2017 Year-end Summary: From Deepening Control of the Heart of the City to Advancing Plans to Redraw its Boundaries

2017 Year-end Summary: From Deepening Control of the Heart of the City to Advancing Plans to Redraw its Boundaries

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Over the course of 2017, the government of Israel intensified its two-pronged Jerusalem strategy to reinforce the city’s status as the capital of Israel while dismantling Palestinian Jerusalem. This dual approach is being carried out both on the periphery of the city and within the heart of East Jerusalem – the Old City and surrounding band of Palestinian neighborhoods. Israel is actively working to alter the boundaries of Jerusalem through legislation, through the creation of Palestinian enclaves on the outskirts of the city, and through unchecked building of Israeli neighborhoods/settlements and highway infrastructure to link the city to the three adjacent settlement blocs in service to the vision of a “Greater Jerusalem.” In parallel, Israel is acting within the core of East Jerusalem – the Old City and its environs – by promoting an unprecedented number of touristic settlement initiatives inside Palestinian neighborhoods, advancing evictions and uprooting Palestinian families, demolishing homes (throughout East Jerusalem), enabling the erosion of the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif, stepping up policing activities under the guise of “governance,” and expunging the Palestinian narrative in Jerusalem. These measures constitute a significant deepening of Israel’s Jerusalem policy, at a time when large segments of the Israeli opposition not only fail to challenge the government’s policies but actually help to reinforce them. Take, for example, the Zionist Union’s proposal to separate Palestinian neighborhoods from Jerusalem – a plan that would only exacerbate the deterioration and fragmentation of East Jerusalem.

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At the end of the year, Israel’s Jerusalem policy received an infusion of support from US President Donald Trump who, on December 6, 2017 declared US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel: “Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It is something that has to be done.” Trump qualified his declaration by adding, “We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved."

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The president called for preservation of the status quo at Al Aqsa while announcing that he had ordered necessary measures to be taken to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. At the end of his speech, he signed a presidential waiver postponing the embassy move for an additional six months. Trump’s declaration was enthusiastically received by the Israeli government while garnering criticism from other countries in the Middle East as well as most of the international community. The Palestinian Authority reacted by canceling meetings with high level American officials and declaring that the United States is no longer in a position to serve as a mediator between Israel and Palestine.

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As this report will demonstrate, in the absence of a political process those seeking to preserve an opening for a fair resolution on Jerusalem must challenge policies designed to fragment Palestinian Jerusalem – policies that undermine the stability of life in the city and make the possibility of a resolution on Jerusalem even more remote. There can be no feasible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without a plan providing for two capitals in Jerusalem and toward this end, it will be insufficient to prevent Israeli building beyond the Green Line. It is critical that steps be taken to effectively address the reinforcing processes Israel is now carrying out: unilateral moves to alter Jerusalem’s boundaries while strengthening control over the Old City and its environs in an attempt to reconstitute its character and dismantle Palestinian society in Jerusalem.

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