Jerusalem Celebrates ‘Birth Date,’ Irking Critics : Mideast: Israel marks 3,000th anniversary of King David’s conquest. But others see attempt to lay a Jewish claim to city.

The fireworks began long before anyone lighted a match.

Mayor Ehud Olmert hoped that a celebration of the 3,000th anniversary of King David’s conquest of Jerusalem would help bring more tourists to a peaceful and united Holy City.

Instead, it has brought more controversy to the disputed land from those who opposed the predominantly Jewish character of the gala--and others who thought it wasn’t Jewish enough.

Still others argued with the choice of birth date.

“This whole thing is a phony event,” said Israeli peace activist Uri Avneri. “Jerusalem was an old city when King David arrived. Even in the Jewish Bible, Jerusalem is mentioned 1,000 years before King David arrived.”

Dodging the political heat, tens of thousands of Israelis turned out Monday night to see the real fireworks and a laser light show in the Valley of the Cross. But the 15-nation European Union boycotted the kickoff to a year and a half of cultural events, and Palestinian leaders called the whole thing a hijacking of the city’s history.

They accused Olmert of ignoring Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian heritage and trying to stake a Jewish claim on the city before Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations on its final status begin next year.

“The celebrations are a political provocation,” said Ahmed Tibi, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Arab-Israeli issues. “They are trying to create facts on the land. We don’t recognize the municipality of West Jerusalem in East Jerusalem. The mayor of West Jerusalem is not the mayor of East Jerusalem.”

Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem, which is mostly Arab, the capital of a future Palestinian state. But Israel insists that it will not give up any of the Jerusalem land it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War.

Israeli officials deny any political agenda for the anniversary events, although Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin did lay out his bargaining position at the opening ceremony in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan on Monday. Archeologists there have been digging up the ruins of the ancient City of David, capital of the Jewish kingdom.

“There is no state of Israel without Jerusalem, and there is no peace without a united Jerusalem, the city of peace,” Rabin said.

Party flags and riot police were out in seemingly equal numbers at the ceremony below the walled Old City. Silwan residents turned out too, for a silent protest, releasing dozens of balloons in the colors of the Palestinian flag: green, red, black and white.

About 400,000 Jews and 160,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem. A recent poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre--distributed in time for the Jerusalem 3000 festivities--shows that 63% of Palestinians in Jerusalem would rather go to war than live with continued Israeli control over the entire city.

The Jerusalem 3000 celebrations will cost about $7 million over the next year and a half and include performances by the Berlin Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, museum exhibits, seminars, international art shows and a kosher banquet. The European Union withdrew its financial support for the cultural events.

The combative Olmert defended the celebrations of Jewish history.

“Can anyone take 3,000 years of true and authentic connection to Jerusalem from us?” he asked in a speech broadcast on Israeli radio. “Can anyone take the prayer for ‘next year in Jerusalem’ from us? Isn’t this Judaism’s breath? Why do I need to apologize that I want to celebrate this?

“Jerusalem has never been the cultural or political capital of an Arab or Muslim state or entity at any period in her history. One should remember this. There is an attempt to glorify a history which never existed,” he said.

The world’s 2 billion Christians and Muslims might disagree. For Christians, Jerusalem is where Jesus Christ preached and died, and not necessarily a Jewish city. The Valley of the Cross that was lighted by the government’s fireworks extravaganza Monday night goes by its Christian name--it supposedly provided the wood for the cross on which Christ was crucified.

Muslims consider the Old City’s Dome of the Rock to be their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. Some Muslim zealots even claim that there has never been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem.

On more worldly matters, Olmert noted that U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk had declined to attend the festivities in Jerusalem, which the United States does not recognize as the capital of Israel.

Critics accused Olmert of using Jerusalem 3000 as a platform to advance his political career within the right-wing Likud Party.

But Olmert’s critics also included the important Jewish religious constituency of Jerusalem. Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, a member of Parliament, objected to the secular emphasis of the festivities.

“The one thing that is special about the city is the religion. So if you celebrate, you better do it in a more religious way,” Ravitz said.

For religious and secular Jews, the date of the celebration was a point of contention. Historians say that Jerusalem is 4,000 to 5,000 years old, and some Jewish scholars dispute the date of 1004 BC as the start of the Jewish King David’s reign.

Jerusalem 3000 was originally conceived by Teddy Kollek, mayor of the city for 28 years before Olmert beat him in a l993 election. Kollek said his idea of putting a united Jerusalem on display had failed.

“The whole thing has become too politicized for my taste,” Kollek said.