As a stand alone statement, it is problematic for a number of reasons.

• First, the pre-1967 lines are actually armistice lines, not borders. This means that they were simply where the armies were when the previous conflict ended. These were not necessarily reasonable, much less defensible, borders.
• Second, the situation on the ground has changed substantially since 1967 and hundreds of thousands of Jews now live on the other side of the lines.
• Third, this statement automatically places the vast majority of Jerusalem and all of the holy sites on the Palestinian side and makes Israel offer concessions from pre-1967 Israel in exchange for any of it to be agreed upon by the Palestinian side.

How can this possibly be acceptable to Israel?

We can discuss whether or not the “rough outlines” of a future Palestinian state would be mostly along the 1967 lines, but the President’s stated outline at this point is not that. Here is what he said at AIPAC Policy Conference on May 22, 2011 in clarification of his earlier statement:

Now, it was my reference to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps that received the lion’s share of the attention. And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means.

By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.

What is implied here is that the Palestinians have the ability to negotiate not from the status quo, but from the assumption that the entire West Bank including all of the Old City of Jerusalem with all of the holy sites is theirs to swap if they so choose. In other words, the President has de facto granted the Palestinians the West Bank including the Old City and told the Israelis to negotiate with them in exchange for what Israel wants to keep from it.

I am not sure how this can possibly be interpreted any other way. From the above statement, it is up to Israel to offer the Palestinians compensation (swaps) in order to account for the “changes” that are agreeable to the Palestinians. Now add on top of that the issue of Palestinian refugees!

Israel cannot negotiate from this position.

Regarding any hope for progress in the peace process, one needs to answer the following question:

What would the Palestinians accept in exchange for Israel maintaining control over most, if not all, of Jerusalem, maintaining the major settlement blocs, denying the “right of return” of the vast majority if not of all of the Palestinian refugees and maintaining security of the border with Jordan?

What could Israel offer? I cannot think of anything. This situation is untenable. It is even untenable if Jerusalem were to be negotiated separately as the President seemed to imply in his State Department speech.

The peace process cannot advance with these assumptions which is why the Palestinians are trying to go around the process and go to the UN. Meanwhile, having forced Israel into a position from which it cannot negotiate, literally having nothing that it is able to put on the table (since the assumption is that all of the West Bank belongs to the Palestinians and that none of it can be used by Israel as a concession), the US is also preventing the Palestinians from acting in the UN by exercising a veto.

Basically, the US is strongly enforcing the status quo while saying that the status quo cannot be maintained, blaming Israel for being unwilling to make concessions that it cannot possibly make, and blaming the Palestinians for avoiding negotiations in which they have nothing that they could possibly gain.

It is possible, if not highly likely, that this policy of enforcing the status quo in this manner is in response to Saudi Arabia which continues to insist on the entire West Bank being part of the Palestinian state and upon which the US remains overly dependent for its oil needs. It is hard to imagine that anyone seeking a swift solution to the peace process would strengthen the intractability of the process while also fortifying barriers to progress.

The impact of all of this is that President Obama’s rhetoric promotes a process in which it is not possible to achieve peace. This path also ratchets up criticism of Israel while granting Israel no possible way to alleviate it or counter it. Fortunately for Israel, sticks and stones can break bones, but words get vetoed in the UN. There is also a concern about delegitimization and that is the great task of Israel advocates, a challenge posed by the current situation.

Meanwhile, so long as the American President, now and into the future, supports the security of Israel with deeds, the real impact of words will be limited. Thus far, President Obama has vetoed anti-Israel measures in the UN and not only maintained, but increased military aid to Israel, including granting extra funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile systems that have already proven effective in Israel’s defense.

One can certainly criticize other aspects of the President’s policies and deeds in the Middle East and their impact upon Israel is also potentially problematic, but in this article I only wanted to address the specific issue of the 67 lines.

While criticism of the President’s words is certainly appropriate (just FYI, I have criticized every President’s words to some extent regarding Israel since Bush 41 and was too young to do so before that), we need to remember that under this administration America continues to stand by its staunch ally in the Middle East and that in spite of public disagreements between the leaders of the nations, the relationship between Israel and the United States on the whole is extremely strong. The Congress is quite possibly more strongly supportive of Israel at this point in time than it ever has been before.

