The likelihood of Israel agreeing to divide Jerusalem or concede control over the Temple Mount anytime in the near future is slim. Jerusalem is central to Israel’s national ethos as well as critical to Israel’s national security. Israel’s control of Jerusalem provides strategic depth for the densely populated coastal plain and vitally links the coast to the Jordan River as Israel’s eastern security border.
However, demographic realities in the city and accompanying political developments worryingly suggest that Israeli-Zionist political control of the city is in danger. Consequently, the most pressing Zionist challenge is to settle Jews – Zionist Jews! – in Jerusalem.
For the moment, Jews are the majority population (62%) in Jerusalem. The majority of this Jewish public is Zionist (71%), meaning that the majority of the Jewish public identifies with the core Zionist ethos of the modern Jewish state. This includes a secular public of around 20%, and traditional (33%) and religious Zionist (18%) communities as well. The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Jerusalem, which defines itself mostly as non-Zionist, stands at about 29% of the city’s population, and it maintains a very high fertility rate and is growing. (The secular sector is shrinking.)
Since the unification of Jerusalem in 1967, the proportion of Arabs among city residents has increased from 26% to 36%. But this increase has been only marginally relevant on the political level since Jerusalemite Arabs have heretofore declined to play an active political role in the city. For 50 years, they have boycotted municipal elections (even though they have the right to vote), ensuring a Zionist majority in elected city institutions.
Today, however, Jerusalemite Arabs seem to be on the verge of a drastic change in their political behavior.
Most Arabs in the city have experienced life under Israeli rule only. And with the failure of the Oslo process, they intuit that the city will remain undivided. Encouraged by efforts of the municipality to encourage economic integration of Jerusalemite Arabs in broader city frameworks, there is a process of “Israelization” underway. There is also a growing number of Arab students in east Jerusalem that attend schools teaching the Israeli high school curriculum. Surveys indicate that close to 70% of Jerusalemite Arabs have come to prefer the status quo under Israeli control. They have little desire to be incorporated into what would assuredly be a failed Palestinian state, if it arose.
Significant change now may be afoot in the political arena, too. Overcoming the fear of Palestinian Authority terror that until now has prevented Arab participation in the Jerusalem political process, several prominent local Arab community leaders have declared their intention to run for election to the city council. And polls indicate that, for the first time, 60% of Jerusalemite Arabs are considering voting in the upcoming October 2018 municipal elections.
This is a welcome development. But it also portends the possibility of a municipal political coalition partnership between the Arab and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the city. Together, they could dominate the city council.
Despite natural inhibitions that would mitigate against such a haredi-Arab coalition – and it is indeed unlikely in the near term – it is not impossible or implausible. The very possibility of such a coalition would distort municipal politics, and, worse, could threaten the current Israeli mainstream consensus in favor of maintaining a united city.
These trends have created uneasiness among government ministers. Some ministers are advancing plans to buttress the Jewish-Zionist majority in the city by rejiggering city borders. One plan calls for the creation of a broad metropolitan Jerusalem municipal entity by annexing Jewish settlements around Jerusalem. Another plan seeks to divest Jerusalem of several Arab neighborhoods beyond the security barrier. However, none of these proposals address the main issue – the need for more Zionist Jewish residents in Jerusalem.
In order to avert the loss of the city to non-Zionist elements, Jerusalem should become the focus for Jewish-Zionist settlement in the 21st century. The government should adopt policies that encourage an influx of Zionist Jews to Jerusalem. What are most needed are housing projects and economic incentives that draw young Israelis to new neighborhoods in and immediately adjacent to Jerusalem – and not, as a priority matter, to settlements in the Judean and Samarian hinterlands.
Given a limited pool of settlers and resources, Israel’s priorities should be clear. Israel’s fate is linked to the eternal Jewish capital city of Jerusalem, and the Israeli government should act to bolster its hold on the city accordingly. There is no Zionism without Zion.
