25

Jerusalem Today

Jerusalem today, depending on one's point of view, is a rapidly growing, multifaceted, vibrant city exuding a sense of manifest destiny, or, alternatively, it is a city suffering under the crushing burden of alien occupation, whose citizens are denied their human rights and are subjected to economic and political exploitation. Thomas L. Friedman of the Jerusalem Bureau of the New York Times sized up Jerusalem today: "Contrary to all the clichés about it, Jerusalem has not been a city of brotherly love and it is not one today." Friedman gives much credit for what peace does exist to Jerusalem's former mayor Teddy Kollek. Writes Friedman, Jerusalem is a "Noah's Ark of hooded Christian monks, turbaned Moslem sheiks and black-robed Jews. . . . They pass one another on the white-stoned steps, each one silently contemplating his own grand vision for Jerusalem in which the people walking right next to him have no place." And yet, says Friedman, "[Mayor Kollek] has made Jerusalem work, not by making it something different, but by making it work as it is." 1 Indeed, many would agree that the man who has had greater direct influence on that city than any other person in our time is Mayor Teddy Kollek, who served his city and its mosaic of inhabitants from 1965 to 1993, leaving a legacy that will long be felt.

Mayor Kollek stamped all his outgoing mail, regardless of its intended recipient, with the plea, "Let's be more tolerant." According to him, being more tolerant with respect to the city he loves requires two things: first, everyone, including the Jews, has to accept limits on his vision of Jerusalem; second, people whom fate has thrown together do not have to learn to love each other, merely learn to live together. 2 That might not seem much to ask, but in a city racked by religious and political differences it is not unusual to find, on any given day, an individual or a group invoking God's name and calling down his wrath on a mayor working to accommodate all parties.

Mayor Kollek fought for a pluralistic Jerusalem in which Jews, Arabs, and Christians lived alongside each other and accepted each other for what they were, but he didn't want them just to coexist. He wanted a society in which everyone cooperated, and he worked to create an environment that would foster such a society. Under his leadership, Jerusalem was transformed into a jewel of a city with parks, promenades, street malls, theaters, museums, concert halls, sports arenas, hospitals, and clinics. Yet, despite all Mayor Kollek's accomplishments in both Jewish and Arab Jerusalem, the extent to which he enjoyed the support of the Arab community is questionable. His former deputy mayor, Meron Benvenisti, when asked if Kollek's administration met Arab needs and gained goodwill in the Arab community, replied:

Some needs, yes, good will, no. . . . Jewish money cannot buy Arab good will. We are no better at playing the colonial administrator than the British were. . . . Kollek deludes himself into thinking that because Arabs will take money for widowed mothers and sing his praises because he opens a day-care center in east Jerusalem—that they feel better about the occupation of Jerusalem. The economic argument [that the Arabs economically have never had it so good] is self-serving. So what if the Arabs have it better under us than under the Jordanians? Does anyone really think that the Arabs of this city . . . prefer our rule to that of the Jordanians merely because they make more money from the jobs that we provide?

Kollek's popularity [among the Arabs] is the popularity of the colonial administrator, the effective, benevolent, and secretly despised colonial administrator. Don't forget that before us the Arabs were ruled by Jordanians, then the British and then the Turks—all colonial administrators. 3

Integrating Arab and Israeli Jerusalem proved more problematic for the mayor and other municipal authorities than even they had envisioned. Matters of lifestyle and comfort are major issues in any city, but in Jerusalem any oversight may be interpreted as an intentional slight to a whole religious or ethnic community. The mayor was faced with a myriad of delicate situations, some typical to any large city and others more unusual: the removal of barriers and mines, the protection of the holy places, security against terrorist attacks, the legal status of Arab inhabitants of East Jerusalem, and the educational system of East Jerusalem. Even such matters as water, electricity, sewage, and garbage collection—not to mention housing, commercial posters, new streets, Sabbath observance, autopsies, and the selling of pork—could, and did, become enormous issues.

