Sunday, December 18, 2005
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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Sharon to divide
Jerusalem?
Top minister refuses to comment on relinquishing parts of holy
city
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Posted: December 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM Just days after a principle adviser to Ariel Sharon
told the media the Israeli prime minister will divide Jerusalem if
he wins in upcoming elections, a senior minister and close Sharon
ally today refused to answer whether she would support
relinquishing parts of the holy city to the Palestinians.
The statements follow the lauding by several senior dovish Israeli
lawmakers and Palestinian leaders of Kadima, Sharon's newly formed
political party, as Israel's "best chance" at creating a
Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria and the eastern
sections of Jerusalem.
"My parents' friends demand that I promise to say there won't be a
Palestinian state and that I promise to fight and prevent its
establishment, but I'm not saying it," said Justice Minister Tzipi
Livni at a community gathering earlier today.
Livni then refused to respond to a question posed to her by a
reporter for Israel's Haaretz daily about whether she would support
splitting Jerusalem to create a Palestinian state.
Livni was one of the first politicians to join Sharon's Kadima
party after the Israeli leader announced he is leaving the ruling
Likud Party he helped found to start his own "centrist" party,
prompting new elections that will be held in March.
Since Sharon's move, multiple Kadima members have stated the new
party is looking to change Israel's borders.
Top Kadima adviser Eli Landau recently said Sharon's "decision [to
form a new party] stems from his desire to bring the state of
Israel to permanent borders during his term of office ... He knows
that this step will be a dramatic one."
Sharon aide Eyal Arad told the British daily The Guardian the
Palestinians will soon be given independence.
According to a Newsweek report, Sharon's senior campaign pollster
Kalman Gayer last week said the Israeli prime minister aims to
divide Jerusalem.
The Newsweek article stated: "In theory, Gayer says, Sharon would
accept a Palestinian state in Gaza and 90 percent of the West Bank,
and a compromise on Jerusalem, in exchange for peace ... Sharon
wants to 'lay the contours of an agreement with the Palestinians,'
according to Gayer, by creating a Palestinian state in half the
West Bank and implementing confidence-building measures."
Immediately following the publication of Gayer's remarks, Sharon
appeared on state-run Israeli television and denied his vision for
a Palestinian state includes Jerusalem.
"The remarks attributed to Kalman Gayer absolutely contradict my
positions and my views," said Sharon. "If those remarks were indeed
made, they were made by Kalman Gayer alone and they are complete
nonsense. United Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital
forever."
But Sharon has previously denied rumors of withdrawals he later
carried out. When he first ran for prime minister in 2000, Sharon's
campaign platform stated that if elected, there would be no
unilateral Israeli withdrawals from any territories and no
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority unless it dismantled
all terror groups. Sharon last summer unilaterally withdrew from
the Gaza Strip and four northern Samaria towns, and has been
hinting at further disengagements.
A source close to Sharon told WND, "The way Sharon works is that
before announcing specific initiatives, he often has senior members
of his government float them publicly as a trial balloon, to gage
domestic and international public opinion."
Sharon's pollster is not the first official to hint at Israeli
withdrawals from Jerusalem. In June 2004, Deputy Prime Minister and
Sharon ally Ehud Olmert said Israel is contemplating turning parts
of Jerusalem over to Palestinian control.
"Jerusalem is dear to me, but one must not lose sight of
proportions over peripheral areas we do not need," Olmert said in
an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
Olmert claimed ceding control of six eastern Jerusalem
neighborhoods to the Palestinians is "needed to maintain a Jewish
majority in the Holy City."
He named Isawiya adjacent to the Jerusalem's French Hill
neighborhood the nearby Shuafat refugee camp, Anata, the northern
village of Kfar Akab, and Sur Bahir and Umm Tuba, on the city's
southeastern rim.
Olmert was also the first to go public with Sharon's Gaza
withdrawal plan, which the Israeli prime minister at first
denied.
After he made the statements regarding Jerusalem, Sharon's bureau
chief Dov Weisglass joked that "Olmert is in good shape, he jogs.
He is always ahead of us."
The prospect of a Palestinian state in parts of Jerusalem worries
many. The last time Arabs had control over the city, Jews were
expelled and holy sites were burned.
Jerusalem was first divided into eastern and western sections when
Jordan invaded and occupied Jerusalem and the Old City in 1947,
expelling all Jewish inhabitants. Israel built its capital in the
western part of the city, while the eastern quarters remained under
Jordanian control until Israel captured it, along with the Old
City, in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for
his country to stay out of the Six Day War.
During the 19 years of Arab sovereignty, the ancient Jewish Quarter
of the Old City was ravaged, 58 synagogues some centuries old
were destroyed and slum dwellings were built abutting the Western
Wall. Jews were not allowed to visit their holy places and Israeli
Christians were subjected to many restrictions, with only limited
numbers allowed to visit the Old City and Bethlehem at Christmas
and Easter.
*******
Wah, Jerusalem so important in the
Middle East?