Professor Efraim Inbar is the president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
This is the first time I hear that spilling the wine drops on Pesach is in mourning for the Egyptians. I am of the same belief as yourself regarding the Egyptians. My understanding has always been that it was to forever commemorate the awful miracles that G-D performed in bringing us out of Egypt; the real beginning of the . Nation of Jews. In the Torah it is described as “With a Mighty Hand and an Outstretched Arm,with Great Terror and Signs and Wonders”. It comes from somewhere in Devarim, the 5th book of the Torah.
.@ Sebastien Zorn:
The way you phrased it I would have expected you to say “with both feet”…!!
WordPress seems to have put 2 comments on one post. No harm. I wrote them separately.
A propos of nothing, I rediscovered another of New York’s treasures, a great used book store, been there since 1925. Around the corner from Bloomingdales. I happened to have a doctor’s appointment on the same block. They have rare books inside and dollar books outside plus some wonderful autographed photos of the Great Alexander Woolcott.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argosy_Book_Store
And the Torah very clearly distinguishes between enemies and annoying neighbors.
If your ass should every be burdened, Edgar G., I’d never hesitate to help out. With both hands.
It’s a no-brainer.
@ Edgar G.:
http://www.josephus.org/HoniTheCircleDrawer.htm
Amusing story. That’s what the end of this clip is about. Gene Wilder as a Polish Rabbi in the Old American West is explaining heatedly to an Indian Chief that God is everybody’s God and he influences the heart, but he doesn’t make rain! That’s not his job.
And then, at that very moment, with a thunderclap, it rains.
And Gene Wilder says turning away while rolling his eyes, “But sometimes he changes his mind, just like that!”
Funny bit. Gene Wider, Harrison Ford. 1979. The Frisco Kid. Here’s the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekmo8EacU70
Incidentally, I don’t approve of the spilling of the drops of wine at Pesach. At least the way it was explained to me in more than one household. I’m not going to mourn the deaths of the Egyptians who enslaved us and tried to kill us. I think they got what was coming to them!
I’ve read one view from the Talmud that says God mourns the loss of any of his creations but doesn’t expect us to if they are antisemites. We are free to rejoice.
And hand out candies, like the pals on 9/11, presumably.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Do you mean “the anti-Zionism of the Ultra-Orthodox”…..otherwise please explain. As you know, the Ultra-Orthodox have a real attachment to the Wall-like a love affair-….which in it’s way is really pathetic, because we should have control and possession of the Temple Mount itself, even though many wouldn’t walk on it.
The Wall, although regarded as Holy by the Ultra-Orthodox and many others, (there are a few more religious streams that I can’t now recall) Is really only a good example of Herod’s massive building spree. It’s a retaining wall of the platform. He flattened the top, built these retaining walls and had the debris swept onto the triangular open space made until it was level with the rest of the now much larger Mount.
I have a book on the construction and plans of secret stairs, passageways, rooms, mikvahs etc either originally on the Mount, or just below the flagstones. They have been traced and identified. I was astonished one time by a guy with a huge Shtreimel, trying to pull me away from going up to the Mount, yelling at me in Yiddish which I made out to be that the Shechina still lived there and I mustn’t go. …..I went later, more than once as I’ve posted here. No problems with Arabs then.
Just thinking about this massive project, the skills involved, for instance, in just making sure the rubble was well enough tamped down so solidly as to be able to lay flagstones over it, to be forever level with those on the Mount proper.
I wonder was the Wall regarded as holy when the Temple stood..? I’ve never seen any documentation that it and/or the other 3 were. I’ve seen mentions of the Golden Gate on the east side being Holy also being the gate of the Kohanim, and through which the Moshiach is supposed to enter. I walked all around the Walls a few times many years ago. Right there up against the blocked up Golden Gate (which has a double arch) the Mamzerim placed a cemetery, so that it would stop the Moshiach from entering because of the dead bodies. Such drek could only come from the mind of a Muslim.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Please note that I am open to much criticism for the following, as I don’t know all that much about the subject…as will be shown.
