Oy Jerusalem

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

While the Jewish state enjoys a robust Jewish demographic tailwind of fertility and immigration, Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is burdened with a Jewish demographic headwind of emigration, which is eroding the current 66% Jewish majority.

The growing, youthful Jewish emigration from Jerusalem is driven by the scarcity of jobs as well as costly and limited housing. It was triggered — beginning in the 1990s — by Israeli prime ministers who relegated Jerusalem to a lower national priority, in sharp contrast to their predecessors.

Alongside a litany of “O Jerusalem” boastful declarations, they have demonstrated “Oy Jerusalem” feeble action, reflecting limited capability to withstand U.S. opposition to Jewish construction beyond the pre-1967 armistice line. Succumbing to U.S. pressure has yielded more, stronger pressure. Thus, they have constrained the development of Jerusalem’s infrastructure of transportation, housing and employment — a prerequisite for turning the trend of Jewish emigration around — since it requires construction on substantial, state-owned land, available within the largely unpopulated boundaries of reunited Jerusalem, not in the limited parameters of pre-1967 Jerusalem.

The smaller the effective boundary of Jerusalem, the more intense the Jewish emigration will be; the larger the effective boundary, the greater the potential for Jewish immigration.

Recent prime ministers have sacrificed the significant upgrading of Jerusalem’s infrastructure on the altar of the supposed peace process with the Palestinian Authority — an entity that seeks to annul Jerusalem’s reunification, worships suicide bombers and operates the most effective assembly line for manufacturing terrorists: a K-12 destroy-Israel education system.

This peace process-driven policy has also led to physical and administrative disengagement from some Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and the construction of walls and fences, separating these neighborhoods from the rest of the city. As a result, parallel to the increasing Jewish emigration from Jerusalem, some 50,000 Arab residents of these neighborhoods — possessing Israeli ID cards — immigrated over the walls and the fences deeper into Jerusalem, lest they lose Israeli social and welfare benefits. Thus, at a time when parity has been reached between Jewish and Arab fertility rates (number of births per woman), this Israeli policy of disengagement has induced Arab immigration into Jerusalem, at a rate twice as high as the rate of Jewish emigration from the city.

In this regard, contemporary Israeli prime ministers have dramatically strayed from the policies of their predecessors. For example, in 1950, in defiance of brutal U.S. and global pressure to internationalize Jerusalem (which is still the policy of the U.S. State Department), Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish state, relocated government agencies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, settled a massive number of immigrants in Jerusalem, upgraded the transportation infrastructure to Jerusalem and erected new Jewish neighborhoods along Jerusalem’s cease-fire lines, providing the city land reserves for long-term growth. Ben-Gurion’s actions spoke louder than the bravado inherent in current declarations stating that the status of Jerusalem is non-negotiable.

In 1967, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol adopted Ben-Gurion’s policy, fended off severe U.S. and global threats, reunited Jerusalem and established the foundation of satellite Jewish neighborhoods well beyond Jerusalem’s “pre-1967 lines.”

In 1970-1971, Prime Minister Golda Meir resisted heavy pressure exerted by the White House and the State Department, and refused to rescind the reunification of Jerusalem or transfer authority over Jerusalem’s Holy Basin to representatives of the three leading religions (these demands were embraced, in 2010, by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert). Defiantly, Meir laid the groundwork for additional neighborhoods beyond the “pre-1967 lines” — Gilo, Ramot Alon, French Hill and Neve Yaakov — significantly expanding Jerusalem’s infrastructure of growth.

Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir sustained the position of Jerusalem at the top of Israel’s national priorities, reinforcing — through construction and growth — the historical, national and religious status of reunified Jerusalem as the exclusive, non-negotiable capital of the Jewish state.

In order to dramatically expand Jerusalem’s 66% Jewish majority while improving the quality of life for Jews and Arabs alike, Israel should embark on a fast-track, dramatic enhancement of Jerusalem’s transportation infrastructure, which would pave the road for the flow of Israeli and international entrepreneurs and investors into the city.

For example, as Israel’s largest city (2.5 times larger and more populated than Tel Aviv), Jerusalem needs an airport. An airport, which would serve as a most effective engine of growth, can be located in the ample, unpopulated area in eastern Jerusalem.

The only two freeways to Jerusalem from the coastal plain (Route 1 and Route 443 which stretches along the land of the Maccabees beyond the 1967 lines) must be expanded, and a third highway (Route 45) should be constructed, for commercial, safety and national security reasons.

The internal Begin Road should evolve into the Jerusalem Loop, which would be a game-changer for commerce and quality of life. A similar surge should apply to the infrastructure for high tech, telecommunications, electricity, water, education and housing.

Will Israeli prime ministers adopt an “O Jerusalem” policy — initiated 3,000 years ago by King David — thereby drastically enhancing the quality of life in the city and expanding its Jewish population? Or, will they sustain the “Oy Jerusalem” policy, which could doom Jerusalem to a Jewish minority?