[News] "The biggest Yerushalayim"

[Anti-Imperialist News]

"The biggest Yerushalayim"

http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122112512844113.html

PA offered to concede almost all of East 
Jerusalem, an historic concession for which Israel offered nothing in return.
Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 20:48 GMT

Ramat Shlomo, Israel – For all the international 
controversy over construction at this quiet 
settlement in north Jerusalem, there is little of it in evidence.


The controversy came last year, when the 
Jerusalem municipality approved 1,600 new housing 
tenders while Joe Biden, the US vice-president, 
was visiting Israel. But construction has yet to 
begin, and residents of this settlement – 
populated mostly by Orthodox Jews, a group with 
one of the highest birth rates in Israel – say 
politics are interfering with family life.

“It shouldn’t be a question of politics,” said 
Avraham Goldstein, a student waiting at a bus 
stop in the settlement. “People need to build, 
they want to have their families nearby. There 
are more than 18,000 people here. And Ramat 
Shlomo is obviously part of Jerusalem.”

The US responded to the Ramat Shlomo announcement 
with anger; Biden said it "undermines the kind of 
trust we need" to restart talks between Israel 
and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

But The Palestine Papers reveal that Israel had 
no reason to halt construction in Ramat Shlomo. 
That’s because Palestinian negotiators agreed in 
2008 to allow Israel to annex this settlement, 
along with almost every other bit of illegal 
construction in the Jerusalem area – an historic 
concession for which they received nothing in return.


"We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements"

The unprecedented offer by the PA came in a 
<http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2825>June 
15 trilateral meeting in Jerusalem, involving 
Condoleezza Rice, the then-US secretary of state, 
Tzipi Livni, the then-Israeli foreign minister, 
Ahmed Qurei, PA's former prime minister, and Saeb 
Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.

Qurei: This last proposition could help in the 
swap process. We proposed that Israel annexes all 
settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim 
(Har Homa). This is the first time in history 
that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David.

Erekat went on to enumerate some of the 
settlements that the PA was willing to concede: 
French Hill, Ramat Alon, Ramat Shlomo, Gilo, 
Talpiot, and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s 
old city. Those areas contain some 120,000 Jewish 
settlers. (Erekat did not mention the fate of 
other major East Jerusalem settlements, like 
Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Ya’akov, but Qurei’s 
language indicates that they would also remain a part of Israel.)


An historic concession

The Palestine Papers include a rendering of the 
land swap map presented in mid-2008 to 
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

In an October 2009 meeting, Erekat also proposed 
a geographical division of Jerusalem’s Old City, 
with control of the Jewish Quarter and "part of 
the Armenian Quarter" going to the Israelis.

Settlements in East Jerusalem are illegal under 
international law, but the Israelis have long treated them as suburbs.

Ramat Shlomo, indeed, feels little different from 
Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. It is a 
10-minute drive from the Knesset building, the 
first exit on highway 1 after crossing the Green 
Line. The Jerusalem municipality provides 
services in settlements like Ramat and Neke 
Ya’akov. Pisgat Ze’ev will soon be connected with 
downtown Jerusalem via a light rail line currently under construction.

Israelis are deeply divided on East Jerusalem 
settlements – polls conducted last year by 
Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha’aretz found that 46 per 
cent and 41 per cent (respectively) support an 
East Jerusalem settlement freeze – but the 
government’s position is resolute. Binyamin 
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, likes to 
say that "building in Jerusalem is no different 
than building in Tel Aviv”; Tzipi Livni says her 
Kadima party will "never divide Jerusalem" in an 
agreement with the Palestinians.

That is the Israeli framing. But the PA embraces 
a similar view, according to The Palestine 
Papers. And it does so unilaterally: The Israeli 
side refused to even place Jerusalem on the 
agenda, let alone offer the PA concessions in return for its historic offer.

In July 2008, Udi Dekel, adviser to then-Israeli 
prime minister Ehud Olmert, asked Erekat why 
“your side keep[s] mentioning Jerusalem in every 
meeting.” Six weeks earlier, he told PA map 
expert Samih al-Abed that he 
<http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2648>wasn’t 
allowed to discuss the subject.

Dekel: I do not have permission to discuss 
Jerusalem without knowing what arrangements will be in Jerusalem.

Al-Abed: And Abu Ala said we cannot discuss Ma’ale Adumim.

Dekel: So let’s eat lunch together, and let them [leaders] decide what to do.

The PA, in other words, never even really 
negotiated the issue; their representatives gave 
away almost everything to the Israelis, without 
pressuring them for concessions or compromise. 
Erekat seemed to realise this – perhaps belatedly 
– in a January 2010 meeting with [US president 
Barack] Obama's adviser David Hale.

Erekat: Israelis want the two-state solution but 
they don’t trust. They want it more than you 
think, sometimes more than Palestinians. What is 
in that paper gives them the biggest Yerushalaim 
in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees 
return, demilitarised state
 what more can I give?



An impossible choice?

Palestinian leaders took a more principled stand 
on other major settlement blocs in the West Bank. 
In the same meeting where he conceded East 
Jerusalem, Qurei told Livni that the PA "cannot 
accept the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, 
Giv’at Ze’ev, Ephrat and Har Homa settlements".

All of those (with the exception of Har Homa) are 
located deep in the West Bank, and their 
inclusion in Israel would be ruinous for the 
territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian 
state. Ariel, for example, is nearly halfway to 
Jordan, connected to Israel by an 18km stretch of highway 5.

But dismantling these settlements is also not an 
option for the Israeli government. Ariel is a 
major industrial zone with nearly 18,000 
residents. Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, is a 
fast-growing "bedroom community" of 30,000 
people; during a recent visit, a group of 
Palestinian construction worker was building 
family homes on the settlement’s northeastern slopes.

"The people who will buy these homes, they will 
not just leave in a few years," said one of the 
workers, from the nearby village of al-Jahalin.

The Palestine Papers, then, underscore the 
seeming impossibility of resolving the status of 
settlements like Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel: 
Palestinian negotiators cannot accept them, and 
Israeli negotiators cannot dismantle them.

There is a third option, which Palestinian 
negotiators raised in several meetings: those 
Jewish settlements could be allowed to remain as 
part of the future Palestinian state. Ahmed Qurei 
made that suggestion to Tzipi Livni several times 
in 2008, including this exchange in June:

Qurei: Perhaps Ma’ale Adumim will remain under 
Palestinian sovereignty, and it could be a model 
for cooperation and coexistence.

Livni: The matter is not simply giving a passport to settlers.

The Israeli foreign minister refused to entertain 
the idea. “You know this is not realistic,” she 
<http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2648>told Qurei in May.

Asked about Qurei’s offer earlier this month, 
residents in Ma’ale Adumim reacted with a mix of 
laughter and disbelief. Some wrote it off as a 
political impossibility; others worried about 
their safety, claiming that they would be killed.

There is, in other words, seemingly no mutually 
acceptable policy for Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, and 
other major West Bank settlements within a 
two-state solution – a fact the Bush 
administration was willing to acknowledge in July 2008.

Rice: I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma’ale Adumim.

Qurei: Or any Palestinian leader.

Rice: Then you won’t have a state!

Rice may prove to be correct: Two and a half 
years later, the parties are no closer to a 
solution on settlements, and the Israeli 
government may be gearing up to issue a “massive” 
new round of housing permits for illegal settlers in the West Bank




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