Security Concerns in Jerusalem

Moshe Dayan, Israel's eye-patched, charismatic Chief of Staff, ordered the removal of the city's cement and barbed wire barriers at the end of the 1967 war, but army officials, police, and civil authorities were concerned about security in the city. Some Israelis feared that clashes between Arabs and Jews could erupt into major disturbances at the holy places and that West Jerusalem would be open to terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, Dayan remained adamant, and the barriers were officially removed on 29 June 1967, the day after Israel's "annexation" of East Jerusalem. As a safeguard against acts of violence by Jews, Israeli soldiers were stationed outside the Muslim holy places, which remained under Muslim administrative control. Jews guarding Muslims was itself an anomaly.

Thousands of Jews poured into East Jerusalem, some to pray at the Western Wall, and others to purchase inexpensive goods in the Old City. Numerous Arabs visited West Jerusalem to view the homes and neighborhoods they had fled during the 1948 war. 4

When the initial euphoria of victory subsided, responsibility for security was given to the police rather than the army to reduce the visibility of military government. By September 1967 there were bombings in Jerusalem directed at Israelis. The bombs were usually placed in small packages and left in busy areas in West Jerusalem. The first serious blast took place in November 1968 in the Mahane Yehuda market in West Jerusalem. Twelve people were killed, and fifty-four were injured. Bombings increased the following year and even more dramatically over the next five years. Sixty-five people were killed in terrorist attacks in 1974, and seventy-three in 1975. The left-wing Al-Fatah, which had by now taken over the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for most of the "successful" operations. 5 Though such attacks continued in West Jerusalem throughout the 1970s and 1980s, everyday life in the city was surprisingly normal. 6

Unification of the Municipalities

Soon after the 1967 war, the Israeli military government enlisted the cooperation of the Arab municipality of East Jerusalem to restore order. For a time there were two municipalities in the city, and it seemed the situation might continue indefinitely. Then Teddy Kollek, who had been elected mayor of West Jerusalem in 1965, pushed for the unification of the two municipalities under his administration. Largely as a result of Kollek's campaigning, the government dissolved the Arab municipality and placed East Jerusalem under his jurisdiction. 7

At first, former employees of the Arab municipality were not guaranteed permanent jobs in the new administration, but many were offered temporary positions. Not until the following year, and only after much debate, did the unified municipality offer permanent positions and salaries to those who had held permanent positions in the East Jerusalem municipality. In the meantime disgruntled Arab civic leaders called for the restoration of an Arab municipality. To help alleviate their discontent, Mayor Kollek proposed the creation of an advisory committee of seven employees of the former Arab municipality to work with the unified municipal council. The Arab former municipal employees refused to cooperate. The Jordanian government continued to pay their salaries, and they met regularly in defiance of the unified municipality. Finally the former mayor of East Jerusalem, Rauhi al-Khatib, was deported for encouraging active resistance, and his deputy became acting mayor of East Jerusalem. 8

Municipal Elections

Late in 1967, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior extended the city's municipal franchise to all Arabs in Jerusalem of voting age. The decision was approved by the Knesset, which assumed that most Arabs in Jerusalem would boycott the coming elections. To the surprise of Israeli officials, about seventy-five hundred Arabs voted in the municipal elections of October 1969, helping to give the Labor Party under Kollek an absolute majority in the Municipal Council. After the elections many Arabs were willing to consider positions of public office, but some backed down in the face of Arab public pressure and Fatah Radio broadcasts. 9

East Jerusalem under Israeli Law

To pacify the international community, Israel had avoided using the term annexation when it incorporated East Jerusalem in July 1967; nevertheless, the result was the same: the Israeli law of annexation was applied to East Jerusalem. Accordingly, all residents of the captured part of the city were regarded as enemy aliens and as such were subject to the Absentee Property Law, which stipulated that citizens of Arab states living in Israel were considered absentees and their property assigned to the custodian of absentee property. In other words, Arab Palestinian landowners living in East Jerusalem, which had been occupied by Jordan for nineteen years (1948-1967), were regarded as citizens of an Arab state (enemy aliens) and, according to the Israeli law, were no longer legal owners of their own property.