Now, if only we could fix the economy and break our dependence upon foreign oil…

Over the past few years the changes to the city have run counter to the peace process. Attempts to exclusively emphasise the Jewish identity of the city threaten its religious diversity and radicalise the conflict, with potential regional and global repercussions.”

Sure, why should you emphasize the fact that EAST Jerusalem was the site of the First and Second Temples, the Jewish Quarter, and the heart of Judaism? Just because it is? Stupid Israelis. Don’t you know that Israel’s history started in 1948?

Obama is not throwing Israel under the bus—yet: Hillary Clinton said pretty clearly that the U.S. won’t be voting for any UN resolution declaring Palestinian statehood.

… we continue to believe strongly that New York is not the place to resolve the long-standing conflict and outstanding issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We do not think that that is a productive path for the Palestinians or anyone to pursue. The Palestinians are aware of our position as are everyone else. But we also believe that a concerted effort to enable the parties to return to negotiations that will permit them to make progress together is in everyone’s interests.

I know that many of my readers think Obama is going to allow the resolution. I don’t. There’s already a report that a resolution condemning “settlements” will be vetoed. He has to do business with the members of his own party, many of whom are much stronger supporters of Israel than he. Not gonna happen during this term. God help us, however, if he gets re-elected. It’s the lame duck Obama term that terrifies me.

Another blood libel proven false: And the world media will not rush to send out this story, which states that Palestinian malpractice killed the woman who was near the Bilin protest and collapsed. It doesn’t matter. Once again, the media rush to judgment against Israel has done its job, and we will be hearing about the “martyred activist” instead of the woman who died of an overdose of chemo medications.

Why? Israel wouldn’t accept it and Abbas knows that.

The alternatives to PA control of the West Bank are Hamas control of the West Bank which would be worse for Abbas and the PA than they would be for Israel (that’s really bad) or anarchy which would endanger even Hamas. In either situation, Israel would be much more likely to engage militarily and then withdraw than it would to remain in full occupation. In other words, Abbas is stuck in power while lacking even the power to abdicate. He has one real choice which he is doing everything in his power to avoid making, namely to concede enough to Israel in the peace process that Israel can help him and the Palestinian people as a whole out of the current predicament. No one else can help. The process is stuck not because of Israeli refusal to make concessions, but because of Abbas’s refusal to make the concessions that must be made.

This isn’t rocket science. There is an obvious need for a paradigm shift in the thought process of the Palestinian Leadership from one of “How do we achieve what we failed to achieve in 1948?” namely to eliminate Israel or even “How do we achieve what we all rejected in 1949?” namely a state based upon the pre-1967 borders to “How do we create something resembling a state today based upon the changes that have occurred since 1948, 1967, 1973, 1993, 2000, 2005 and 2009?” which is what must be done.

The following are basic realities that have been rejected by the Palestinians thus far and will need to be taken into account for a state for the Palestinians to have a chance to come to fruition.

1. The “Right of Return” to Israel for Palestinians to Israel isn’t an option. It isn’t an act of peace, but is an act of war. Restitution is the only option for those refugees. In fact, restitution is the only option for the vast majority of refugees who would theoretically be able to return to a Palestinian state, but not to Israel (refugees from the 1967 war). Any future Palestinian state could not possibly support a dramatic increase in population for decades, if ever, so even a “return” to a Palestinian state post negotiations isn’t a viable option. To be honest, Israel couldn’t support such a bump in population either, even if it didn’t result in an immediate civil war, which it would. There will be no substantial return of refugees to either Israel or to a future Palestinian state.

2. The western, northern, and southern borders of the West Bank are not really issues, as they could be solved easily with territorial exchanges, with the exception of two issues. First, Jerusalem and second, other large Arab population centers currently within Israel. I’ll address those in a moment.

