish history was emphasized in military parades and curriculums, and students from across Israel were taken there on school visits. This process culminated in 1980, when lawmakers passed a bill declaring that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel” — although Israel stopped short of annexing East Jerusalem, a move that would most likely have drawn international outrage.
1993-present: Oslo and Beyond
The 1993 Oslo accords provided for the creation of a Palestinian Authority to govern the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while deferring a resolution on core issues: borders, refugees and Jerusalem’s status. In the nearly quarter-century since, the prospects for a lasting peace deal have seemed ever more elusive.
A visit by the right-wing politician Ariel Sharon in 2000 to the sacred complex known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary — which contains Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock — set off violent clashes and led to a second Palestinian uprising that claimed the lives of about 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis over five years.
Palestinians say that Jewish settlers have encroached on East Jerusalem, and that Israel has compounded the problem by revoking residency permits. Even so, the ethnic composition of Jerusalem’s population has remained about 30 percent to 40 percent Arab.
“The entire international community has been in accord that Israeli annexation and settlement of East Jerusalem since 1967 is illegal, and refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Professor Khalidi said. “If Trump changes this position, given the importance of Jerusalem to Arabs and Muslims, it is hard to see how a sustainable Palestinian-Israeli agreement or lasting Arab-Israeli normalization is possible.”
Professor Ben-Arieh says the conflict over the city is likely to endure. “The Arab-Jewish conflict escalated into a nationalistic conflict, with Jerusalem at its center,” he said. “Jerusalem was a city holy to three religions, but the moment that, in the land of Israel, two nations grew — the Jewish people and the local Arab people — both embraced Jerusalem. More than Jerusalem needed them, they needed Jerusalem. »
Donald Trump, seul contre tous
Editorial. En décidant de reconnaître officiellement Jérusalem comme capitale d’Israël, le président américain transgresse les règles de la diplomatie, piétine les accords passés et s’isole un peu plus.
Le Monde
Editorial du « Monde ». Seul contre tous. Donald Trump a ignoré tous les avertissements, polis ou pressants selon les dirigeants, toutes les suppliques, jusqu’à celle du pape François, avant d’annoncer, mercredi 6 décembre, sa décision de reconnaître officiellement Jérusalem comme capitale d’Israël. Les réactions d’alarme et d’indignation qui ont accueilli cette décision au sein de la communauté internationale – à l’exception du premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, qui a applaudi des deux mains – confirment, pour ceux qui en doutaient encore, que le président américain n’hésite à transgresser aucun tabou.
Il est clair à présent que les Etats-Unis de Donald Trump ne se contentent pas de décider de façon unilatérale, en faisant fi de l’avis de leurs partenaires les plus proches. Ils ont entrepris le démantèlement d’un système de relations internationales qu’ils ont eux-mêmes édifié après la deuxième guerre mondiale. L’annonce de M. Trump sur Jérusalem est, tout simplement, un viol de la diplomatie comme mode de règlement des conflits.
En vertu des accords d’Oslo, signés sous les auspices des Etats-Unis en 1993, Israël s’était engagé à négocier le statut futur de Jérusalem dans le cadre d’accords de paix. Le roi de Jordanie, l’un des dirigeants les plus modérés du Moyen-Orient, a souligné que la question de Jérusalem « est cruciale pour parvenir à la paix et la stabilité dans la région et dans le monde ». Le processus de paix lancé à Oslo est malheureusement aujourd’hui au point mort : il n’y a pas, à l’heure actuelle, de négociations de paix entre Israéliens et Palestiniens.
Mépris du droit international
Mais en rallumant l’étincelle de Jérusalem, le président américain prend ouvertement le risque d’accroître les tensions et de provoquer de nouvelles violences dans une région toujours au bord de l’explosion, sans pour autant préciser ses projets sur une relance d’un processus de paix. L’envoi du vice-président Michael Pence au Proche-Orient ne fait guère illusion à cet égard.