Further, licenses issued by the Jordanian government to doctors, lawyers, and businesses were no longer valid. Upon instruction by the minister of justice, the law was not enforced against those who remained within the annexed area; however, it gave Israeli authorities a legal means for harassing those who were uncooperative and for expropriating land and property. 10

In 1968 a law was passed to rectify some of the legal injustices, declaring that residents of East Jerusalem were no longer considered absentees nor enemies and, consequently, had rights to their property. The decree did not apply to other areas of the country or to the occupied territories. In addition, lawyers from East Jerusalem were automatically made members of the Israeli bar and permitted to practice, an act that many resented because it placed them in the awkward position of having to base their cases on Israeli law, parts of which they detested. Most licensed professionals were required to register with the Israeli authorities to await new licenses, which the labor minister was empowered to grant by decree. Because most of those affected did not register, the Municipality of Jerusalem automatically renewed the licenses of all businesses in the city that had been established before annexation; the national government did the same for many professionals and companies. 11

The practice of refraining from enforcing in East Jerusalem Israeli laws that were strictly enforced in West Jerusalem was an outgrowth of Mayor Kollek's attempt to make the transition to a united city as easy as possible for the Arab inhabitants. Many Arabs refused to cooperate, but with the passing of time, most saw that it was in their economic best interest to take advantage of such concessions.

Education in East Jerusalem

In August 1967, the Israeli government announced it would replace the Jordanian curriculum in Arab schools in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and reopen the schools. The Ministry of Education examined about one hundred textbooks previously in use and rejected about eighty of them because of material critical of Israel. Arab students and teachers angrily charged the government with attempting to Judaize their education. Teachers went on strike and many pupils stayed away from school, refusing to return until the books and curriculum were restored. To encourage the strike, the Jordanian government paid the teachers' salaries. 12

The military government for the West Bank investigated the controversy and found that the Ministry of Education had been excessive in its censorship. The Israeli Cabinet established a committee to reevaluate the textbooks. The committee reinstated all but two of the textbooks and censored twenty of them. It was decided that the Jordanian educational system would continue in the West Bank but the Israeli curriculum for Arabs would be used in the government schools in East Jerusalem. 13

By the end of 1967, nearly half the teachers and most of the students in private schools returned to their classes. Teachers who refused to cooperate were dismissed and replaced by new ones. Students dropped out of school or attended private schools, which were not subject to the Israeli curriculum for Arabs. The number of Arab high school students in government schools in Jerusalem dropped from 1,317 in 1967 to 116 in 1970. The Municipality of Jerusalem pressured the national government to change its educational policy in East Jerusalem. The result was the introduction in 1970 of supplemental classes to prepare students for the Jordanian matriculation examinations and, in 1972, a combined Jordanian and Israeli Arab curriculum. 14

When these measures failed to attract significant numbers of Arab high school students, the government provided two separate curricula beginning with the seventh grade—Jordanian and Israeli Arab. Because most students would not choose the latter, the Ministry of Education designated one school for that purpose and allowed all the other schools in East Jerusalem to follow the Jordanian curriculum. Students in both curricula were required to take classes in Hebrew and in civics. Although this new education program was received more favorably than previous ones, most Arab high school students continued to attend private schools. 15

Compensation for Property

The government of Israel passed an Absentees Property Law in 1973 to compensate Jerusalem Arabs for properties left within the state of Israel in 1948. Although the law encouraged Arabs to seek the compensation to which they were entitled, in fact few did. Arabs looked upon land sales to Jews as heresy, and compensation was regarded as a form of sale. Such a stigma was attached to land sales that most Arab landholders preferred to suffer the financial loss than face the disgrace and shame. In addition, Jordanian authorities looked upon land sales to Jews as treasonous, and Jordanian law dictated capital punishment for those found guilty of such transactions. Before 1973, the few Arabs who were willing to accept compensation were faced with arbitrary decisions by an Israeli committee headed by the custodian general. There were no set criteria for determining the value of land, and the Arabs felt they were offered a fraction of its actual value. The 1973 law tacitly acknowledged that the old law was unfair, and it laid down specific measures for determining compensation in keeping with policies governing such matters on the Jewish side of the city.