3. There is no chance that Israel could or would concede a large portion of the Old City to the Palestinians and there is little doubt that most of the residents of the Old City would NOT wish to become citizens of a Palestinian state. They are far better off as citizens of Israel and have said as much. A UN vote granting the pre-1967 border would go against their wishes. Yes, they want a Palestinian state to be created, but they do not want to live in it. This is much like those American Jews who are strong advocates for Israel but have no desire to make aliyah any time soon.

4. There is no chance that Israel could concede free and secure access to the Western Wall and the City of David for Jews which essentially means that it must maintain control over the vicinity of Temple Mount and Silwan as well as maintaining security control over the Mount of Olives to the East of the Temple Mount.

5. Israel is not going to allow the Mount Scopus Campus of Hebrew University to once again become cut off from Jews, which means that Israel will maintain a contiguous territory connecting an area North and East of the Old City with West Jerusalem, no matter what other areas it might consider allowing to become part of a future Palestinian state.

6. Places such as Um-al-Fahem, the large Arab village in the Galilee on the Israeli side of the Green Line would make some sense to place on the Palestinian side of the border after a peace agreement, but just as in #3 above, most of its residents would rather maintain Israeli citizenship than to become Palestinian citizens even though they might advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state. The PA might want this village, a prosperous Arab center, as part of the Palestinian state and no few Israeli Jews would be happy to oblige, but if the residents’ opinions matter, it will remain an Israeli city.

7. There will be significant shifts of populations after any peace agreement as settlements in the midst of a future Palestinian state will likely be abandoned. Compensation will need to be made in these cases as well. Restitution for Jews from Arab lands will be a consideration, but unless the discussions expand and become one between Israel and the Arab world, this issue would not be relevant as the Palestinians as such would have no responsibility to offer compensation to those refugees.

8. Israel cannot possibly allow either the Palestinians or an international force to control the Eastern border with Jordan. International forces have proven grossly and dangerously ineffective at stopping weapons smuggling in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, etc…. No Arab forces could be trusted to prevent the importation of weaponry to those whom they would almost certainly consider their allies. Hence, Israel will need to maintain supervision over the Eastern border of the West Bank indefinitely or it will not be able to make any other concessions.

9. There is no desire on the part of the Arab world to increase its Jihad, its struggle, against Israel and in fact there is significant impetus to improve relations with Israel without it resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. This is demonstrable from the Wikileaks documents.

10. Gaza cannot be a part of discussions until Hamas is removed from power because the Palestinian Authority does not speak for the people of Gaza. Current discussions should involve the West Bank alone.

11. The 1967 border was considered “noticeably insecure” and all previous discussions of UNSC Resolution 242 indicate that whatever border results from a settlement of that conflict must be secure. The understanding from the Western perspective, notably not from the Arab perspective, is that UNSCR 242 meant that Israel would not be asked to turn over all of the land captured in the 1967 war. The Arab world has always interpreted UNSCR 242 to mean exactly that Israel must turn over all of that land. The US does not believe Israel must do so, but also does not wish to define the border because to do so would undoubtedly upset the Arab world or Jewish and many Christian voters in America depending upon which side the administration chose to support. An abstention is the same as a vote in favor of the Arab side on this issue. Hence, the US has no choice but to veto and to demand that borders be settled by the two sides through negotiations. This is exactly what the US is currently doing.

12. While they may make pronouncements in the United Nations, in Arab League meetings, or to the press in general to the contrary, a final settlement of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not in the interest of the United States or that of many of the Arab League nations either because of positions they would need to take at that stage or because of consequences that would almost certainly follow such as turning hundreds of thousands of refugees into citizens of their states.

There are certainly more considerations that could be listed here. I simply came up with twelve significant ones. Any discussion of peace or of the creation of a Palestinian state that does not take these factors into account, if not many others as well, is not realistic.

Mr. President — You have inspired me with your commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I urge you to take the next step toward realizing that goal by focusing on a “Borders and Security First” approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that moves beyond just talk towards tangible progress in defining and implementing a two-state solution.

