Jerusalem: The Biography

This eschatological–political intensity places twenty-first-century Jerusalem, Chosen City of the three faiths, in the crosshairs of all these conflicts and visions. Jerusalem’s apocalyptic role may be exaggerated but this unique combination of power, faith and fashion, all played out under the hothouse glare of twenty-four-hour TV news, heaps the pressure on to the delicate stones of the Universal City, again, in some ways, the centre of the world.

‘Jerusalem is a tinderbox that could go off at any time,’ warned King Abdullah II of Jordan, great-grandson of Abdullah the Hasty, in 2010. ‘All roads in our part of the world, all the conflicts, lead to Jerusalem.’ This is the reason that American presidents need to bring the sides together even at the most inauspicious moments. The peace-party in Israeli democracy is in eclipse, its fragile governments dominated by overmighty religious-nationalist parties while there is no single Palestinian entity, no stable, democratic interlocutor. If Fatah’s West Bank is increasingly prosperous, the most dynamic Palestinian organization is the fundamentalist Hamas, which rules Gaza and remains dedicated to Israel’s annihilation. It embraces suicide bombings as its weapon of choice and periodically fires missiles onto southern Israel, provoking Israeli incursions. Europeans and Americans regard it as a terrorist organization and so far conciliatory signals of a willingness to support a settlement based on 1967 borders have been mixed.

The history of the negotiations since 1993, and the difference in spirit between noble words and distrustful, violent acts, suggest unwillingness on both sides to make the necessary compromises to share Jerusalem permanently. At the best of times, the reconciliation of the celestial, national and emotional in Jerusalem is a labyrinthine puzzle: during the twentieth century, there were over forty plans for Jerusalem which all failed, and today there are at least thirteen different models just for sharing the Temple Mount.

In 2010, President Obama forced Netanyahu, back in power in coalition with Barak, to freeze Jerusalem settlement-building temporarily. At the cost of the bitterest moment in US–Israeli relations, Obama at least got the two sides to talk again, though progress was glacial and short-lived.

Israel has often been diplomatically rigid and risked its own security and reputation by building settlements, but the latter are negotiable. The problem on the other side seems equally fundamental. Under Rabin, Barak and Olmert, Israel offered to share Jerusalem, including the Old City. Despite exasperating negotiations during two decades of peace talks up to 2010, the Palestinians have never yet agreed to share the city.

Jerusalem may continue for decades in its present state, but whenever, if ever, a peace is signed, there will be two states, which is essential for the survival of Israel and justice for the Palestinians. The shape of a Palestinian state and a shared Jerusalem is known to both sides. ‘Jerusalem will be the capital for both states, Arab suburbs will be Palestinian, Jewish suburbs will be Israeli,’ said Israeli President Shimon Peres, architect of the Oslo Accords, who knows the picture as well as anyone. The Israelis will get their twelve or so settlements in eastern Jerusalem, following the parameters set by Clinton, but the Palestinians will be compensated with Israeli land elsewhere, and Israeli settlements will be removed from most of the West Bank. So far so simple, ‘but the challenge,’ explains Peres, ‘is the Old City. We must distinguish between sovereignty and religion. Everyone would control their own shrines but one can hardly slice the Old City into pieces.’

The Old City would be a demilitarized Vatican, policed by joint Arab-Israeli patrols or an international trustee, perhaps even a Jerusalemite version of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards. The Arabs might not accept America, the Israelis distrust the UN and the EU, so perhaps the job could be done by NATO with Russia, which is once again keen to play a role in Jerusalem.^* It is hard to internationalize the Temple Mount itself because no Israeli politician could totally surrender any claim to the Foundation Stone of the Temple and live to tell the tale, while no Islamic potentate could acknowledge full Israeli sovereignty over the Noble Sanctuary and survive. Besides, international or free cities, from Danzigto Trieste, have usually ended badly.