Tax Laws

Under international law an occupying power cannot raise tax levels beyond those established by the ousted government. Israel argued that East Jerusalem was liberated, not occupied, and therefore came under the same tax laws as West Jerusalem. But because of widespread opposition to attempts to increase taxes in Arab East Jerusalem, or even to collect them at the Jordanian rate, Israeli tax laws were only gradually applied.

Land Ownership and Expropriations

Israel's actions in East Jerusalem could be described for the most part as those of a benevolent occupier, except where land issues were concerned. The national government, anxious to demonstrate that East Jerusalem was an integral part of Israel's capital, started a massive building program in Arab parts of the city. This action meant that considerable tracts of land had to be expropriated from Arab owners for the "common good." To the extent that the land was used for schools, hospitals, clinics, parks, roads, and so forth, it did serve the common good, but the truth is that most of the expropriated land was set aside for new Jewish residential neighborhoods that excluded most Arabs.

It is a well-accepted principle of law that a sovereign power has the right of eminent domain—the right to expropriate land for the common good—but the Arabs, and for that matter, most of the world, refused to attribute to Israel the rights of a sovereign power over East Jerusalem and the Old City. Objections to Israeli construction in East Jerusalem from local, national, and international sources fell on deaf ears.

Giving credence to the Arab claim that Israel was judaizing Arab Jerusalem, Deputy Mayor Avraham Kahila told members of the city's planning committee that "a Jewish majority has recently [1993] been created in East Jerusalem for the first time since the Six-Day War." 16 Kahila, responsible for planning and construction in Jerusalem, identified his sources as data accumulated from the Municipality of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Institute, and the Construction and Housing Ministry. At the time, according to Kahila, Jerusalem had a combined population of more than 500,000. About 345,000 were Jews, some 160,000 of whom lived among the 152,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem and in the suburbs just north of the city. Those Jewish neighborhoods were built principally on land the Israeli government expropriated in the 1970s. 17

Security and City Planning

With the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, city planners set about securing the city economically, demographically and strategically. 18 Jerusalem's municipal borders were extended in every direction to encompass vacant Arab lands as well as Arab urban areas. 19

In June 1967, former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion urged the Israeli cabinet that "Jews must be brought to Jerusalem at all costs. Tens of thousands must be settled in a very short time. Jews will agree to settle in East Jerusalem even in huts. One shouldn't wait for the building of regular neighborhoods. The importance is that there should be Jews there." 20 This attitude represented the feeling of most Israelis that every effort should be expended to ensure a fait accompli to prevent the international community from redividing the city. Successive Israeli governments expropriated enormous tracts of Arab lands around Jerusalem to encircle the city with Israeli settlements.

The Israelis fortified their capital city with massive fortresslike housing estates to the east, west, north, and south of the city. These housing estates were large enough to provide security for the city. 21

Tens of thousands of Israelis and new Jewish immigrants have settled in these suburban communities. One is reminded of the prophecy that a future Jerusalem would be built without walls (see Zech. 2:4). The suburbs were designed specifically to surround Jerusalem with a security belt—like the walls of the ancient city.

Resistance to Occupation

After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel was faced with an uncooperative and even hostile segment of Jerusalem's population that considered itself under temporary occupation. United Nations resolutions calling upon Israel to rescind all unilateral actions encouraged the belief that the international community would intercede on behalf of the Arabs and restore Arab sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Old City. Because of their hope that the international community would ultimately prevail, Jerusalem Arabs were unwilling to cooperate with Israeli efforts to unify the city, no matter how magnanimous those efforts were.

The Israeli government, for its part, bent over backwards to accommodate Arab demands in order to make the transition to a united Jewish capital as painless as possible. Administrative regulations were reinterpreted by government and municipal officials (or simply not enforced) in favor of the Arab inhabitants of the city. Certain practices that were illegal on the Jewish side were allowed in East Jerusalem. For example, Arab schools followed Jordanian curriculum, money changers operated independent of most government regulations, taxes were limited and moderate, Arab business licenses were automatically renewed, meetings of Jewish groups were restricted on the Temple Mount, and the Muslim Shari'a court system continued to operate, though in certain matters it contradicted Israeli law.