The Ultra Orthodox are Anti-Zionist, because they say that they are interfering with their expectations of what only the Moshiach is supposed to do. Therefore Zionism is not kosher. Some are living in Israel because their interpretation of the Talmud exhorts them to strive to live in the Holy Land. Others stay abroad, because their belief is that the Moshiach will gather them all together to bring them to Israel.
And there as many obscure Ultra Orthodox and Hassidic sects as there are leaves on a tree, each following the teachings and beliefs of their own particular wonder-working, or saintly Rebbe. Every week in Arutz 7 I see a mention of a sect I never heard of before, usually because their leader is very ill. And they are always over 90, living quietly with their people. in their own little enclave.
They are mashugga of course, but in the main, very nice, decent people who just happen to have a “Moshiach kink”. It’s not something I believe in at all, goes against logic and from having read extensively in the Talmud over the years, I can see how looney and off their heads some of those Rabbonim were. They seemed to go to extremes to outdo their opponents in mishugasn. Not all of them, but some.
For instance has anyone heard of “Honi the Circle Drawer”….. Read about him…..he’ll be on the internet. He lived sometime in the years after the death of John Hyrcanus the son of Shimon the Maccabee, during the rule of the Hashmonaim. So he must have been around when Pompey despoiled the Temple Treasury.
Imagine believing in demons -and angels- for instance. Although there are so many wonderfully wise and everlasting concepts displayed in Talmud.
The ordinary, religious people coming from Eastern Europe actually believed in things like a Dybbuk, and I know that for a fact; even after having been exposed to Western culture and way of life for a couple of generations. I heard the term often as I was growing up. The same way they believed that Hitler was descended from Haman and had 3 cornered ears, like haman-taschen. Ignorant, yes, but they believed.
I don’t see this changing attitude of Jerusalem Arabs as a positive sign. Maybe positive for Arab take over attempts like they want to do in Europe, and then the world.
No matter how many times I say is, I still can be astonished at the utter stupidity of the intellectual Jewish mind. They , usually professors of some sort, with many degrees, never seem to understand that the Arabs are dedicated heart, mind, body and soul to slaughtering all the Jews, and keeping whoever is left in perpetual djimmitude.
If they are not like that they will be defying their “Holy” book, and will never get their 72 virgins and fountains of wine. At some time in their lives, they will feel that they have been remiss in their religious duties and actively begin to work to kill or otherwise degrade the Jews. Only those who have been thoroughly crushed, or convinced by the utter defeat of others, will remain civil, and obedient to the laws.
Never trust an Arab, or indeed any Muslim on a permanent basis. They have shown what they are a million times already and for centuries. Do we never look at history, or present day events right under our noses…???
If Ultra-Orthodox Jews are non-Zionist — I’d like to see more on that, because it’s important, I thought the opposite — then I won’t support their issues. I myself am — socially and religiously speaking — a secular and ultra-liberal person, personally, my Jewishness is purely political and nationalistic. I think of my support for the religious sector as Ben Gurion did in the early days of the state, and the way Stalin did during the War which is why he dubbed it “The Great Patriotic War.” In order to unify the nation, he made a pact with the Russian Orthodox Church. But only for that reason. If they get off the boat, I’d happily draft them and let stores open in their neighborhoods on the Sabbath (though I would not allow Mosques to broadcast their call through their loudspeakers at all, anywhere. I’d ban their ass. In fact, I’d ban all the but the most sanitized version of Islam.) But for the anti-Zionism of the non-Orthodox, that’s where my sympathies would go with regard to the Kotel. Spiritually, I’d be more receptive to Jewish Renewal, all other things being equal. Though, I’ve heard what passes for music in Reform and Conservative. Nobody can match the traditional Orthodox and Chasidim for the beauty of their songs. But politics come first.
whats the cost of a house, a flat in JERUSALEM? whats the property tax, the movement of traffic (including public transport) is horrendous. recently someone was going to build an area of u s looking homes, it that’s so why leave Yankee land for a more expensive same style home in ISRAEL. generally the person who can afford this type of home brings their own furniture etc therefore adds zip, nil to the economy.
when JERUSALEM becomes affordable people will fight to live there.