My good friend, Rabbi Micky Boyden from Hod Hasharon, Israel, gave an excellent response to the petition on the We Are For Israel website here. However, he did not comment on J Street’s full policy position upon which this petition is based. This plea to the President is based upon J Street’s misguided policy, found here, in which J Street calls for the United States to impose a solution on borders and security!!! The J Street policy document argues that the two sides must meet their “internationally recognized obligations,” a term by which they seem to mean all prior negotiations and potentially include UN resolutions (they do not explicitly exclude them for certain):

However, the time has come for the United States to put forward a proposal to establish a border and security arrangements.  With a border established, there will be no further need to negotiate over settlement construction. Both Israel and the Palestinians will be able to build where they please within their borders and not beyond.

This is both naive and harmful. It is irresponsible for those who desire peace to go in this direction. In essence, the US would have to

1. Insist on the 1967 lines with some minor territorial changes,
2. Create an international zone in Jerusalem that only the US could possibly police for the indefinite future and could not possibly wish to do so,
3. Ratify Israeli control over territory that the UN doesn’t recognize and the Arab world would vehemently, if not violently, oppose, or
4. Do all three of the the above.

J Street’s position here would result in the complete collapse of the peace process and potentially the Palestinian Authority itself. Functionally, J Street calling for an end to Oslo. Some of us might not like Oslo. Some among us may say that bringing the PLO back was a bad idea. However, I cannot imagine that J Street itself would wish to end Oslo and collapse the Palestinian Authority. They keep arguing how wonderful Abbas is? See here. Yet J Street’s policy would bring about just that end:

• The end of the Oslo process,
• Potentially the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,
• A new intifada, this time against the United States as well as Israel (the US would have sided with Israel in granting Israel more than the 1967 border as such and in not granting all of pre-1967 Jerusalem to the Palestinians), and
• No gains on the peace front either between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and the Arab world, or the US and the Arab world. Things might even significantly worsen because the United States would take a position opposed by the Arab world and even by the broader Muslim world.

What would the Palestinians and broader Arab world say if the United States proposed to allow Israel to control the Old City? What would the Arab world say if the United States proposed to control the Old City itself? Can you imagine the conflicts in law that would occur between US law, international law, Sharia and the Halakhah over the holy sites? Are you kidding me??? The last foreign power that tried to govern these sites, Britain during the Mandatory Period, was attacked by both Jews and Arabs. I cannot imagine that this solution would prove to be any different. If Amir was willing to kill Rabin, how many crazies would carry out attacks against US soldiers? How many Hamas attacks, especially now that Hamas is allied with Iran, would take place? How many more Muslim radicals would target Americans around the world? For the US to grant Israel control over the Old City or to claim control over the Old City itself would be an utter nightmare and would destroy US-Israel relations as well as significantly harm US-Arab and US-Muslim relations. To call this a horrible policy would not begin to scratch the surface.

I assume to this point that the US would not simply grant the Palestinians control over the Old City, but let us assume that such an idea were to be proposed by the US. A US proposal that removed access to the Jewish holy sites in the Old City or in any way restricted them would likely end discussions between the US and Israel until a President more favorable to Israeli control of those sites took office. Should the US try to force through a solution in the UN that is opposed by Israel, it would destroy the US-Israel relationship and would do so with limited or no political gain. Would Saudi Arabia be a closer ally of America if America went that route? No. Would Egypt? No. Jordan? No. So why even consider it?

J Street makes sure to exclude the Old City from these initial border discussions probably because of the very problems discussed above, but if one must resort to settling the far easier disagreement through US intervention, surely the Old City and the holiest sites must be addressed that way as well, namely through an imposed solution.

Should the Obama Administration go this route, it will not only fail to bring peace but will wreak havoc in the region. The US would be far better off letting go of the peace process entirely, totally ignoring it, rather than going this route. J Street’s policy here is terrible in the extreme.

Adler is one of 2,000 Jews who reside in predominantly Arab neighborhoods in the heart of east Jerusalem, part of a movement that aims to ensure Israel’s hold on the sector, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state.

Revved up by the Obama administration’s latest attempts to limit Jewish encroachment in disputed areas of the holy city, they are working furiously to cement and expand their presence.

