Jerusalem’s Sovereignty Is Whole; It Can’t Be Shared : Israel: Arab residents of the Holy City can participate in the electoral process, but the Jewish capital can’t be divided.

No solution to the issue of Jerusalem’s status will work if it is not grounded in the reality that the city must remain united and under Israeli sovereignty.

Jerusalem holds a unique place in Jewish theology and history. Since the time of King David, it has been at the center of Jewish consciousness. It not only encompasses holy places (which is its relevance for Christianity); for Jews, it is the earthly city itself that is holy--both the land, and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, chief rabbi of Palestine in the 1930s, held, even the air.

To say this is not to gainsay the holiness of Jerusalem to Islam or Christianity. Or the rights of the Palestinian community to full participation in the political life of the city.

The founders of modern Israel reluctantly accepted the internationalization of Jerusalem as the price of Jewish independence in the partitioned Palestine. But when the 1967 Six-Day War resulted in the wholly unexpected prize of a united Jerusalem, Israel’s leaders wasted no time taking advantage of this miracle. The old Jordanian municipality of Jerusalem ceased to exist. Since then, the Israelis have insisted on a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty.

Jews outnumber all others in Jerusalem’s population of more than 550,000. They constitute the overwhelming majority of the 230,000 people living on land that was Israel’s before 1967. Of the other 320,000, a majority are Jewish, in part because the post-1967 boundaries of Jerusalem include areas that serve as a buffer zone to protect against an invasion force of Arab armies and reinforce the Jewish claim to the area.

Jerusalem today contains Jewish streets and Arab streets, Jewish neighborhoods and Arab neighborhoods. In poet Yehuda Amichai’s words, “The city plays hide-and-seek among her names Yerushalayam, Al-Quds, Salem and Jeru. “ The different Jerusalems are so intertwined that they can be disentangled only in Utopian vision. Indeed, the notion that Jerusalem can be easily divided up is frivolous to anyone who actually walks its metes and bounds.

Thus, sociologists Michael Romann and Alex Weingrad observe that “the previously clear-cut continuous dividing lines segregating Jewish from Arab zones can no longer be said to exist. The distinction between East and West Jerusalem no longer coincides with the Arab-Jewish divide.” Even Palestinian commentators concede that these developments cannot be erased.

Within the framework of a unified city as the capital of Israel, the Israeli government has expressed a willingness to meet Palestinian political needs. As far back as July, 1968, the Foreign Ministry anticipated that any settlement on Jerusalem will contain steps to satisfy the need of the Muslims for status, such as extraterritorial standing and the right to raise flags. Some years later, former Foreign Minister Walter Eytan urged his government to “make a unilateral, unsolicited offer to give the Haram es-Sharif [Muslim holy places] to an Arabian sovereign as his wholly sovereign territory.” Other innovative approaches that meet both Israeli needs and Arab sensibilities may yet be developed. One proposal has called for a Jewish mayor with significant authority devolved onto neighborhoods or boroughs. Such an approach would provide local control of certain government functions like education, libraries and housing, ensuring sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population.

Others have suggested a kind of Vatican model, allowing the Palestinian Authority to meet within Israeli precincts. Indeed, the Labor government has already informally agreed that eastern Jerusalem residents may vote in any Palestinian elections.

There is a qualitative difference, however, between proposals to increase Palestinian involvement in the political process and proposals to divide sovereignty in Jerusalem. Historically, of course, that is what the Palestinians mean by political participation. They would split the city into Jewish and Palestinian sectors, each the capital of an independent state.

But such shared or dual sovereignty would inevitably collapse into a divided city. As former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek insightfully points out, it would end up meaning “two competing authorities and ultimately two sets of laws, two rates of customs and taxation, two police forces. These are an invitation to a boundary, and a boundary is an invitation to a wall.” Indeed, to say Jerusalem has two sovereigns would be another way of saying it has none. The shared sovereignty notion is a replay of the “binational state” idea that died out with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. In effect, the idea negates the legitimacy of a Jewish state.

But what is the alternative?

There can be no doubt that Palestinians in Jerusalem do not get their full share of benefits from Israel. Walk across the 1967 divide and clear differences in housing stock and city services, if not the quality of life, become immediately obvious. But this results less from bias (although that certainly exists) than from the decision by nearly all Jerusalem Arabs to boycott municipal elections, resulting in their lack of political representation. Had Palestinians participated, they would likely have emerged as the swing voting bloc in the city council, and they would have been amply and practically rewarded for their vote.

Israelis and Palestinians must seek creative formulations that ensure Palestinian participation in the political life of the holy city. But shared sovereignty is not the answer.