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ISRAEL
To whom goes Jerusalem?
Peace process stalls over status of city
As the Middle East peace process stalled this summer over the future status of Jerusalem, the Vatican proposed an international status for the city, and Palestinian and Israeli negotiators talked about “divine sovereignty.”
Pope John Paul II, on July 23, called for the creation of a special international status for Jerusalem to solve the impasse in the peace accords—then being held at Camp David outside Washington, DC—over competing Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city.
The Holy Father said he was praying for a successful outcome to the talks, urging the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority “not to overlook the importance of the spiritual dimension of the city of Jerusalem.” He said world oversight of the location of holy places sacred to three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, was the best solution.
“The Holy See continues to maintain that only a special statute, internationally guaranteed, can effectively preserve the most sacred areas of the Holy City,” he said. It would “assure freedom of religion and of worship for all the faithful who, in the region and the entire world, look to Jerusalem as a crossroads of peace and of coexistence,” the Pope added.
Israel dismissed the proposal, while a Palestinian spokesman welcomed it. “It’s not on the table,” said Aviv Shiron, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Minister David Levy. “The reality has shown that since Israel has controlled the holy sites, freedom of access and worship has never been greater,” Shiron said in Israel.
“This is a sign from the Pope, who is the highest Christian authority in this world, that he is denying the claim of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem,” said Hassan Abdel Rahman, Palestinian envoy to Washington and a frequent spokesman for the Palestinians during the Camp David talks.
Rabbi Meir Lau, one of the chief rabbis of Israel, rejected the Pope’s proposal. Lau said, “To the Pope who calls us ‘our elder brothers’ we ask for the rights of the first born because we have no alternative other than Jerusalem.”
He insisted that Israel has a historic and religious right to rule Jerusalem. Lau added that Israel had safeguarded access to all religious sites in the 33 years since it recaptured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, and there was no need for international guarantees.
Israel has insisted Jerusalem will remain its “united and eternal capital” but has said it may be willing to cede outlying areas to Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Any hope for a near-time peace accord were dashed when US President Bill Clinton announced that the two-week-old Camp David peace talks had collapsed at the end of July.
Christians in the region had expressed concern that their rights and access to religious sites would be curbed by a peace deal that determined Jerusalem’s status. “Jerusalem is a special city in the world and any solution should take care of the spiritual nature of Jerusalem,” said a spokesman for the Latin Patriarchate. “We ask that Jerusalem be a complete geographical unity.”
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stopped in Rome on August 1, on her way home from a visit to Japan, to consult with the Vatican and ask it to use its influence on the Palestinians to restart the peace talks and bring about resolution. However, she also rejected the proposal for an international status for Jerusalem.
In a meeting with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican foreign minister, Albright said the proposal was not likely to be accepted in the current climate. “Nobody wanted—I mean, at Camp David certainly the issue of internationalization was not the solution,” Albright said. But Archbishop Tauran pushed the position, calling for protection for sacred sites, respect for international resolutions—particularly UN resolutions including a demand that Israel withdraw from territory occupied in the 1967 Six Day War—as the other essentials for a “just and lasting peace in that part of the world.” The archbishop even referred to Israel “illegally occupying” East Jerusalem.
Both sides in the conflict seemed to come around to the Pope’s way of thinking at the end of August, however, as they contemplated a proposal for special status of “divine sovereignty” for Jerusalem by declaring that God alone has sovereignty over the city sacred to three major religions.
The new proposal, still in its tentative, formative stages, would declare God as the sovereign over Jerusalem and its holy places, and has earned cautious support from Jerusalem’s Israeli mayor and a leading Palestinian official, two of the most virulent opponents to any accommodation.
Menachem Klein, a member of an Israeli think tank that has been advising Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the negotiations with the Palestinians, said the idea was first floated after the Camp David summit broke down.
At the core of the dispute is the disposition of the Temple Mount—the location of the Jewish Temples and now two major Muslim mosques. If God is declared sovereign over the city, both Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may be able to reach an agreement without being declared traitors by their constituents. Klein said negotiators could then start working out the details of how sovereignty is expressed, such as who would be in charge of security and who would issue permits for renovations.
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