The Future of Music Policy Summit January 10 - 11, 2001 - Washington, DC

LETTER FROM JERUSALEM: Don't Take Our Lone Star
By Arlynn Nellhaus

It was like an enormous party. That was the giant demonstration against dividing Jerusalem that took place on January 8th.

Between 250,000 and 400,000 people from Kiryat Shmona in Israel's very north to Eilat in the country's southernmost tip, from all walks of life and all ages showed up.

I was among them. Boulevards leading to the Old City's Jaffa Gate were packed with people as far as I could see.

Despite the fear and resentment of President Clinton's cavalier pen strokes not only giving Jews' holiest site, the Temple Mount, to Moslems, but slicing up Jerusalem, even its Old City, the crowd's mood was buoyant.

Participants waved zillions of Israeli flags and signs in several languages, but mostly in English for the benefit of American television viewers. One read, "Clinton: Give up Texas to Mexico. Don't take our Lone Star."

A loudspeaker blared popular Jerusalem songs. A Jerusalem choir of some dozen boys put on a live program featuring a young singer of Ethiopian heritage as soloist.

Their repertoire was broad, and pointedly included a Hebrew version of "I Will Survive."

So we sang and swayed to the music and smiled back and forth at each other. The event wasn't political. Other than Jerusalem's mayor saying a few words, political figures weren't on the podium.

It was a heart-felt outpouring of just people, Jerusalemites, Israelis and a group of supportive Christians, broadcasting to the world their cry for an undivided Jerusalem and Israeli control of the Temple Mount -- the only way that would ensure it would be accessible to all.

Back when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister, I participated in many demonstrations against his autocratic methods and his lack of sympathy for Israelis' pain over his decisions. Even the most peaceful demonstrations ended in violence, because of police or military action.

Those memories made this demonstration all the more amazing. The only violence occurred when Palestinians threw rocks at the police. This time, police and demonstrators got along fine.

Yes, it was an upbeat, sweet atmosphere amongst those thousands and thousands who came out to peacefully demonstrate their passionate support for a united Jerusalem.

So who's paying attention to them? Who's responding?

The atmosphere was ironic, because of what President Clinton wants to do to Jerusalem.

Take the walled Old City. It is divided into four quarters: Jewish, Armenian, Christian and Moslem.

Only the Armenian Quarter, behind walls within the Old City walls, is a world unto itself. The so-called Christian and Moslem Quarters were in fact mixed neighborhoods, with many Jewish residents, until Arab violence erupted under the British Mandate -- and the British authorities removed the Jewish residents.

Walk through the Moslem Quarter today, and you still can spot house entrances with a chopped out area on the doorpost, where the original Jewish residents or owners had installed their mezzuzah.

President Clinton's plan, which Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak has mindlessly accepted, is to give the Jewish Quarter to Israel -- and the three others to the Palestinians. Once again, Jews will not be able to live there.

This makes for several problems.

How will anyone get into the Jewish Quarter without going through a Palestinian controlled area?

And as terrorists now take over homes in Beit Jalla under the Palestinian Authority, to shoot into Jewish homes in Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, the Jewish Quarter might very well find itself under constant attack.

Another problem is that the Armenians have suffered their own tragic history under Moslem rule. Has the world forgotten their fate, as well?

During Israel's War of Independence, the Armenians pleaded with the Jewish military to take control of their quarter. But the Haganah couldn't even protect the Jewish Quarter, which fell to Jordan for 19 years.

And the few Christians and many Christian institutions in the Christian Quarter -- do they really want to be under the Palestinians? While the officals might seem agreeable to dividing the city, I happened to personally encounter a Greek Orthodox Arab telling Greek tourists how much better Israel is for him -- and his church -- than the Palestinians would be.

For that matter, even a young Moslem store keeper in the Old City, who now lives under the Palestinian Authority, whispered to me, "It was better under Israel."

But who even has asked the Christians of Jerusalem what they want? Certainly not President Clinton. Don't Christian Arabs get to have a say over their future?

As for the Temple Mount, as hard as Yasser Arafat tries to prove that Jews have no relation to the holy site, the very reason it is holy to Moslems is because of the Jewish connection. Although Jerusalem isn't mentioned once in the Koran, the myth that Mohammed visited Allah from the Temple Mount arose precisely because Jews sanctified the location.

Jews call the mount, Beit HaMigdash (The Holy Temple). The Jerusalem Post's Sarah Honig, pointed out that when Moslems first invaded Jerusalem -- in the 7th century -- they pronounced it "Bayit al-Maqdis," which became, Al Quds, the Moslem name for Jerusalem. The Arab contraction of the original Hebrew name, Honig notes, "continues to daily betray the very Jewish heritage that Arafat now takes pains to expunge."

Why should Jerusalem be divided at all, so that part of it might become a Palestinian capital? While Jerusalem never was an Arab or Moslem capital, it has been the real --or longed-for -- Jewish capital for 3,000 years.

But now, Arafat, like a two-year-old who screams for a toy another child has, screams for Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital, starts a war, and Clinton, like an irresponsible parent, rushes to placate him. Yet, contrary to President Clinton, there never before, ever, was an independent state called "Palestine." Thus, there is no historical claim.

As Americans say, "Nice guys finish last." While Western leaders always publicly insist, "Aggression shall not be rewarded," President Clinton’s position seems to add sotto voce, "except in the case of aggression against Israel."

Arlynn Nellhaus is a former Denver Post reporter now based in Jerusalem and the author of Into the Heart of Jerusalem.