3 Problems With Dividing Jerusalem

For all the talk about the possibility of Olmert agreeing to divide up Jerusalem, there are formidable hurdles.

1. Despite the attempts to label Israel an apartheid state, the fact remains that Jerusalem Arabs are not necessarily crazy about the idea of being governed by Abbas:

Signals that Israel may be willing to cede parts of Jerusalem to a new Palestinian state are prompting soul-searching among the city's Palestinian residents, many of whom are less than eager for an end to Israeli rule.

Some 250,000 people could find themselves under Palestinian rule for the first time in decades if the idea goes forward, trading familiar freedoms and social benefits for an uncertain future under the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Especially worrying, many say, is uncertainty about the PA's ability to provide security in the face of the challenge to its rule by Hamas — the radical Islamist group that already runs a competing government in the Gaza Strip.

2. The very idea of making a clean divide in Jerusalem between the Arab and Jewish sections is more reflective of propaganda than reality:

Meron Benvenisti, a historian and writer who is a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said that the patchwork of Jewish and Arab neighborhoods that has developed in the area captured in 1967 makes it impossible to simply divide the city between Israel and a proposed Palestinian state.

"In this city the egg has been so scrambled that it cannot be restored. It is scrambled already," Benvenisti told Israel Television. "This talk may be good for the Americans or for internal Israeli debate, but on the ground, take a look and see, how can you do it? You can't."

3. The whole idea of putting Abbas and the PA in control of any part of Jerusalem should conjure up images of pre-1967 Jerusalem under the control of Jordan. Under the PA, the very security of Jerusalem would be in doubt:

Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president, has a stern warning for the religious faithful. "Taking the holy sites of Jerusalem which are presently protected and secure and putting them under the uncertainty of Palestinian rule or of some poorly defined special regime for the holy basin is to put their future in great doubt."

The fact that Olmert was once the mayor of Jerusalem merely adds to the surreal nature of the whole idea.

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