Adler believes her neighborhood, which Palestinians call Silwan and Jews call the City of David, was where the biblical King David once walked and is the heart of Israel’s historic capital. She is willing to brave the occasional rock-throwing and rioting that erupt in the sector – sometimes sparked by Jewish expansion moves – to remain in the place she believes is so tied to Jewish history.

Note the dismissal of the proven Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem, not to mention the archeological proof that keeps being dug up by Israeli (and non-Israeli) archeologists. Jews “call” the neighborhood the City of David? Um. It was.

The AP passes along uncritically the Palestinian claim to the eastern half of the city, ignoring the fact that Jerusalem was divided in the first place because the Arabs were attacking Jews who lived in both sections of the city until 1948.

Palestinian residents are bitter because they say they feel they are being pushed off their land.

“It’s not enough that they have west Jerusalem, they need the whole city,” said Musa Alawi, an Arab resident of east Jerusalem who owns a falafel shop across the street from the Jewish housing in Ras al-Amud.

And yet, there are many, many Palestinians in west Jerusalem, but the reverse doesn’t seem to hold that they should leave “Jewish west Jerusalem.”

Here is the only hint in the article of the Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem, and it comes near the very end:

In another neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli police acting on a court order evicted Palestinian families and allowed Jewish settlers to move into their homes, which had been owned by Jews before Israel’s independence in 1948. Palestinians cannot similarly reclaim lost property in the city’s western sector.

A piece of Palestinian propaganda, brought to you by the AP. And you know what’s the worst thing about the article? It was written by a Jew.

When the Obama administration launches indirect peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as early as this weekend, it faces a much more complicated landscape than the Clinton or Bush administrations did, especially in Jerusalem.

In the decade since Israelis and Palestinians came close to a peace deal in 2000, the complexion of Jerusalem, perhaps the most sensitive of all the sticking points, has been altered. Israeli construction is blurring lines between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods, making any bid to share or divide the city even more difficult than in the past.

A battle for sovereignty and international legitimacy is playing out on every hilltop and valley here. And with tens of thousands of new apartments planned for Jews in East Jerusalem — well beyond the 1,600 announced in March during Vice President Biden’s visit here — the potential for construction derailing the new peace negotiations is high.

I’m sorry but Israel and the Palestinian were not “close” to a peace deal in 2000. Yasser Arafat rejected the deal. But why should the Palestinians be rewarded for rejecting the deal? It the Palestinians can reject any deal as insufficient, why should Israel be obligatred to cede the same territories for “peace?”

For Israel, the issue of Jerusalem is about not just Jews’ historical claims to the city but also demographic realities. Israelis fret about the Jewish majority of the city declining as the Arab birthrate outpaces that of Jews; by some estimates, the Arab population — which today is about 300,000, or 35 percent of the city’s total — could equal the Jewish population by 2030.

The quailfication of “some estimates” indicate that this is as much as wild guess as anything. There’s good reason to be skeptical of the 2030 estimate however Israel Matzav lays out the concern better.

Some of you may have heard about the corruption scandal known as the Holyland Park, a huge luxury apartment complex built on the site of the former Holyland Hotel, which seems to have gotten its zoning permits only because they bribed just about everyone in sight. What you may not realize is that Jerusalem has had almost nothing but ‘luxury apartments’ built for the last 20 years. Those luxury apartments are purchased by people who live abroad, and they sit empty for the entire year except for the weeks of the Pesach and Sukkot holidays. That’s great if you can afford it, but what it means for Israelis is that there are no apartments we can afford, that the shopkeepers in those neighborhoods have little or no business and that the schools in those neighborhoods have few or no students. On a macro level, it’s been devastating to the city. Housing prices have skyrocketed, and young couples are either living in storage rooms converted to apartments or have left the city altogether. That’s why we’re still fighting an uphill battle to keep Jerusalem Jewish.

There have been two new neighborhoods in the last twenty years in which they housing was (originally at least) affordable: Ramat Shlomo and Har Homa. Both were built in the 1990′s. Those 1,600 apartments that were supposed to be built in Ramat Shlomo were 3-bedroom 2-bathroom starter apartments (according to a weekend JPost article that as far as I can tell is not online yet) that would keep young, Jewish couples in the city. Meanwhile, the Arabs continue to build in Jerusalem without any need for permits. The city is no longer enforcing its own building code when it comes to Arab buildings.

