By Nicola Nasser**
While the history of the world is moving decisively toward
a culture of inclusion, diversity and pluralism, Israeli politics seems to
challenge history by moving in the opposite direction of exclusion and
unilateral self - righteous monopoly of geography, demography, history,
archeology and culture, especially in Jerusalem, where Israelis are desperately
trying to establish a "Jewish" capital for Israel and "the Jewish people" worldwide,
excluding centuries old presence of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Christian deep-rooted
existence and heritage, thus sowing the seeds of imminent conflict and
foreseeable war by strangling a city that has historically been of diversified
and pluralistic character and a flashpoint for human misery whenever exclusion
becomes the rule of the day.
Israeli politics is not moving against history only, but
is challenging world politics as well. Although the first Knesset of the newly
born "state of Israel" voted on December 13, 1949 to move the seat of
government from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and despite Israel's annexation of east
Jerusalem on June 27, 1967, which the UN Security Council declared "null and
void," both unilateral declarations have never been accepted and recognized by
the international community, not even by the U.S., Israel's strategic guardian.
More recently, while millions of Christians were
celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, on the southern outskirts
of Jerusalem, and the birth of Christianity in Jerusalem, the scene of Jesus'
resurrection following his death by crucifixion, which is the cornerstone of
Christian faith, the Knesset was, on Christmas day, scheduled to consider a
draft law that would declare Jerusalem "the capital of the Jewish people" and
the capital of Israel at the same time.
The fact that the ruling elite in Tel Aviv has made a
prior recognition of Israel as a "Jewish" state a precondition for making peace
implicitly and consequently applies to Christians as well, otherwise how could
any observer interpret the still simmering crisis with
the Vatican over the holy places in Jerusalem. The "Fundamental Agreement"
signed by both sides on December 30, 1993, as well as an agreement on the recognition of the civil effects of
ecclesiastical legal personality, signed on November 10, 1997, have yet to be ratified by Israel's Knesset. Some in
the Israeli media has been recently accusing the
The Vatican in the past supported making
Jerusalem a corpus separatum , an international city in accordance with the UN
Resolution 181 of 1947; Israel's non-compliance delayed Vatican's formal
recognition of Israel until 1993.
More recently, the
The only perceived threat to the holy
places against which the
The precondition of recognizing Israel as
a "Jewish state" is rejected by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
Israel's partner in peace accords, and its self-ruled Palestinian Authority,
the 22-member League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC); in a statement he issued on December 26, 2011, the Secretary-General
of the 57-member states of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, condemned the Israeli
draft law that declares Jerusalem "the capital of Israel and the Jewish people"
as "a direct assault on the Palestinian people and their inalienable and clear
rights" and "a flagrant violation of international law and international
legitimacy resolutions," which affirm that Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian
territories occupied by Israel in 1967. PLO representatives considered the
Israeli draft law a "declaration of war" and a recipe for igniting a religious
conflict. The Islamic -- Christian Commission in Support of
Israeli attorney and founder of
Terrestrial Jerusalem, a Jerusalem-based NGO, Daniel Seidemann, wrote on
November 30, 2011: "Cumulatively, Israeli policies in
"" Today,
What is much more important than
excluding "a conflict that can be resolved by means of territorial compromise,"
is that the Israeli politics of exclusion in Jerusalem, which could be
summarized by Judaization of the holy city, is a roadmap to de-Arabizing, de-Islamizing, de-Christianizing,
de-historizing and de-humanizing Jerusalem, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and
this could not be anything but a roadmap to hell.
Absolutely this is
unsustainable Israeli politics.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir
Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
