Yerushalayim, Al-Quds and the Wizard of Oz: Facing the Problem of Jerusalem After Camp David II and the Al-Aqsa Intifada*
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Yerushalayim, al-Quds and the Wizard of Oz: Facing the Problem of Jerusalem after Camp David II and the al-Aqsa Intifada* Ian S. Lustick In the famous American movie “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy, her three companions, and her dog, brave innumerable dangers to petition the Wizard — the Wizard of Oz — for his help. But although they have believed with full faith in the Wizard’s omniscience and omnipotence, in the movie’s climax they learn the truth. Dorothy’s dog Toto pulls a curtain away from a booth to reveal an old man working controls and shouting into a microphone. The old man is using smoke and mirrors to create an awesome image of “the great and powerful Oz.” The truth, that the wizard is no Wizard, but rather a clever, but weak and desperate man, and that their elaborate beliefs about the Wizard are nothing but fantasy, shocks Dorothy and her friends. But once the fac¸ade of majesty and mystery has been stripped away, they quickly learn that this normal man can actually give them each just exactly what they need — the self-confidence to make practical decisions for themselves and to use the real resources they have to accomplish their goals. The story of Dorothy and the Wizard is the story of reality emerging from behind a sound-and-light show. Considering that nothing has been so emblematic of official Israeli policies towards Yerushalayim as the Hollywood- style sound-and-light show displayed on “King David’s Tower” — a tower, next to the Jaffa Gate, which of course was never King David’s at all — we can see that the story of Dorothy and the Wizard is also very much the story of what has happened to the question of Yerushalayim and al-Quds. The Fetish of Yerushalayim From 1967 on, but in particular since the Begin government’s promulgation of the Basic Law–Jerusalem, Capital of Israel in 1980, almost all Jewish Israeli politicians were constrained to act and speak in accordance with an artfully and seductively contrived fetishization of Yerushalayim and its borders as enlarged in 1967. This project was intended by its wizards to hide the reality of a drastic and bizarre expansion of the city’s municipal boundary to include The Journal of Israeli History, Vol.23, No.2, Autumn 2004, pp.200–215 ISSN 1353-1042 print/ISSN 1744-0548 online DOI: 10.1080/1353104042000282384 q 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd THE PROBLEM OF JERUSALEM AFTER CAMP DAVID II 201 more than 70 square kilometers of land from West Bank Arab villages and to hide as well realities of segregation, discrimination and occupation. A crucial element of this project included the settlement of 200,000 Jews in massive new neighborhoods in expanded East Jerusalem, choking restrictions on Arab building, expulsion campaigns against Arab residents of al-Quds, and severe inequalities in the delivery of municipal services to Jewish versus Arab neighborhoods. Just as important, however, for the fetishization of expanded Yerushalayim in Israeli political discourse were a variety of devices used to implement its psychological, cultural and political intent. These devices included an anthem (Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold”), Jerusalem Day, the Jerusalem Parade, the Jerusalem Covenant, a Jerusalem Ministry, the revival of the cult of the Jerusalem Temple, and the Jerusalem 3000 extravaganza. A not untypical example of this type of elaborately organized expression of political passion was the invitation issued to American Jews to participate in “The Jerusalem Solidarity Encounter.” Sponsored by Ateret Cohanim’s Jerusalem Reclamation Project, American Jews who could not come to Israel to express their devotion to the actual city on Jerusalem Day could pay $500 per couple for a virtual visit. The elaborate show awaiting those ready to buy these tickets was explained in a press release issued in May 2001: The lights dim, a hush settles over the ballroom, giant video screens light up and you are transported to the hubbub and bustle of the El-Al Terminal at JFK airport. “Last call for flight 008 direct to Jerusalem.” The El-Al Pilot welcomes his passengers aboard his plane and with a roar of the engines he takes off, leaving the New York City skyline behind. Within seconds the most picturesque sights in Israel come into view, climaxing in an awesome breathtaking view of the ancient walled Old City of Jerusalem. After landing, you are driven through the streets of Jerusalem and are greeted at the Western Wall by Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. Enter the quarters of the Old City, and meet authentic Modern Day Maccabees — the men, women and children of Ateret Cohanim including Mattityahu (Mati) HaCohen Dan, Rabbi Shlomo HaCohen Aviner and other unique Jerusalem personalities. Visit Prime Minister Sharon in his Old City home. Thrill to an unprecedented visit behind the scenes to see the new high tech Old City Security Control Center in