So by ignoring Ramat Shlomo, those ‘Jewish leaders’ are greatly increasing the risk that they will wake up one morning to discover that Jerusalem no longer has a Jewish majority.

(emphasis mine)

As this makes clear, the efforts to prevent Jewish building in Jerusalem are efforts to change the Jewish character of the city. Funny, how it is when Israel does something that the Arabs object, Israel is accused of trying to “change the facts on the ground,” but when the Palestinians do, it’s considered unremarkable (unless Jews try to fight it.)

It’s worth making another point about Post’s article. The portrayal of the requirement to share Jerusalem as being essential to peace is predicated on three assumptions 1) that there is a historical Arab claim to Jerusalem 2) that resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw from all territories it captured in 1967 and 3) that it is workable.

Daniel Pipes has written extensively on the ties between Muslims and Jerusalem. After observing that Jerusalem was not once mentioned in the Koran Pipes observes:

Why did two surveys of American Muslims find Jerusalem their most pressing foreign policy issue?

Because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth century Countercrusade, in the thirteenth century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation.

Dore Gold recently wrote about the assumptions surrounding 242 are wrong:

After the Six-Day War, the architects of UN Security Council Resolution 242 insisted that the old armistice line had to be replaced with a new border. Thus Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the UN admitted at the time: “I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where the troops had to stop.” He concluded: “it is not a permanent border.” His U.S. counterpart, Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, added that “historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the area”; he then added that the armistice lines did not answer that description.

For the British and American ambassadors, at the time, Resolution 242, that they drafted involved creating a completely new boundary that could be described as “secure and recognized,” instead of going back to the lines from which the conflict erupted. President Lyndon Johnson made this very point in September 1968: “It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders.” It is for this reason that Resolution 242 did not call for a full withdrawal from all the territories that Israel captured in the Six Day War; the 1949 Armistice lines were no longer to be a reference point for a future peace process.

Yet in recent years a reverse process has been underway to re-establish the 1949 Armistice line, calling it the 1967 border and sanctifying it as a legitimate international boundary. This is one of the side effects of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which talks about the 1967 lines. The 2003 Road Map introduced a problematic terminology that a peace settlement “ends the occupation that began in 1967.” This was partially offset by the reference to Resolution 242 in the Road Map, as well, with its caveats against a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories and its call for establishing secure

And finally Yaacov Lozowick has looked at other historical efforts to divide cities, and they haven’t worked very well or aren’t really applicable to the Israeli/Palestinian situation. One scenario:

7. Beit Jalla. The peace unravels.

The events of autumn 2000 have seared an irreversible scar on Israeli memory. There are contradictory versions of what really happened, so let’s use the Palestinian narrative. Summer 2000 saw Yasser Arafat heroically resist an Israeli-American attempt to foist unacceptable peace terms on the Palestinians. A few weeks later the talks were renewed, and late in September Arafat visited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at his home; they made a joint phone call to President Clinton to assure him of their commitment to reaching peace. Later that week Ariel Sharon took his walk on the Haram elShariff and all hell broke loose; the El-Aqsa Intifada had begun.

According to this narrative, the violence wasn’t premeditated nor centrally steered. It was the expression of popular anger. Within hours Israeli and Palestinian gunmen were killing each other. By the third day Palestinians were machine-gunning the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo from the nearby town of Beit Jallah.

What if someday, a month or a decade after peace is declared, popular Palestinian frustration again expresses itself in violence? Beit Jallah is a mile from Gilo; Palestinian Abu Tor is – literally – five feet from Jewish Abu Tor. It took the IDF months of military action which included destroying homes in Beit Jallah before the Palestinians desisted from their attacks. Given the terrain in AbuTor, or Beit Safafa and Pat, or Beit Yisrael and Bab el-Zahara – all on the Green Line – the only way to force angry Palestinians to desist from violence would be to conquer the Palestinian part of the city, in brutal house to house combat. Smack in the center of Jerusalem, one of the most sensitive spots on the globe.

