What Israel's politicians have (not) learned about Jerusalem





In the brief debate between Isaac Herzog and Benjamin Netanyahu in the “Meet the Press” studio on Saturday night, the prime minister was given the opportunity to ask his opponent one question. “Why did they condemn our construction in Jerusalem?” he chose to ask.
This seemed like the first shot from his tried and trusty weapon, known as “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Since the debate, Jerusalem, its unity, division and the level of faithfulness to its stones seem to have become a focus of this election campaign.
Sunday night, at the rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu once again raised it to the “height of our joy,” once again accusing the left of betraying Jerusalem.
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett chose to sing “Jerusalem of Gold” — drily and off key. Before that, Herzog visited the Western Wall and promised to preserve the “strength and power of Jerusalem and its residents, in acts and not just words.”
If someone had hoped that since 1996 Israel’s politicians and public grew up and learned something about Jerusalem or about its division, his hopes have been dashed.
Even compared with this campaign’s low level of public discourse, the discussion about Jerusalem is as shallow as a puddle: “He will divide, I will preserve,” “He will dismantle, I will strengthen.”
Even a long list of terror attacks and a growing wave of violence in Jerusalem over the past six months have not changed anything in the way politicians relate to the capital.
Nonetheless, a proper analysis of the issue of Jerusalem in the parties’ platforms and politicians’ statements can expose a bit of the truth from each. The nonprofit organization Ir Amim released a file of quotes on Jerusalem from the party platforms and leaders’ statements.
The right wing parties, from Likud through Eli Yishai’s Yahad, all swear to a united Jerusalem for eternity.
No one need search their platforms or statements for anything concerning the 40 percent of Jerusalem’s residents who are not Israeli citizens; or about the fact that after almost 50 years of occupation, unification, annexation and construction, Israel’s governments have not prompted a single country to recognize one centimeter beyond the Green Line as legitimate Israeli territory. Certainly not that Jerusalem is already divided in practice by the separation barrier, behind which some 100,000 Jerusalemites and neighborhoods are in reality already not part of the city.
Yisrael Beiteinu’s platform brings this cutoff from reality to a new height and promises not just eternity but also an expansion of the city to Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion.
Given this background, the Zionist Camp platform stands out on the good side. It is careful to respect the capital’s honor but avoids the empty slogans concerning its unity.
But it seems impossible to do without the word eternal: “Strengthening Jerusalem and its status as the eternal capital of the State of Israel, alongside preserving Israeli sovereignty,” states the Zionist Camp’s platform.
Only Meretz and the Joint List of Arab parties speak explicitly about a city divided into two capitals, while Meretz wants to preserve a “unified urban space.”
It is actually in the platform of the center-left Yesh Atid Party that we find all that is wrong in the politicians’ approach to Jerusalem. Yesh Atid’s Jerusalem is a metaphor, a spiritual ideal floating in space.
Like the right-wing parties, Yesh Atid promises “Jerusalem will remain unified under Israeli sovereignty.” But unlike them, Yesh Atid also wants to justify the unity and sovereignty: “Jerusalem is not just a place or city but also the center of the Jewish-Israeli ethos.”
“The unity of Jerusalem,” explains the somewhat spiritual platform, “is a national symbol of the highest rank.” Or as Yair Lapid formulated it four months ago: “Jerusalem is not a place; it is the founding idea of Israeliness.”
The expression “Jerusalem is an idea” has a place of honor alongside “Peace begins inside us” in the Pantheon of statements that are ridiculous and disconnected from reality.
This platform seems to have been written by a digital-platform creator or — even worse — a cynical politician.
Yesh Atid’s Jerusalem is a two-dimensional postcard. It lacks people, stones, knives, rubber bullets and tear gas, walls and children under arrest.
Such a Jerusalem, and in particular its residents, has no solutions and no future.

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