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| Holy city: Israelis and Palestinians both insist on having Jerusalem as their capital. Dan Balilty/AP |
Israel puts Jerusalem on the negotiating table
Ahead of an international peace summit, leaders say some areas could be ceded to the Palestinians.
from the November 6, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
In kind, keeping Jerusalem an undivided city has long been a key facet of most mainstream Israel political parties' platforms.
Throughout the 1980s, Israel continued to expand the "Jerusalem envelope," as it is dubbed, building several large Jewish neighborhoods wedged between existing Palestinian ones. The prevalent Israeli theory at the time was that this would strengthen Jerusalem and prevent the redivision of the city. Over the past five years, Israel has been building the controversial separation wall, which also comes into play: some of the "negotiable" neighborhoods in question are on the Israeli side of the wall. Some Jerusalem residents already have to pass through the wall and its many checkpoints to get to jobs and schools.
Key issue in negotiations
Today, Israelis' fears for the future of the city run the gamut, from maintaining safe access to holy sites and security for
residents of the Jewish quarter to worries that a redivision of the city could put downtown
Jerusalem neighborhoods in the range of Palestinian militants' rockets. [Editor's note: The original version incorrectly stated the status of the West Bank.]
Still, a key part of the drive for Israeli-Palestinian détente is to find an equitable solution for Jerusalem.
In a poll issued last year by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, 39 percent of Palestinians supported and 59 percent opposed a compromise in which East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state, with Arab neighborhoods coming under Palestinian sovereignty and Jewish neighborhoods coming under Israeli sovereignty. Among Israelis, the survey noted, about 38 percent would agree and 60 percent would disagree with such an arrangement.
Indeed, the traditional red lines in the Jerusalem debate are shifting a bit. One of the most right-wing members of the Israeli cabinet, Strategic Affairs minister Avigdor Lieberman, said he will not oppose a plan to turn some Arab neighborhoods over to the control of the PA. But he also warned this week that he will withdraw his party from Olmert's government, denying it a majority, unless there is "a complete end to all Palestinian terrorist activities" before the start of the Annapolis summit.
Secret talks reportedly yield agreement
The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that two veterans in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, have been meeting secretly and have reached a document agreeable to both sides that lays out possible solutions to the conflict. In it, Palestinians showed a willingness to be flexible on their historic claim to a "right of return" to houses that are now inside Israel proper, accepting instead a mixed solution that would include some refugees returning to the Palestinian state-to-be, some to Israel, and many other to be resettled in third countries. Israel's outlook showed a willingness to accept the concept to returning to the 1967 borders by doing land swaps, meaning that it would annex settlement blocks but give the Palestinians a tract of land of the same size elsewhere.
Neither side was willing to comment on the report.
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