The Issue Should Be Negotiated Now

By Muhammad Hallaj

It has been fashionable to describe the question of Jerusalem as "intractable," and it has become a sign of political savvy to argue that postponing it, and other "difficult issues," facilitates the Middle East peace process and improves its chances of ultimate success. In fact, the whole Palestinian-Israeli peace process was designed to accommodate this notion.

From the beginning, the process was divided into two distinct stages, interim and final status, and under the guise of easing the Palestinians and Israelis out of their chronic conflict, "difficult issues," meaning the real problems which fuel the conflict, were bypassed. The Declaration of Principles signed by Israel and the PLO in September 1993 deferred negotiations on Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees, and the fate of Jewish settlements until the second stage. The right of the Palestinians to self-determination, the raison d'étre of their national struggle, is simply ignored.

In short, it has been accepted as conventional wisdom that the peace process needs a few easy victories before it can become sturdy enough to face the real issues. There is deceptive merit in this approach to conflict resolution. In any conflict, evading the difficult issues necessarily improves the chances of making progress for a while. Its rationale is that the parties need a period of confidence building before they can make the necessary substantive compromises on importantissues. It is an approach reminiscent of the concept of a "cooling-off period," which was fashionable in the interwar years when it was believed to be the essence of wisdom in conflict prevention and resolution. Except that it didn't work.

There are several problems with the notion that Jerusalem, being an "intractable" issue, should be postponed if not altogether evaded. First, it is a form of escapism. Saying that Jerusalem is a difficult issue is a euphemism for saying that Israel is intransigent, that it prefers not to negotiate the future of the city and if it must negotiate it refuses to make any concessions, and catering to its wishes is therefore necessary to the viability of the peace talks. Jerusalem is important to Jews and Israelis, but it is also important to Palestinians and Arabs (both Muslims and Christians) and to much of the world community.

In fact, it can be argued that Jerusalem is more important to the Palestinians. In addition to its religious and historic significance, Jerusalem is their largest city. It is the home of one of the most influential Palestinian communities. It is also the historic capital of Palestine, and the major focus of Palestinian cultural, professional and commercial life. Geographically, Jerusalem sits astride the north-south axis of the West Bank. Its removal disrupts Palestinian geographic and demographic coherence.

If it can be argued that because Israel feels strongly about Jerusalem, and for that reason the issue must be evaded or postponed, it can be argued with equal validity that because it is important to the Palestinians, it should be faced and resolved without delay, unless one is to accept the arrogant view that in this world some are more equal than others. If we are engaged in a process of conflict resolution rather than conflict management, we must reject the view that Israeli wishes supersede and override Palestinian rights.

A second problem is the necessity of distinguishing between Jerusalem the historic holy city, and the much larger "political Jerusalem." The latter encompasses much of the territory of the West Bank, which Israel has annexed to its territory. It is also important to distinguish between the right of access to holy places and claims of territorial sovereignty.

By ignoring these distinctions, the question of Jerusalem is made to appear more difficult than it really is. In fact, Israel is exploiting a symbolic issue to justify territorial aggrandizement at the expense of the Palestinians. Israel has every reason to seek a settlement that would secure the right of access to Jewish holy sites. That is entirely different from claiming the right to expand territorial sovereignty in the name of religious sentiment.

A third problem is that Israel's position on Jerusalem violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which it has accepted as a frame of reference for the peace process. Resolution 242 forbids the acquisition of territory by war. It does not recognize "strong feelings" as justification for making exceptions. Israel's refusal to accept the applicability of Resolution 242 to Jerusalem, an interpretation of the resolution that the international community does not share, subverts the resolution and the peace process on which it is based.

One of the most dangerous consequences of postponing the question of Jerusalem is that Israel's settlement activity is bound to make it even less amenable to resolution as time goes on. Postponement makes this issue even more "intractable." Israel has already transplanted as many Jews into Arab Jerusalem as there are Arab residents of the city. And it continues to refuse freezing settlement activity in the Jerusalem area. If the issue is difficult now, it will certainly be more difficult later. To argue, therefore, that postponing it is in the interest of the peace process is disingenuous and misleading. Postponement of the issue is clearly a ruse to entrench a fait accompli.

"As Soon as Possible"

The Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles does not preclude negotiating the Jerusalem issue for two years, as is widely but erroneously believed. The DOP says that the issues deferred to the final status stage, including Jerusalem, should be negotiated "as soon as possible, but no later than the beginning of the third year of the interim period." The Israeli claim that by demanding speedy negotiations over Jerusalem the Palestinians are violating the DOP is false. On the contrary, Israel's claim that Jerusalem cannot be negotiated before two years is a violation of the spirit of the agreement because it denies that which the agreement expressly permits.

Israel's attitude on the matter of Palestinian rights in Jerusalem symbolizes its attitude toward the broader question of Palestinian rights: that the Palestinians have no inherent rights, but only "residual rights" in matters that are peripheral to Israel's field of interests and that Palestinian rights consist of leftovers after Israel's large appetite is satiated. It is an attitude which denies the need for reciprocity on which the future of coexistence depends. Such an attitude puts the future of the peace process in jeopardy, in spite of whatever progress it has achieved so fan The "small victories" can only make the ultimate disappointment that much greater, unless Israel's current efforts to pacify the Palestinians mature into a commitment to make peace with them.

Muhammad Hallaj is director of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, D.C.