Pis, par sa décision, M. Trump consacre la politique du fait accompli de M. Nétanyahou. Si le gouvernement israélien a été installé à Jérusalem dès 1948, Jérusalem-Est était entièrement arabe jusqu’à 1967. Depuis, à la faveur de colonies de peuplement construites par Israël, quelque 200 000 Israéliens se sont installés parmi les Palestiniens, rendant la question du statut de la ville encore plus complexe. Jérusalem capitale de l’Etat d’Israël est « une réalité », clame Donald Trump, évitant soigneusement de mentionner Jérusalem-Est comme possible capitale d’un Etat palestinien. Logiquement, ce raisonnement entérine aussi les colonies de peuplement dans les territoires occupés comme « une réalité », au mépris du droit international.
Mais, pas plus que l’art de la diplomatie, le droit international n’entre visiblement pas dans les paramètres de la politique étrangère trumpienne, tout entière guidée par son obsession de rompre avec ses prédécesseurs et ses impératifs de politique intérieure – en l’occurrence le souci de satisfaire les chrétiens évangéliques et les lobbys pro-israéliens.
Contourner les Etats-Unis
La liste des engagements internationaux auxquels M. Trump a tourné le dos depuis son entrée en fonctions, en janvier, s’allonge : l’accord de libre-échange transpacifique ; l’accord de Paris sur le climat ; l’accord sur le nucléaire iranien ; l’Unesco, dont Washington et Israël ont annoncé leur retrait ; l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), où les délégués américains sont de plus en plus réfractaires, et, tout récemment, le pacte mondial sur la gestion des migrants et des réfugiés adopté à l’ONU. Sans parler du discours très offensif à l’égard du système multilatéral prononcé par M. Trump en septembre devant l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies et de la destruction de l’appareil diplomatique américain. Cette liste est suffisamment longue pour faire prendre conscience aux alliés des Etats-Unis que le monde est entré dans une nouvelle ère.
Le moment est venu de prendre acte de cette réalité. Comme cela se fait déjà pour l’accord sur le climat, il faut apprendre à contourner une administration fédérale américaine engagée dans une dangereuse déstabilisation de la communauté internationale.
Voir par ailleurs:
« Catastrophique ». C’est l’adjectif employé par Alain Finkielkraut pour dénoncer la décision historique de Donald Trump de reconnaîre Jérusalem comme la capitale d’Israël. Invité ce dimanche de « L’Entretien d’Audrey » sur LCI, le philosophe et écrivain s’est prononcé contre le choix du président des États-Unis, qui a d’ailleurs ravivé les tensions autour de la bande de Gaza.
« Je partage l’attachement à Israël, de tous les juifs, mais d’un autre côté, la décision de Trump me paraît catastrophique parce qu’elle risque d’embraser la région, parce qu’elle risque d’empêcher la reprise des négociations entre les Palestiens et les Israéliens. Les Américains auraient dû procéder tout autrement », a-t-il regretté, fustigeant également la position du Premier ministre israélien Benyamin Netanyahu : « Il ne propose rien aux Palestiniens. Il les pousse au désespoir et à l’extrémisme. »
Dans la foulée de cette prise de position par Trump, le Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (Crif) et le Consistoire ont appelé dès jeudi le président français Emmanuel Macron à faire de même. Une déclaration qui ne fait pas l’unanimité au sein de la communauté juive, allant même jusqu’à la crisper, a estimé Finkielkraut. « Le Crif me semble sortir de ses prérogatives et je ne suis pas sûr qu’il soit répresentatif dans le monde juif. La plupart des juifs, pas tous, sont attachés à Israël, soucieux d’Israël et sont conscients de la vulnérabilité d’Israël (…). Il n’en reste pas moins que tous les juifs ne sont pas d’accord avec la politique de Netanyahu. Le Crif, au lieu de demander à Macron de s’aligner sur Trump, devrait lui ne pas s’aligner sur Netanyahu et le gouvernement d’Israël parce que ces décisions peuvent être et doivent être discutées.
Interrogé sur une (possible) montée de l’antisémitisme en France suite à ces deux décisions communes qu’il « dénonce », Alain Finkielkraut a estimé qu’il « était possible qu’elles alimentent cette haine ». « Aujourd’hui, il y a en effet un nouveau antisémiste qui prend prétexte de la situation faite aux Palestiniens pour attaquer, voire molester, des juifs comme on l’a vu tout récemment à Livry-Gargan (en Seine-Saint-Denis, ndlr). Ce prétexte palestinien ne doit pas être accepté. »