Unifying a Divided City

"O Allah, save Jerusalem." Assembled outside Mecca last week for the beginning of the annual hajj (pilgrimage), 1.6 million Muslims prayed in fervent unison for the "liberation" of East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. A few days earlier, Israeli Premier Menachem Begin had given a rousing speech at an election rally in Jerusalem for local candidates of his Likud Party. He declared that a united Jerusalem was as much the capital of Israel as Washington was the capital of the U.S. "The only difference is that Washington has been a capital for 200 years, while Jerusalem has existed for 3,000 years as Israel's capital."

Those irreconcilable views on the destiny of the Holy City point to the difficulties that lie ahead in finding a solution to the most difficult of all Middle East problems. To the 100,000 Arabs of East Jerusalem—indeed, to Arabs everywhere—Jerusalem is the third-ranking of Islam's holy places (after Mecca and Medina) and the obvious capital of any Palestinian entity set up on the West Bank. Says Anwar Khatib, former governor of East Jerusalem under Jordanian rule: "Without safeguarding Arab sovereignty over East Jerusalem, all other proposals will not stand."

The Israelis, for their part, have bitter memories of the walls and barbed wire that divided Jerusalem until 1967, and of the despoliation of the Old City's Jewish Quarter by the Arabs. Never again, they say, can the city be divided and Jews be forbidden to pray before their holiest shrine, the Wailing Wall. To that end, the Israelis have created what they call "new facts" to make sure that Jerusalem stays unified. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City, for example, is being meticulously reconstructed, and 2,200 Israelis have settled there; prior to 1947, the Jewish population was only 1,300. A number of Arab families who lived near the Wailing Wall have been displaced, while others have moved away in quest of better housing; as a result, the Arab population of the Old City has dropped from 25,000 to 17,000.

As another sign of their permanent presence, the Israelis have moved the offices of the Ministry of Justice, the national police and the Jerusalem district court into the eastern sector of the city. Begin has even talked of moving the Premier's offices there. In addition, Israeli governments have built seven huge, utilitarian apartment complexes on the hills and ridges that surround East Jerusalem. Only Jews live in these housing projects. Their population, currently about 52,000, is expected to reach 120,000 by 1988. The Israeli economy has provided jobs for thousands of East Jerusalem's Arabs in the western part of the city, thereby creating a permanent economic link.