Urban crisis or opportunity?

The city is in crisis. It has been for a while. I don't mean Jerusalem alone, which through a number of unfortunate measures has been turned into a sprawling ugly duckling. But it may be useful to see Jerusalem's urban crisis not just in the terms of the political conflict between Israel and the Palestinians but in terms that lend themselves to comparison with other urban centers in crisis. Having just returned from a trip to Paris, it became clear to me that Jerusalem is not the only city that struggles with issues of planning, governance and representation, civility, equity, services, education, transportation, sanitation, and other issues of concern to every city, though aggravated where national and municipal concerns intersect and overlap. Jerusalem is a capital city and also the largest urban center within the state. The same is true of Paris, Berlin, and Cairo, for example. Like Paris and Berlin, Jerusalem suffers from sharp ethnic divisions. Unlike Paris, Berlin, or Cairo, however, Jerusalem is a religiously divided capital and urban center, which makes cooperation and commonality of purpose among all of its inhabitants even more difficult to achieve. (Cairo, as swine flu related events reminded us, also continues to harbor an ancient religious divide between Christians and Muslims.)

In the case of Jerusalem, interests of state often interfere with the interests of viable urban development. But is this not also true in the erstwhile capitals of empires that have been confronted with large minorities of people who have every right to live and thrive among the historic majority, and for understandable reasons refuse to assimilate or integrate nationally, ethnically, or linguistically? Many cities around the world face similar problems in this post-colonial age.

There is an almost universal change in the role and character of cities: cities have become the location of civilizational conflict; they are the places where post-colonial societies struggle to find peaceful ways of coexistence. There are interesting medieval models that suggest that different religious and ethnic groups can get along just fine, as long as that is the goal of a central government or power. Meanwhile, the age of nationalism has given us models that are definitely not to be emulated further. The nation state with its endemic desire for homogeneity cannot help resolve the modern urban crisis because it produced it.

Jerusalem's place as world heritage site and as a city holy to the three Abrahamic traditions should be a testing ground for creative and innovative solutions. Its diverse populations should be encouraged to participate in cooperative and constructive ways of achieving a modus vivendi that is favorable to all without favoring any. Where else but in Jerusalem, where all of us feel responsible, should we expect to make significant progress on how to build the new city, a place where plurality can be an asset rather than a liability? Wouldn't this be in the spirit of our religious traditions, too?

Is Compromise on Jerusalem good for everyone or only for the Palestinians?

In a comment, reported in today's Haaretz, Abbas Zaki, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to Lebanon, is quoted as saying that a compromise on Jerusalem and settlements in Judea and Samaria would amount to a demise of Zionism's "dream." Verbatim: "With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People?"

This is a very puzzling thing for a Palestinian statesman to say. Though he might think so, clearly, saying it in public amounts to providing ideological support to the hardliners in Israel.

Setting aside for now who said it and why, Zaki's musings raise a profound question, namely, whether compromise on the question of sovereignty over the Holy City can be a good thing not just for the Palestinians but also for the Israelis.

Some may remember the dictum by Moshe Dayan who, in June 1967, famously dismissed the Old City, just captured from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, by asking "What good is this whole Vatican?" (Sounds better in Hebrew, but the meaning is clear.) Israel existed for two decades before East Jerusalem was captured. While West Bank, Sinai, and the Golan Heights all had strategic importance (security, bargaining chips), Jerusalem had important symbolic importance. Gaza only constituted a headache and no one in Israel (or in Egypt) wanted to hold on to one of the most densely populated Arab areas of Palestine anyway. It never was part of the vision of a Greater Israel, even among those who, like Menachem Begin and his ideological heirs, were interested in holding on to the West Bank areas forever.

What I am saying is that Mr. Zaki is wrong. If a reasonable compromise can be achieved between all parties and once security is no longer an issue, then of course Israel, a Jewish state with or without a significant Arab minority, neither needs to control the West Bank nor exert sovereignty over East Jerusalem. It existed without it before and it can exist without it again in the future. Any negotiated settlement would need to include free Jewish access to the Western Wall and control of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, but neither Zionism, nor the idea of a Jewish state, nor Israel's flourishing in cultural, economic, social and political terms depend on Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif or even on whether or not all of the village of Silwan is turned into a Jewish history museum. None of this really matters. While maximal and total control of what two thousand years ago may have been the gem of Jewish life seems desirable and legitimate to some, Zionism does not necessarily consist in a striving to restore the ancient system of priestly rule and biblical sacrifices. In fact, this is a distortion of Zionism's original goals. There are different Zionisms. The vision of a restoration of the ancient Jewish way of life is odious to many Jews and Israelis. It is an absurd and dangerous religious idea, which should be resisted not just by Palestinians but by all reasonable people.

But make no mistake, Mr. Zaki. Even seventy years after Reichskristallnacht, we are not likely to give an inch when it comes to the right and legitimacy of a Jewish state. We will defend it with our blood.