Haaretz
By Nadav Shragai
Twenty months after the Camp David summit, the present government's approach to Jerusalem is the exact opposite of Ehud Barak's. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rejects any negotiations over Jerusalem. A few months ago, some government professionals met him to discuss various aspects of division already at work splitting the city. Sharon shouted at them: "For me, gentlemen, you will work hard to reunite it." Barak and his foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, had the opposite view. They believed that since the city is already divided in many ways, it should be institutionalized in the framework of a permanent agreement with the Palestinians. Barak went to Camp David with three alternative solutions to the Jerusalem problem, all prepared by a team at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
The common denominator of all three proposals was that Arab-populated areas should be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. That would correct the demographic balance, whether moderately or dramatically, in those areas that remained Israeli. Ultimately, Barak agreed to an even more dramatic proposal, based on the division of the city as proposed by then-president Bill Clinton - what's Jewish goes to the Jews, what's Arab goes to the Arabs.
On this 35th Jerusalem Day today, the JIIS, which has become the main non government organization dealing with Jerusalem in its varying aspects, has issued a 200-page report on the Old City. The report is filled with maps and alternative proposals for the city, but it is particularly striking for the enormous amount of sheer data. The institute's Old City committee, headed by Prof. Ruth Lapidot, a former legal advisor to the foreign ministry, mapped in detail the city's 879 dunams of emotions, symbols, and memories.
While the committee (Lapidot, Amnon Ramon, Yisrael Kimche, Ora Ahimeir, Rotem Giladi, Dr. Yiftah Zilberman, Dr. Maya Hoshen, Prof. Avraham Friedman, and Reuven Merhav, with appendices by other experts) says it prepared the report "because the Old City could become a subject in future negotiations," it is not their proposed alternative solutions, which have mostly been published in the past, that is the innovation in their work. Instead it's the sheer compilation of the data - an unprecedented information resource for anyone interested in the state of the Old City and its future. Here, therefore, is a tip-of-the-fork summary of some of the most salient and interest information.
A large Muslim majority
Despite nearly unbearable overcrowding, the Old City is a much sought after place of residence, particularly for weaker segments of the Arab population. The population grew 36 percent between 1967 to 1995. That's an additional 8,500 people. While that is only a quarter of the overall growth of the Arab population of east Jerusalem, it is still more than would be expected in a profoundly overcrowded area.
Some 32,500 people live in the four quarters of the Old City. Some 69 percent are Muslim, 12 percent Jewish, and 17 percent are Christians of various denominations. Not what it used to be The distribution of the ethnic groups does not exactly match the quarters, as it used to. The number of Muslims in the Christian Quarter has doubled since 1967, reaching some 1,000. The number of Jews in the Jewish Quarter grew only by 22 people between 1983 and 1995, reaching 2,900. But the number of Jews living in the Muslim, Christian, and Armenian Quarters grew by 400 during the same period, reaching 500 in the Muslim Quarter and 300 in the Christian Quarter and less than 100 in the Armenian Quarter. Altogether, some 3,800 Jews live in the Old City. Some 100 Muslim families live in the Jewish Quarter, mostly on the edges, in apartments that were designated for expropriation after the 1967 war, as part of the plan for the Jewish Quarter, but were never taken from their owners.
The Lapidot committee's report believes that the population in the Old City must be done on an equitable basis. In other words, "If Jews are allowed to live in non-Jewish quarters, non-Jews should be allowed to live in the Jewish Quarter."
Crowded, very crowded
Population density in the Old City is practically the highest in the country, with 36 people per dunam. But if only the residential area is counted, and public spaces - religious, schools, markets, and other open areas - are discounted, density rises to some 70 people in a dunam, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world. Some 6,000 families live in the Old City. Muslims are 68 percent, Christians 24 percent, and Jews 8 percent. The average Muslim household has 5.3 people, Jewish 4, and Christian 3.7 The Old City has some 5,600 housing units, representing 3.5 percent of all Jerusalem's housing units, filling an area of about 250,000 square meters. The Muslim Quarter is the largest, with 3,300 units. The Christian Quarter has 1,150 units, the Armenian 600, and the Jewish Quarter 550. The average size of an apartment in the Old City is smaller than the overall average for the city. Jews have the largest apartments on average - 75 square meters. In the Muslim Quarter the average size of an apartment is 40 square meters., 42 in the Christian, and 54 in the Armenian.
