Jerusalem

Jerusalem – the eternal city of Zionism?

It is a matter of history that the Zionists accepted the U.N. Partition plan of 1947 while the Arab states did not. It seems that in hindsight it might have been better for the Palestinian people to have accepted the proposed partition plan since it would have given them a greater amount of land than they could ever possibly hope to get in any two state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict today. But we could also ask the question. “Would it have made any real difference in the long run?”

Today Israel declares that Jerusalem is the eternal capital city of Israel. Jerusalem is off the table with respect to negotiations pertaining to a peaceful settlement with the Palestinian people. Yet the 1947 Partition plan, agreed to by the Zionists, did not include Jerusalem in the newly proposed Israeli state. Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum, administered internationally with free access to Muslims, Christians and Jews all whom claimed the city was Holy.

Today we are informed by the Zionists and their supporters that to consider an Israeli state without Jerusalem is impossible even though history informs us that the Zionist have already agreed to an Israeli state that did not include Jerusalem within its borders in recent history. Zionists often claim that Israel is not an expansionist, colonialist state, but the city of Jerusalem bears witness to a different reality that leaves us with only a couple of possible interpretations.

The first is that the Zionist state need not make absolute sovereign demands on the city of Jerusalem (as it did not in 1948) and so control of the city is still on the table with regards to peace process negotiations. If Israel was able to bring itself to accept an Israeli state without Jerusalem within its borders in the recent past, then it can do so in the present. This means that the Arab peace initiative gains ground with respect to plausibility since the only remaining issue in that peace initiative would be the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank which have been deemed illegal by the U.N. and the overwhelming majority of the International community. If this interpretation is not correct then we are left with the only real alternative.

That alternative interpretation is that the Zionist state of Israel accepted the 1947 partition plan disingenuously in the sense that it only accepted the resolution of the U.N. as an interim measure. The intention all along was to somehow obtain the eternal city by other means. Those other means would obviously require the use of force. In other words, the Zionist State of Israel is an expansionist, colonialist state that always intended to use force as a means to acquire territory regardless of the demands of International law. The state of Israel never intended to share Eretz Israel with anyone regardless of the rulings of the U.N. The rights of the Palestinian people to a national homeland were never recognised by the Zionists from the very beginning. The acceptance of the 1947 Partition plan was a deception in that it made the world community think that Israel was ready to share the land of Palestine when in reality it coveted the land from the beginning. Israel has never wanted peace…it has always wanted greater Israel regardless of the rights of others to self determination in the land they were born in.

I favour the latter interpretation as the one that more closely reflects reality. The secular Zionists heart felt longing for a Holy city, which their secular sensibilities told them was so designated by religious documents that were just myth and legend, does not impress. It is land they wanted, not Holiness. The Wisdom of Solomon dictates that the wise would give up what they love rather than see it destroyed and divided. The Wisdom of Solomon has fallen on deaf Zionist ears. The Holy city of Jerusalem will be filled with violence and injustice by Zionist will, rather than see peace and equality between Jew and non-Jew as the ethical traditions of the Torah demand.

Craig Nielsen

ACTION FOR PALESTINE