At a recent Executive Committee meeting of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI) in Washington, D.C., most of one day was spent discussing the current situation in Israel and, as expected, we had committee members on both sides of the debate. Some thought the peace process had gone too far and was endangering Israel’s security. Others felt that the peace process had not gone far enough and was on the verge of collapse, a situation that would endanger Israel’s security. Some felt that the construction at Har Homa was unnecessary and provocative; others felt that due to the critical housing shortage in Jerusalem the construction is necessary and no more provocative than any other action that demonstrates Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. However, no one questioned the Israeli government’s legal right to build at Har Homa.
Our discussion was enlightening for everyone and we all learned from each other’s insights. We came away feeling that we had participated in something good and useful, a feeling that is often missing in discussions today about the Middle East peace process.
In analyzing our experience we realized that it is necessary to respect all views on how the peace process should be implemented because no one, including North American Christians, has the final word on how peace can best be realized between Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East. It is only through respectful dialogue that all ideas can be explored and understanding developed. But dialogue, if it is to be useful, must be based on historical accuracy, not on historical revisionism.
There are words and phrases being used in discussions about the Middle East today that obstruct dialogue and distort reality. NCLCI asserts that any discussion, if it is to be beneficial, must be based on historic and linguistic accuracy.
For example, the phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” suggests that it is a separate municipal entity from Jerusalem, in the same way as East St. Louis is separate from St. Louis. To help support their argument, those who defend the phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” point out that in 1967, “the Jewish population of East Jerusalem . . . stood at zero in 1967” (National Catholic Reporter, April 25, 1997). That is because in the 1948 War of Independence, when the Jordanian army captured the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the ancient walled city, they expelled all Jews who lived or worked there, they also confiscated homes, desecrated graves and ruined 58 synagogues, turning others into chicken coops and stables. In 1967 Israel reunited Jerusalem and the city began to revive and develop again.
Jerusalem is one city made up of a wonderful rich mosaic of peoples, cultures, traditions, religions and languages. In the Old City there are the four quarters that maintain unique Armenian, Arab, Christian and Jewish traditions. What gives the Old City its vitality is that these are not four isolated ghettos but four areas that overlap and, if it were not for the occasional outside interference, coexist peacefully together.
The more modern city of Jerusalem is even more diverse. There are unique neighborhoods throughout the city. The up-scale artistic neighborhood of Yemin Moshe, the historic Russian Compound with its magnificent Cathedral, the ultra-Orthodox community of Mea She’arim, Mt. Scopus with its hospital and university, the Bukharian Quarter, the American Colony built in the nineteenth century and the eastern part of Jerusalem are only a sample of Jerusalem’s rich diversity. To imply that eastern Jerusalem, because of its distinctive Arab character, is a separate entity from Jerusalem makes no more sense than to imply that the Armenian Quarter, because of its own distinct character, should be an independent city.
The phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” implies that it has always been the exclusive Arab area of Jerusalem. The reality is that prior to 1865 the city’s entire population lived in eastern Jerusalem, inside the Old City walls. After 1865, due to the growing population of Jerusalem, both Jews and Arabs began to develop new areas of the city outside of the walls.
Before 1949 there was a flourishing Jewish community in the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem. That part of the city contains all the historic sites of importance to Judaism including the original city of King David, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The original Hadassah Hospital and the first campus of the Hebrew University were on Mt. Scopus – in eastern Jerusalem.
The only time eastern Jerusalem was totally Arab was a brief period from 1949 to 1967 after the Arab world rejected the 1949 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and launched a war to annihilate the newly reborn State of Israel. In that war, Jordan occupied the eastern part of the city and expelled all Jews. However, during those 18 years no Arab nation recognized Jordanian control over “East Jerusalem.”
NCLCI repudiates any suggestion that would ultimately divide or in any way minimize Israeli sovereignty over its capital city, Jerusalem. Use of the phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” does that by implying that there are two Jerusalems, one Arab and one Jewish, an implication that is to be rejected because it is historically false and because it has a malicious intent, which is to deny the city’s history of wholeness.
Jerusalem, except for a brief period of 19 years, has been one city made up of many diverse neighborhoods and peoples. It is important to the healthy future of the city, of Israel and the Middle East that Jerusalem remain undivided under Jewish sovereignty.
* David Blewett is the National Director of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI)
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