No planning
Anyone trying to bring any sense of organized planning into the Old City is in for a shock. More than 150 zoning plans have been prepared over the years, but the report, which details all the various types of plans, says that they have nothing to do with reality. "These 150 plans," says the report, "do not reflect in any way the state of planning and construction in the Old City. Inside the Old City's walls there is large-scale construction, practically without any supervision or monitoring by the municipality. The main construction activity is mostly illegal, and often involves destroying and changing the features of sites designated or recommended for preservation. The constitution takes place in courtyards, cellars, in every corner, to meet the pressure of the population's growth. Most of the construction is by individuals, but church institutions, Jews, and Muslims act without much consideration for the principles of preservation. One of the most outstanding examples for that is the construction at the Holy Sepulchre."
A sanctity meter
Holy places have a tendency to proliferate. Especially in Jerusalem. And most especially in the Old City. IN 1949, a list of 30 holy sites was given to the UN. Fifty years later, in 2000, a team of three - a Jewish Israeli, an Armenian Christian and a Muslim Palestinian - prepared a list with no fewer than 326 holy sites. The process of sanctification of a site during such a short period is one of the details in the data base being made available by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies to policymakers. They've also created a kind of Sanctity Meter, categorizing eight degrees of holiness for sites. Leading the list are the sites named in various international treaties, such as bilateral treaties between Israel and Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, as well as holy sites as designated by the Israeli government ministries, and holy sites with world recognition, like the Temple Mount. In eighth place are "graves and other memorials."
Endangered site
In September 1981, UNESCO's World Heritage Center accepted the Kingdom of Jordan's request to list the Old City and its walls in the list of sites of worldwide cultural heritage, even though Jordan wasn't in control of the city by then. During the debate on Jordan's request, the commission refused to hear the Israeli side. In December 1982, at Jordan's request, Jerusalem was listed as an endangered cultural heritage site, because of growing urbanization in the Old City causing grave damage. In 1995, the list of world cultural heritage sites Jerusalem was no longer listed as Jordanian. Instead, Jerusalem was listed as an independent entity, without a state. On October 1999, Israel joined the UNESCO treaty for the protection of world cultural heritage, giving in a list of 23 such sites in Israel. The list included Jerusalem, but without any details.
Binational police
"Terms like `reason,' `natural order,' `tolerance,' and `patience' do not apply in the Old City," writes former Jerusalem police commander Arye Amit in an appendix to the report. He compares the square kilometer of the Old City to "a volcano, with the lava bubbling away inside, threatening to burst." Lapidot's committee examined a number of ideas for policing the Old City proposed by Amit and Dr. Yiftah Zilberman as alternatives, including:
* Two separate police forces, Israeli and Palestinian, cooperating between them
* A special police guard for the holy sites, to include Israelis, Palestinians, and an independent international force
* A special police force just for the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, headquartered at the Mahkame, on the plaza, where the Israeli police and Border Patrol now have a base. Inside the walls of the Haram a Sharif-Temple Mount, a Palestinian force, under Israeli supervision, would patrol. Security on the walls of the Haram-Temple Mount would be provided by a joint Israeli-Palestinian force. Israeli police would operate outside the walls of the Temple Mount.
* Community patrols focused on contact with the residents. The police would be determined by the ethnicity of the quarter they patrol.
* A special tourism police to be based in all the quarters
Dividing authority, not sovereignty
The report looks at eight different possible solutions to the issue of sovereignty for the Old City and outlines them all, but the two that the committee believes have the best chances of success are:
* Suspension of demands for full territorial sovereignty, while dividing authority according to territorial, personal, and functional purposes. One version of this solution says that God is the sovereign in the Old City.