action — never before revealed to the American public — including actual police footage of a firebomb attack on Ateret Cohanim’s newest home in the Old City. “It’s hard to describe the unique mixture of joy and awe which characterizes the special Yom Yerushalayim [ Jerusalem Day] services 202 THE JOURNAL OF ISRAELI HISTORY at Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim,” claims Executive Director Yossi Baumol. You will be there yourself — for the intense prayer of thanks, the joyous dancing and the blowing of the Shofar. The camera will then cut to the streets and alleys of the Old City, filled with people singing and dancing. On Jerusalem Day, in the wee hours of the morning, thousands upon thousands of people, young and old, march down Jaffa Street and enter the Old City through all the gates, converging on the Kotel [ Western Wall] to dance and sing for an hour or two before sunrise prayers begin. You too will join the students of Ateret Cohanim dancing at the Kotel ending with a burst of fireworks over the Old City.1 In part the elaborate celebration of manufactured images, epitomized by this particular event, has been meant to compensate for a timid, jerry-built and unconvincing legal position. In June 1967 the Eshkol government decided not to annex the Jordanian municipality of al-Quds. Under Israeli law this could have been done straightforwardly by using the same statutes employed to annex the Western Galilee into the new state after the 1948 war, and then to incorporate the Little Triangle in June 1949. But the government chose not to annex Arab Jerusalem, nor to declare Israeli sovereignty over the city. There were three reasons for this decision. First, the government feared a coalition crisis with the National Religious Party who would have objected to what would have been an implicit decision not to annex the other portions of the Land of Israel that had been “liberated.” Second, Levi Eshkol and his Cabinet feared a political confrontation at the United Nations and a legal battle at the International Court which it certainly would have lost. Third, it did not want to enfranchise the more than 60,000 Arabs remaining in al-Quds and the portion of the West Bank freshly demarcated as part of “reunited Yerushalayim.” Accordingly, the government adopted a clever but complex ruse. In June 1967 it promulgated a series of amendments to existing legislation and administrative orders. Together they were designed to extend Israel’s law and jurisdiction to a greatly expanded area of East Jerusalem and a gerrymandered swath of its hinterland. The trick was to accomplish this without granting Israeli citizenship to the Arab inhabitants of the affected area and without having officially to declare an act of annexation or sovereignty extension. Only by understanding the extraordinary complexity of these acts can it be appreciated how calculating and definite was the effort to avoid the actual imposition of Israeli sovereignty. Only on that basis, in turn, can one understand the gap that subsequently opened up between the rhetoric of the mythmakers of “reunited Yerushalayim” and the legal, political and practical realities of what may be called “occupation through municipal expansion.” THE PROBLEM OF JERUSALEM AFTER CAMP DAVID II 203 Part of avoiding any clear act of annexation or sovereignty extension was the avoidance of any one act that could be held up to symbolic, legal or political scrutiny. Instead the government of Israel enacted or implemented a series of separate measures — two amendments to pre-existing statutes and one administrative declaration. The desired outcome was to be the effect of the interaction of these separate measures. Neither of the two laws as amended even mentioned Jerusalem. Neither of the two laws, nor the administrative declaration, contained the word “annexation” (sipu’ah)or “sovereignty” (ribonut). First, on 27 June 1967, the Knesset passed an amendment to the “Law and Administration Ordinance” which had been published in the Official Gazette on 22 September 1948. As it stood before this amendment, that Ordinance declared that all laws applying within the State of Israel would apply to “any part of Palestine which the Minister of Defense has defined by proclamation as being held by the Defense Army of Israel.” The 1967 amendment to this ordinance reads as follows: In the Law and Administration Ordinance, 1948, the following section shall be inserted after section IIA: “IIB. The Law, jurisdiction and administration of the state shall apply in any area of Eretz Yisrael designated by the government by order.” Three things are changed here. First, it is not the Minister of Defense that is specifically and solely named as having the power to make the necessary declaration, it is “the government.” Second, no specific importance is attached to the Defense Minister’s designation of an area as “being held by the Defense Army of Israel.” Third, the larger area within which this power is capable of being exercised is within “Eretz Yisrael” rather than “Palestine” (a provision of some semantic but no operative significance).