I recently visited Jerusalem for the first time in many decades. The changes in the city are extraordinary. Oh, the old buildings are still there, but there are new and beautiful urban neighborhoods of a sort which did not exist in 1973 when I was last there. To be clear, these neighborhoods are not just for Jewish Israelis. Arab areas also have seen a major renaissance and clearly now are the wealthiest Arab areas in the world aside from the crazy petro-dollar fueled places like Qatar. A good example of this phenomenon is the city of Bethlehem. While Bethlehem was a separate city from Jerusalem over the last two thousand years or more, the two cites have now grown to the point where there is really no space between them. Bethlehem is actually an extension of Jerusalem today. The biggest difference between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is that Israel controls the local administration of Jerusalem while the Palestinian Authority does the same in Bethlehem.
As you drive through Jerusalem, there are no remnants of the border that used to separate Israel from Jordan. It is all one big city. No one who lives in the city seems to pay any attention to where the old cease fire line from 1949 used to run. It is a forgotten line for the city residents. In the rest of the world, however, people who have no sense of the actual conditions in the city cling to the old cease fire line as if it were of paramount significance. For these people, if a home is built by an Israeli on one side of the street it is of no moment, but should the same Israeli build his home on the other side of the street and on the other side of the old abandoned cease fire line, it is a "settlement", a horrific attack on the Palestinians and their aspirations for a state.
I was particularly taken with the ridiculous nature of the settlement debate one afternoon during my visit when I had lunch in a café in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. To be clear, the Jewish quarter is a section of the city which got its name about five hundred years ago from the Turks who ruled the area. Jerusalem of that day had a Moslem, Armenian, Christian and Jewish quarter based upon the identity of the groups who lived in the area. For many centuries the Jewish quarter was predominantly inhabited by Jews until they were forced out of their family homes by the Jordanian army in 1948 and 1949. From 1949 to 1967, Jordan would not allow any Jews to enter the Old City and the Jewish quarter was mostly abandoned. Heavy damage to the section of the city that had occurred during the war following Israel's independence was never repaired under Jordanian rule, so no one actually lived there. Following the Israeli victory in 1967, Israel took control of the entire city, including the Jewish Quarter. Jews, whose families had lived in Jerusalem for millennia were able to move back to ancestral homes and reestablish a Jewish presence in the Old City. So in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, we have a traditional site of Jewish residences that were rebuilt after 1967. For Israel, this is now just a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. In much of the rest of the world, however, this section is filled with "settlements". After all, the Old City was not part of Israel according to the 1949 armistice lines. Families who went to the homes that they own and refurbished them and moved in became "settlers" in the diplomatic vernacular. This is bad enough, but the reverse makes it even worse.
It is important to understand that after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel unified the city of Jerusalem. Arabs who lived in the city prior to the war were able to move to new neighborhoods if they so chose. If these people move to a neighborhood that was on the Israeli side prior to 1967, they are not settlers, but if the Israelis do the opposite, they are settlers. The truth is that both would just be residents of Jerusalem moving to a new home in the city where they were already living.
The next time someone tells you about the Israeli "settlements", tell them about the reality of the situation. There are other areas where there are settlements, but the vast bulk of all of what are called settlements are within Jerusalem. For the most part, the subject of settlements is a phony issue that has been used by the Palestinians more to delay the chance of peace than to promote it. The saddest thing is that president Obama and his secretaries of state Clinton and Kerry have bought into this myth.
As you drive through Jerusalem, there are no remnants of the border that used to separate Israel from Jordan. It is all one big city. No one who lives in the city seems to pay any attention to where the old cease fire line from 1949 used to run. It is a forgotten line for the city residents. In the rest of the world, however, people who have no sense of the actual conditions in the city cling to the old cease fire line as if it were of paramount significance. For these people, if a home is built by an Israeli on one side of the street it is of no moment, but should the same Israeli build his home on the other side of the street and on the other side of the old abandoned cease fire line, it is a "settlement", a horrific attack on the Palestinians and their aspirations for a state.
I was particularly taken with the ridiculous nature of the settlement debate one afternoon during my visit when I had lunch in a café in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. To be clear, the Jewish quarter is a section of the city which got its name about five hundred years ago from the Turks who ruled the area. Jerusalem of that day had a Moslem, Armenian, Christian and Jewish quarter based upon the identity of the groups who lived in the area. For many centuries the Jewish quarter was predominantly inhabited by Jews until they were forced out of their family homes by the Jordanian army in 1948 and 1949. From 1949 to 1967, Jordan would not allow any Jews to enter the Old City and the Jewish quarter was mostly abandoned. Heavy damage to the section of the city that had occurred during the war following Israel's independence was never repaired under Jordanian rule, so no one actually lived there. Following the Israeli victory in 1967, Israel took control of the entire city, including the Jewish Quarter. Jews, whose families had lived in Jerusalem for millennia were able to move back to ancestral homes and reestablish a Jewish presence in the Old City. So in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, we have a traditional site of Jewish residences that were rebuilt after 1967. For Israel, this is now just a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. In much of the rest of the world, however, this section is filled with "settlements". After all, the Old City was not part of Israel according to the 1949 armistice lines. Families who went to the homes that they own and refurbished them and moved in became "settlers" in the diplomatic vernacular. This is bad enough, but the reverse makes it even worse.
It is important to understand that after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel unified the city of Jerusalem. Arabs who lived in the city prior to the war were able to move to new neighborhoods if they so chose. If these people move to a neighborhood that was on the Israeli side prior to 1967, they are not settlers, but if the Israelis do the opposite, they are settlers. The truth is that both would just be residents of Jerusalem moving to a new home in the city where they were already living.
The next time someone tells you about the Israeli "settlements", tell them about the reality of the situation. There are other areas where there are settlements, but the vast bulk of all of what are called settlements are within Jerusalem. For the most part, the subject of settlements is a phony issue that has been used by the Palestinians more to delay the chance of peace than to promote it. The saddest thing is that president Obama and his secretaries of state Clinton and Kerry have bought into this myth.
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