There is every reason to expect that this Israeli gesture or that expression will infuriate some Palestinians someday. The leaders may sign a peace document, but the grievances won’t be forgotten, and the refusal to accept the Jews’ fundamental right to a state in their ancestral homeland is axiomatic for the Palestinians. They may grudgingly accept the fact of Israel’s existence, but they will continue to feel it was wrongly foisted upon them; the resulting animosity will not dissipate anytime soon.

While Janine Zacharia, the reporter casts Jewish building in Jerualem as little more than a provocation, the truth is significantly more complicated and not at all guaranteed to bring peace even if Israeli concessions on Jerusalem eventually lead to a signed agreement.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City became moving forests of wooden crosses as Christian pilgrims and clergymen commemorated the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, Good Friday.

Black-robed nuns filed past metal barriers erected by police as dozens of tourists in matching red baseball hats held up digital cameras. Some pilgrims carried elaborately carved crucifixes, while others had crude crosses made of two planks held together with tape.

Good Friday rituals center on the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried before his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Compare this to Egypt’s recent restoration of the Maimonides synagogue. It was for show only. Jews were not allowed to pray in it during Passover.

Amid the crush of Christians from all over the world, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in black tried to make his way along the crowded street by pressing against one of the walls. Jews are currently celebrating the weeklong spring holiday of Passover, and thousands of Jewish pilgrims and tourists were also in the Old City.

In addition, Muslims were holding weekly Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, located in a compound they call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount.

What’s the argument used to bolster the “Jerusalem should be an international city” claim? That all three faiths should have access to their holy sites.

Under Israeli stewardship, they already do.

Update: Welcome, Hot Air readers. And an early happy Easter to you.

Jewish nationalists and Palestinians clashed in an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday after the Israelis took over a house by court order in a predominantly Arab area. The confrontation further strained tensions in this contested city, where competing Israeli and Palestinian claims have become a sticking point in the Obama administration’s efforts to restart peace talks.

Naturally, the UN condemned Israel:

The United Nations said in a statement on Tuesday that the “secretary general has expressed his dismay at the continuation of demolitions, evictions and the installment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.”

“Provocative actions such as these,” it continued, “create inevitable tensions, undermine trust, often have tragic human consequences and make resuming negotiations and achieving a two-state solution more difficult.”

The Times provides some background:

The Kurds’ home is adjacent to a site held by Jews to be the ancient tomb of Shimon Hatzadik, or Simeon the Just, a Jewish high priest from the days of the Second Temple. A Jewish organization reclaimed the land around the tomb based on property deeds that date from the 1870s. The Palestinians say the deeds were forged.

The Palestinians’ homes were built in the 1950s by a United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees when the area was under Jordanian control. The families say that Jordan gave them ownership of the houses but that the homes were never formally registered in their names.

The Jerusalem Post adds a few more details:

A large number of homes in the neighborhood that belonged to Jews before 1948, were seized by the Jordanian government under its Enemy Property Law when Jordan occupied the area from 1948 to 1967.

In 1956, 28 Palestinian families who had been receiving refugee assistance from UNRWA, were selected to benefit from a project in which they forfeited their refugee aid and moved into homes built on “formerly Jewish property leased by the Custodian of Enemy Property to the Ministry of Development.”

The agreement stipulated that the ownership of the homes was to be put in the families’ names – a step that never took place – and court battles between Jewish groups that represent some of the former Jewish homeowners and the current Palestinian residents have been going on, in some cases, since the 1980s.

So then, this neighborhood was taken by force from Jews by Jordanians. Israeli Jews go to court to restore the property to Jewish ownership and the UN objects? I thought that the UN subscribed to:

… the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war

Or is that just a convenient formulation that really means “we object to Israel winning wars but we don’t mind when Jews are forcibly removed from their homes?”

Israelly Cool observes:

The UN has been marking as a day of mourning the day on which it recommended partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.
…
Need I say any more?

