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When most tourists think of Jerusalem, they generally have in mind the Western Wall, the Israel Museum, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Ben Yehuda Mall and Yad Vashem. Sadly, tourists, like most Israeli Jews, don't spend much time in eastern Jerusalem--despite the fact that this part of the Holy City holds the most historical, spiritual and strategic significance for Jews and Christians. But in the run-up to the Annapolis summit, as the Olmert and Bush administrations intone the old "two states for two peoples" mantra, and renewed declarations that a Palestinian state will have east Jerusalem as its capital go on, perhaps it's time to understand the dynamics of the eastern part of the city. Until very recently, Israeli politicians both left and right cited "Jerusalem, the undivided capital of Israel" as the consensus mantra. Now, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, (the same Ramon who was convicted just six months ago on sexual harassment charges) is advancing the same unrealistic Camp David thinking on Jerusalem as that first raised by Ehud Barak in 2000. Let the Arabs have the Arab neighborhoods and the Jews will keep the Jewish areas, and the "Holy Basin" of Judaism and Christianity's holiest sites will be administered by joint international supervision, declares Ramon. But, as anyone who has spent any time at all in Jerusalem's neighborhoods can attest, things on the ground are far more complex than that. For some American and European politicians, Jewish development in eastern Jerusalem is a provocation and a threat to the 'peace process.' Thus, the idea that Jews have the right to build and live wherever they wish in Jerusalem, under Israeli sovereignty, is an unacceptable concept. But without the strategic assets of pockets of Jewish settlement in eastern Jerusalem, the city would indeed be divided, de facto. Jews would continue to work and live in the western section, and Arabs would predominate in the eastern part of the city where so much of Jewish history took place. The idea of surrounding the inner core of Jerusalem with areas of Jewish settlement is not new. Successive Israeli governments since 1967 have consistently carried out this policy-developing the neighborhoods of Maaleh Adumim, Pisgat Zeev, Givat Zeev, East Talpiot and the re-established Neve Yaakov (founded in 1924). Even a cursory look at a map of greater Jerusalem will reveal that these communities play a crucial role in forming a buffer against Palestine Authority efforts to achieve territorial contiguity between the Old City and the two nearby areas already under PA control--Ramallah to the north and Bethlehem to the south. Abu Dis, bordering the Mt of Olives cemetery, remains under Israeli security control, but Palestinian civil control. If this contiguity were to be achieved, the PA will have created a viable capital within shouting distance of the Temple Mount. Jewish efforts to establish institutions and neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem include Beit Orot, sitting on the northernmost ridge of the Mt of Olives. Beit Orot encompasses a hesder yeshiva (where students study and serve in the IDF) and development initiative. Located just below the Mt Scopus campus of Hebrew University, the yeshiva, founded by MK Rabbi Benny Elon and former MK Hanan Porat, educates and houses more than 100 students every year. In addition, the Beit Orot site now includes the homes of a number of young families who are waiting for building to start at the site for the first Jewish neighborhood on the Mt of Olives in two thousand years. Just across the road are Beit Orot's neighbors, the Arabs of A-Tur and the Augusta Victoria Hospital.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
