It was a busy Friday. Besides my New York Review of Books essay on 1948, my new piece also went up at The American Prospect. This is an on-the-ground report on construction projects in Jerusalem designed to erase the Clinton parameters for peace:
So far, the bulldozers have carved a large hole in the chalky hillside for foundations. On the street, a developer’s sign shows a picture of three multifloor apartment buildings that will rise on the site. The name of the developer, Bemuna, is written in Hebrew and means “in faith.”
A lot of work will have to be completed on this site before we start to see any glimpses of a building. The construction company will have to make sure that they have enough building site security in the meantime as there could be a lot of expensive equipment lying around, and anything that goes missing could cause some disruption to the entire process. And this would not benefit the residents in the area. Construction sites also need to be sure that health and safety are as tight as possible too. This will prevent any accidents or injuries from occurring. Construction sites should really look to get some health and safety signage put up to make sure workers are aware of any potential hazards. This should ensure work can be completed quickly as fewer accidents should occur. Construction sites should also be using functioning equipment to help workers do their jobs. For example, a lot of construction workers will have things to do on higher points of the building. To make sure they can all reach these points on the building, some construction sites use mobile platforms from Platforms and Ladders to help workers get closer to the area they need to complete work in. Perhaps more construction sites should consider this. Additionally, with safety signs and workers all wearing safety equipment, there should be an even lower chance of accidents occurring. Each construction worker will need to have different health and safety equipment, so it’s vital that construction sites make sure their workers are wearing the appropriate gear. For example, any on-site welders will need to make sure they’re wearing welding safety gloves to keep their hands safe from the sparks and power tools that they’ll be using. Health and safety equipment is created for a reason, so it’s important that construction site workers do use this equipment.
The company’s Web site says the project is located in East Talpiot — one of the Jewish neighborhoods that Israel built after it annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. That’s a stretch, as I found when I visited the building site this week. The hole in the ground is surrounded by the houses of Arab a-Sawahra, a Palestinian neighborhood that borders East Talpiot. Once completed, the buildings will be three emphatic statements of Jewish presence in the neighborhood, three declarations that a political border can’t be easily drawn between Arab and Jewish areas of the city.
Bemuna’s project is not an isolated case. The first stage of the Nof Zion ( Zion View) development looks ready for buyers to move in. In one of the buildings, I found names written in English on two of 15 mailboxes in the lobby; the rest were still blank. Nof Zion is being marketed to Orthodox Jews from abroad. On the marketing Web site, a drawing {link: }of the full project shows that it will include a synagogue and a country club. But the project is inside Jabel Mukaber, another Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
These projects, and many more, should be of very deep concern to Barack Obama as he prepares for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to Washington…
Read the rest here, and feel free to return to SoJo to comment (reasonably, as if sipping kafe hafukh in a South Jerusalem cafe with a friend).
Without more detailed maps it’s impossible to form a more intelligent opinion of the projects. I’ve seen Nof Zion, though, and it certainly is in an odd location. Nof Zion is currently very small.
I don’t see how any of these projects could be effective in erasing any “Peace Parameters”. At most, they are tweaking borders.
I’m with fred. As for contextualizing this move within the “peace parameters”, I’m of the opinion that the Clinton parameters were rendered void by the Palestinian decision to launch a wave of violence and outright denial of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, etc.
I don’t think peace is served by maintaining the 2000 parameters as sacrosanct in perpetuity while the Palestinians decide whether they want to launch another offensive or not.
There have to be consequences to their rejectionism. Clinton spoke of redrawing Jm to reflect the 2000 realities over the 1949-67 ones. In that spirit, it’s time to understand that the realities of 2000 do not necessarily apply in 2009.
Whether that pertains to this particular example of “East Talpiot” I do not know. Personally, as per Mirsky’s ‘One Day in Jerusalem’, the city’s becoming less relevant to my world anyway.
Dave is correct. After all, your very own Yedidya Congregation is located on what was Arab land in Jerusalem, yet I don’t see any “progressives” demanding that be given back to the Arabs. Same with the land the Knesset is on, which belonged to the Sheikh Bader Arab village. Times change, and things move on.
Does this mean you’ll be calling for those Palestinian families who have purchased homes in East Talpiot (ostensibly a “Jewish neighborhood”) to move out? Or for the Jewish denizens of Baka and Katamon to return their Arab villages to the Palestinians?
This is silly. As long as the Palestinians stall on making any real commitment to a two-state solution, one Jewish and one Palestinian (and Moslem, according to Hamas) then there is no peace agreement, no borders, and empty land is up for grabs. (Don’t you wonder who sold that land to the developers/ILA in the first place?)
Why do Jews living in potentially Palestinian areas raise such an outcry yet Arabs living in Israel do not? Could it be, uh, that the Palestinian’s racist demand that Palestine be Judenrein is the problem?
BTW, Arab A Sawahra isn’t any older than the Old Yishuv–it was given by the Ottomans to the Sawahra Beduin in an effort to curb banditry.
The difference, as I see it, is that polls show that the Palestinian Arabs living within the Green Line who are Israeli citizens largely want to remain that way in the event of a two-state solution. Somehow, I doubt the residents of Nof Zion—or the West Bank settlements for that matter—envision themselves as future Palestinian citizens.
I believe the idea of moving Israeli Arabs into a Palestinian state is a Lieberman innovation, not part of the U.S. notion of a two state solution at all. So I find Raghav’s comment that the “polls show … Israeli citizens largely want to remain that way” to be a bit strange, why shouldn’t they want to remain citizens? The American idea is not Partition a la India 1947, where millions are expected to move across new borders by a given deadline. After partition India retained a large Muslim population, cultural pluralism, and democracy. Why should Israeli Arab citizens be evicted as a consequence of a Palestinian state?
Nevertheless the need for new parameters is clear. President Clinton and Arafat are gone from the negotiations. Trying to cling to a process they created is unproductive. As King Abdullah II said “Success urgently demands, not more process, but more results.” http://www.americantaskforce.org/daily_news_article/2009/04/24/1240545600_0
“I doubt the residents of Nof Zion—or the West Bank settlements for that matter—envision themselves as future Palestinian citizens.”
Well, that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it? IF the “Land” is sacred, and its a mitzvah to live there, it shouldn’t make a difference, should it?
It would also be a great test of Palestinian democracy and multiculturalism –why shouldn’t each polity have a minority of the Other? After all, the Left is sure we can be just like Europe—live in Belgium, speak Flemish and French and work in France and drink coffee together, no? Now, who wants to volunteer to be the canary in the Palestinian coal mine?
John, there was little official expectation before the partition of India that there would be large-scale population movements either—a fact some blame for the carnage that resulted when it turned out that over seven million people on each side wanted to be on the other.
Why might Palestinians not want to remain Israeli citizens after a settlement? I can think of plenty of reasons: nationalism, a desire to no longer live as a minority, or wanting to reunite with relatives. None of these seems as implausible to me as it apparently does to you: presumably some similar mixture of reasons motivates the overwhelming majority of Arabs in East Jerusalem who have declined Israeli citizenship, or most North American olim.
Nevertheless, most Palestinians in Israel want to remain Israeli citizens, and I’m skeptical that the settlers do. That’s why the latter threaten the viability of a peace agreement in a way the former don’t.