* Each side presents its demands for sovereignty, and the other sides rejects it. Despite the differences over the issue of sovereignty, the sides agree to a detailed division of authority between them. The committee rejects any notion of dividing sovereignty inside the Old City, calling it an "undesirable solution that would damage the function and special nature of the Old City."
Christians moving out
The study says that one of the slogans that spread in Bethlehem during the first intifada was "After Saturday comes Sunday..." which means that after their victory over the Jews, the Muslims would go after the Christians. Inside the Old City, Christian Palestinians sometimes feel threatened as a result of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic Movement leaders who regard Christians as fifth columnists and enemies of Islam. Estimates say that some 13,000 Christians live in Jerusalem, but their numbers are dwindling. In 1967 they were 30 percent of the population of the city. Now they are only 17 percent.
Haredim moving in
The prohibition by Jewish Quarter Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl to sell secular newspapers in the quarter is a sign of the changing demographics in the area. When the quarter was first repopulated by Jews after 1967, 60 percent were religious and 40 percent were secular. Over the last decade the numbers have changed dramatically. Some 70 percent are Haredim, 25 percent religious-nationalist, and only 5 percent are secular. As a result, the average Jewish family in the Old City is very large. There has also been a dramatic rise in the number of Jewish religious schools in the Old City.
Half the land is Muslim
Yisrael Kimche, from the Lapidot committee, classified four types of land ownership in the Old City: Church-owned, Muslim Waqf-owned, Jewish-owned (meaning state-owned), and privately owned Arab property. Land ownership in the Old City is extremely complex. In effect, most of the property is not registered, but rather owned by virtue of possession. There are many reasons for this - no organized land registry, overcrowded construction, no listings in the Tabu, population movement from area to area inside the Old City, wars and various other events, and of course hundreds of years spent under a variety of rulers. The division of ownership is not precise, but nonetheless, the picture shows that of the 879 dunams of the Old City, 271 dunam are owned by the churches, 200 dunam is privately owned by individual Arabs, the waqf owns 223 dunam and Jews, through the state, own 185. Nearly half the land is owned by Muslims, whether through religious trusts or privately and nearly all the land in Jewish hands is owned by the state - 152 dunam in the Jewish Quarter, 21 dunam at and around David's Tower, 2 dunam at Herod's Gate, and the rest along the northern wall of the Old City. Based on current trends, there are scenarios for the future. Jews will probably continue to purchase properties in a piecemeal patter in the Muslim Quarter, says the report. There is a trend of purchases along Rehov Hagai, in an effort to create contiguity to the Herod's Gate area. The committee strongly recommends that the Old City finally undergo a process of proper land and ownership registration.
The waqf's revival
Like other parts of united Jerusalem, there are networks of Palestinian political control in the Muslim Quarter. Fatah-related elements have established clubs and social institutions in the Muslim Quarter and they bring Palestinian Authority influence to bear in the quarter. The PA has also assumed control over a network of waqfs (religious trusts) essentially annexing them to its Ministry of Trusts. Therefore, while residents of the Muslim Quarter have Israeli identity cards, and live in sovereign Israeli territory, but in their daily lives, they are often required to deal with the Palestinian Authority. In most Middle East countries, the waqf, as an institution, is in decline, and has even faded away in some. But in Jerusalem, and in the Old City in particular, it is flourishing. Dr. Yitzhak Reitner says the waqf's revival in Jerusalem is a result of the government's granting autonomy to the Muslim community, making the waqf a unifying factor for the community in dealing with a non-Muslim government, and the utilization of the waqf as an alternative to Palestinian authority in Jerusalem after 1967. The Islamic Trust has 65 mosques in East Jerusalem, two colleges, two high schools, an elementary school and it conducts night schools for teaching Koran. And some 61 percent of the 90 religious trusts formed between 1967 and 1990, are family owned and operated
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