The Intifada: An Uprising in Jerusalem and the West Bank

As magnanimous as the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank might have been, the Palestinian Arabs still felt like second-class citizens in their own country—an attitude which gave rise to powerful nationalistic feelings. In December 1987, Palestinians in the occupied territories challenged the Israeli military occupation. The uprising, usually referred to by its Arabic name, intifada, has brought the plight of the Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories to the attention of the world, and they have gained considerable international sympathy in the process.

For both Palestinian Arabs and Israelis, the violent confrontations of the intifada marked an important turning point. This uprising represented the culmination of years of anger and frustration growing out of the inability of the Palestinian Arabs to create a state of their own, separate from Jordan and from Israel. The self-proclaimed parliament-in-exile of the Palestine Liberation Organization announced on 15 Novem-ber 1988 the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital. At the same time the PLO leadership endorsed United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, implicitly recognizing Israel and acknowledging its right to exist within secure and recognized boundaries, but boundaries that had yet to be negotiated. 22

Now that the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem have become the central focus for Palestinian Arab national revival and independence, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in and around Jerusalem are certain to become major impediments to peace. According to most Palestinians, Israel's settlement policy in the occupied territories, including Jerusalem since 1967, has been nothing less than creeping annexation of Arab lands. They further contend that the settlements have been established in violation of international law.

Perhaps nowhere in the occupied territories has the intifada been felt more strongly than in Jerusalem. The beautiful white limestone walls in East Jerusalem have been disfigured by spray-painted protests against the Israeli occupation. Arab shopkeepers were ordered either to open their shops or close them according to the demands of the intifada leadership. Accordingly, East Jerusalem was plagued by unannounced commercial strikes that resulted in untold economic dislocation to Arab shopowners and merchants. Some were willing to bear the burden if it meant the eventual end of Israeli domination of their lives; others felt such tactics only harmed Arab unity, and to that extent, benefited the Israelis.

The intifada was difficult for everyone. The Israelis were frustrated by their inability to quickly put it down by force and restore a semblance of peace and harmony to the streets of Jerusalem. The Arabs suffered economically, their schools were often closed, and jobs sponsored by the Israelis were unavailable. Arabs lacked strong central leadership, they were being devoured from within by factional fighting, many thousands of their youth languished in Israeli prisons, and, worst of all, there was little hope that their sacrifices would accomplish anything at all.

With the signing of the Israel-PLO Accord on 13 September 1993 and with the real prospect of a brighter political day, the intifada faded. Stores in Jerusalem reopened, graffiti was cleaned up, schools reopened, tens of thousands of Arab youth were released from the prisons in a general amnesty, and the prospect of investments from the outside world gave the economy of the West Bank new life.

Although there are several cities of moderate size in the West Bank, Jerusalem was proclaimed by the leaders of the intifada the territorial focal point, the capital, the symbol of a free and independent people. The Palestinian Arabs believe that the intifada is largely responsible for Israeli concessions on such critical issues as an eventual Palestinian Arab state with Jerusalem as its capital. Never mind that the Israelis espouse quite a different view.

Contemporary Life in Jerusalem

In a very real sense, the story of contemporary Jerusalem is a tale of two cities. It is a city that since 1967 has been devoid of physical barriers but is nevertheless about as divided as a city can be. Psychological barriers prevent Arabs and Jews from visiting each other's side of the city. Barriers of distrust, suspicion, intolerance, jealousy, and fear are everywhere. When an Arab visits the west side, he is subject to repeated security checks as he walks along the street. He is given a more thorough body search than his Jewish counterparts upon entering a public building, be it a theater, post office, bus station, or restaurant; if he is driving, he is more likely to be stopped at randomly placed roadblocks. Upon learning he is an Arab from his physical appearance, accent, or identity card, the Israeli police typically subject him to questioning that leaves no doubt that he is regarded by them as an alien, unwelcome in their part of this so-called united city. Few young Arabs participate in the Israeli nightlife of movies, musicals, operas, discotheques, and sidewalk cafes. Constantly on their mind is the danger of being found in the vicinity of a terrorist incident. They know very well they could be physically abused by Israelis who are angry, frustrated, and disheartened by the lack of peace and safety in their own city.