Related: Snapped Shot wonders if “scuffle” includes viciously beating someone with construction material?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

It is one of the most watched pieces of real estate in the world, 35 acres where an under-the-breath prayer or a whiff of a rumor can rouse warnings of war.

In both Judaism and Islam, the area known respectively as the Temple Mount and the Noble Sanctuary is considered a formative location. Jews believe it to be the site of Solomon’s Temple and key biblical events. Muslims regard it as the spot where Muhammad was brought by the angel Gabriel before embarking on a trip to heaven to visit the other prophets.

It also remains a flash point, and a series of disturbances there this fall showed just how difficult it will be for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on an area over which they negotiate not just as political entities but also as representatives of two faiths with an often-troubled relationship.

I wish he were stronger in terms of the Jewish claim. Archaeology has confirmed the Temple. It’s more than just a Jewish “belief.”

However later on there are a few things that bother me.

If the Palestinians “want to let go of an area in the West Bank, no one from the outside is going to say anything,” said Abdul Fattah Salah, Jordan’s minister of religious affairs. “But when it comes to Jerusalem, they can’t. It is tied to all Muslims.” The Jordanian ministry employs 500 people who staff the Jerusalem compound.
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Salah said the hope is that if part of Jerusalem becomes the capital of a Palestinian state, Muslims from any country will be able to begin visiting a site where it is considered a special blessing to pray — access that he said Israel is unlikely to grant if it maintains sole sovereignty over the city.

First of all, Schneider lets stand the exaggerated claim of the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem. Yes Jerusalem is holy to Muslims, but for much of Islamic history Jerusalem was ignored. Even the Crusades aroused little interest at first. This leads Daniel Pipes to conclude:

First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; “belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem,” Sivan rightly concludes, “cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam.” Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

The other point Schneider should have challenged Salah on was his claim that until Jerusalem becomes part of a Palestinian state, Muslims from around the world won’t be able to visit it. I expect that Muslims from Arab countries that are hostile to Israel won’t be able to visit Jerusalem easily. So there is a solution. Make peace with Israel. (And of course the Jordanian doesn’t acknowledge that when his country ruled the Old City, Jews were forbidden from visiting their holy site!)

And then at the end of the article Schneider writes:

Given recent history, the fall riots were viewed by some here as a cause for optimism. They were on a comparatively small scale, led to no deaths on either side and, after a tense period from Yom Kippur through late October, appear to have dissipated without consequence.

Far worse has happened: Dozens of people died in 1996 in clashes that erupted after access was opened for tourists to a tunnel that ran on an ancient street alongside the wall. And a visit to the area by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2000 helped trigger the multi-year uprising known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Let’s give a little more detail as to what happened in 1996 and 2000. Barry Rubin recently recalled:

In 1996, the Israeli government opened a tunnel which tourists could walk through and see certain features of the ancient wall and Jerusalem. Rumors that the Jews were trying to destroy the mosques were orchestrated by the Palestinian leadership with many lives lost and the peace process placed in jeopardy. As a result, too, 85 Palestinians and 16 Israelis were killed, and more than 1,300 people–mostly Palestinians–were wounded, a terrible bloodshed for no rational reason whatsoever.

In 2000, a brief tour of the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon—he merely walked through for about an hour, looked around, and then left—was the rationale used to set off an intifada that lasted for about five years and cost several thousand lives.

Afterward, Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fatah on the West Bank, described in detail how he used this as an excuse to set off the uprising. This violence took place about the time that President Bill Clinton, with Israeli agreement, proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state which would, among other things, control most of east Jerusalem.

Schneider uses “erupted” and “triggered” to describe how the violence started in those circumstances. But in both cases as Prof. Rubin observed, the violence was incited. Worse in 2000, the Arafat-PA orchestrated violence came after rejecting a peace offer that would have given the Palestinians significant control over the Temple Mount.

Left unsaid by Schneider and unfortunately not even implicit in his article is that there’s no peace in the Middle East, because the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically, refuse to make peace with Israel. Jerusalem might well be a sticking point, but it’s because the Arab world has chosen to make it one, rejecting any compromises with Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.