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Back to Jerusalem

EVEN sections of the Israeli Press have dismissed vice Prime Minister Halim Ramon’s hint that occupied Jerusalem’s fate will be on the table during the year-end multi-party peace talks. Indeed, for the ruling party that won people’s favour on the presumption that the border would be drawn ‘unilaterally’, such a change of course is concerning.

But considering that partitioning Jerusalem on lines of ethnic representation has been part of the vice premier’s stated line since long before joining Kadima, and that the peace effort risks failure failing meaningful promise from the West, it is possible that the Jerusalem card will only hold till participants are lured, albeit reluctantly, to Annapolis, Maryland.

Biting feverishly on the Israeli agenda, as usual, is the Hamas factor. No sooner than the Israeli bait made its presence felt was Hamas out and about, publicly urging Saudi Arabia and Egypt to ‘stay away’ from the conference that is apparently meant to bolster PA chief Mahmoud Abbas but will effectively, according to them (Hamas), deliver yet another nail in the all but ready coffin of Gaza almost as a whole.

Significantly, as things stand, important as the Jerusalem aspect of the negotiations is, it is hardly all of it. Arabian concerns involve Jerusalem, drawing final borders, the matter of Israeli settlements and the lingering issue of Palestinian refugees. Much of Palestine’s population has dwelled in refugee camps ever since Israel drove them out of their homeland. And to make matters worse, the Western blockade following Hamas’ election victory in January brought about a humanitarian disaster the likes of which have not been witnessed in the region in living memory. And the Arabs in particular and Muslims in general have grown wary of Western promises of progress. Hence the tough collective line on pre-conditions.

There is also a notable hint in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s repeated reference to the line confirming that the November conference would ‘not replace direct negotiations with the Palestinians’. November could well see regional concern-mongers vindicated with Olmert falling back on his election cry to counter domestic disapproval that has been building since the miss-planned misadventure with Hezbollah. But if Washington can really initiate a conference where the Israelis will sit down to discuss the fate of Jerusalem, progress, however little, would have been made indeed.