During business hours, the streets of the Arab side of Jerusalem, especially the Old City, are flooded with shoppers and bargain hunters of every nationality and religious persuasion under the sun, many in traditional dress, and speaking a babble of languages. Israeli shoppers, unwilling to entrust their safety to security forces, venture into Arab Jerusalem carrying hidden weapons, belying the confidence and fraternity they exhibit among their fellow Arab citizens.

At nightfall, the scene changes. The shops are closed, the iron shutters are bolted, and the deserted streets are left to a few unwary foreigners, to the incidental but mysteriously ever-present night people, to alley cats, and to security police with their blue flashing lights. A curious onlooker might find East Jerusalem's one poorly attended movie house, a few dimly lit coffee houses whose sole occupants are Arab males, the occasional restaurant, and hotels bursting with tourists who may be oblivious to the political discontent that surrounds them.

In this undivided city with no physical barriers, religion is a barrier with its uncompromising labyrinth of interpretations of God, its false messiahs, and its religious fanatics. Nationalism is a barrier, espousing doctrines of ethnic hatred and flaunting its muscles of armed vigilantes and secret combinations. Darkness is a barrier—the darkness of the unknown, the darkness of contempt and prejudice, the darkness of ignorance and misunderstanding, the darkness of politics and intrigue.

There is also a bright side, a side of Jerusalem that illuminates the hope, the goodwill, and the desire for coexistence that resides in the hearts of many of its citizens: Arabs, Christians, and Jews. There is, for example, the mutual appreciation of sports, especially soccer. Arab soccer stars have been invited to play on Israeli teams, where they have been accepted as equals by players and fans alike. And there is the cooperation in the marketplace as the merchants in the diverse ethnic groups work together to reap a profit from their various enterprises.

Mutual dependency in the labor market has built confidence in interracial relations. The Israelis have depended on relatively inexpensive labor among the Arabs, and the Arabs have sought much-needed jobs in the Israeli sector. The lack of industry in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, together with a healthy, growing economy in Israel, have brought Arabs and Israelis together in a relatively sophisticated symbiotic relationship. This mutual dependency has also affected language; it is now socially acceptable to speak both Hebrew and Arabic. Arabic is taught in the Israeli schools, and Hebrew is taught in the Arab schools. Both societies recognize the value of bilingualism in building trust and understanding between cultures.

Social, academic, and professional groups from both sides interact in a genuine search for mutual accommodation and acceptance. The liberal-minded humanists are at the forefront of this movement, but it is gathering steam and appears destined to build a whole range of confidence-building activities with it, including mixed groups of Israeli and Arab social, academic, and political groups working together for solutions to mutual problems.

A Religious Mosaic

Jerusalem is a religious mosaic made up of adherents of three major world religions, to which must be added a multitude of splinter groups, all intent on seeking their spiritual roots or serving visitors who come for similar reasons. The visitor to Jerusalem is first struck by the profusion of apparel worn by the city's inhabitants. Typically, dress and head coverings identify Jews, Christians, and Muslims, but within these three groups are a plethora of subgroups of people dressing to identify with a certain tradition, religion, or social class. Identifying Jerusalemites as they stroll in the streets in their traditional or religious dress is a most educational pastime.

The main schism in Islam is not reflected in Jerusalem's population. Most Muslims in Jerusalem are Sunnis, in contrast to Shiites, so those who wear traditional Arab garb dress pretty much alike. A religious revival in Islam is well represented in Jerusalem by the girls and young women who are returning to traditional dress (mostly black and occasionally white) that leaves only the face exposed. Many older Arab women can be seen in the streets heavily clothed and veiled, invoking in Westerners a feeling of mystery and desert folklore. There is a broad diversity in the color and patterns of the Kefiya worn on the heads of Arab men, but it does not have religious significance.

The Christian community in Jerusalem is made up of Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Armenians, Maronites, Copts, Syrians, Chaldeans, Ethiopians (Abyssinians), representatives of many different Protestant faiths, and, of course, a sprinkling of Latter-day Saints. Some religious groups are self-contained communities with their own neighborhoods, schools, court systems, religious facilities, and social organizations. Some such communities go back to the first centuries after Christ; their influence has long been felt in the religious melting-pot that is Jerusalem. The more religious among them dress to identify with their particular religion.

The Druze are a non-Muslim, Arabic-speaking people who are certainly distinctive among Jerusalemites, even if they are not numerous. Older men often wear gaucholike pants and sport large handle-bar moustaches; the women cover their heads with long, pure white scarves.

Then, of course, there are the modern youth who dress the same as young people do almost anywhere, many of whom are caught up in a variety of fashions that defy description. They too add a colorful dimension to Jerusalem's mosaic.

This profusion of colors and styles of dress—augmented by the native costumes of the many visitors to Jerusalem from other countries around the world—give character and personality to the city. They make Jerusalem unique among the cities of the world and contribute to the city's mystique and charm.

Conclusion

Amid the sometimes contradicting and negative forces of religion, nationalism, and politics, there is a glimmer of hope that a solution for Jerusalem is not a zero-sum game in which one group's gain is another's loss. Abba Eban, an Israeli philosopher, politician, and diplomat, once remarked that the real danger to Middle East peace is "one hundred percentism." That is the fanatic's philosophy of all or nothing. Said Eban, "In diplomatic history, those who ask for all or nothing are more likely to get nothing than to get all." 23

The alternative to coexistence and compromise is what French author Albert Camus described as the "fatal embrace." Camus wrote, "It is as if two insane people, crazed with wrath, had decided to turn to a fatal embrace, the forced marriage from which they cannot free themselves. Forced to live together and incapable of uniting, they decide at last to die together." 24 It need not come to this with respect to Jerusalem, but with all the favorable evidence in, it still appears that Jerusalem is destined to be a mainstream issue in the foreseeable future, ultimately leading to Armageddon (see Zech. 12:2-3).

Notes

^1. Friedman, "Teddy Kollek's Jerusalem," 16-18.

^2. Friedman, "Teddy Kollek's Jerusalem," 22.

^3. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 329-30.

^4. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 123-25.

^5. Prittie, Whose Jerusalem? 156-57.

^6. See, for example, "Israel and Torture," Sunday Times (London), 19 June 1977; Christian Science Monitor, 4 Apr. 1979; Washington Post, 7 Feb. 1979.

^7. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 89-91, 98-100, 102-6.

^8. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 129-31, 140-42.

^9. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 142-44.

^10. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 110-12.

^11. In Kraemer, Jerusalem, 102.

^12. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 196-97; Kraemer, Jerusalem, 112-13; Prittie, Whose Jerusalem? 149-50.

^13. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 196-97.

^14. Prittie, Whose Jerusalem? 150; Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 200; Kraemer, Jerusalem, 113.

^15. Benvenisti, Jerusalem, 201.

^16. Foreign Broadcast Information Service NES-93-128, "Official Reports Jewish Majority in East Jerusalem," Tel Aviv, Ha'aretz, 7 July 1993, 42.

^17. Foreign Broadcast Information Service NES-93-128, "Official Reports Jewish Majority in East Jerusalem," Tel Aviv, Ha'aretz, 7 July 1993, 42.

^18. See Ogden, "Was City Planning in Modern Jerusalem Foreseen by the Prophets of Judah?" 2.

^19. Jerusalem's municipal area was extended to one hundred square kilometers (sixty-two square miles), making it more than three times the size of Jerusalem of 1947. See Ogden, "Was City Planning in Modern Jerusalem Foreseen by the Prophets of Judah?" 2.

^20. In Ogden, "Was City Planning in Modern Jerusalem Foreseen by the Prophets of Judah?" 3.

^21. Ogden, "Was City Planning in Modern Jerusalem Foreseen by the Prophets of Judah?" 4.

^22. This was made possible in part by a Jordanian decision on 31 July 1988 to sever its legal and administrative ties with the West Bank.

^23. Eban, "Prospects for Peace in the Middle East," 6-7.

^24. Giliomee, "Elusive Search for Peace," 1.