(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Nadav Shragai - The demand has again been raised that Jerusalem's division be adopted as a policy goal. But dividing Jerusalem is likely to cause much worse security problems and hamstring the ongoing, sophisticated, cooperative work of security forces and intelligence in thwarting Palestinian and Islamic terrorist attacks. Moreover, division of the city will expose hundreds of thousands of Jews along the new border to a very real threat of light-weapon and machinegun fire from the Arab neighborhoods. In the past, Palestinians fired at similar ranges from Beit Jalla and Bethlehem into the Gilo neighborhood on and off for four years. When the security fence was constructed along the northern side of Jerusalem, tens of thousands of Palestinian residents opted to move to the Israeli side of the fence. A division of the city can be expected to bring tens of thousands of Arabs into Jerusalem, and to cause tens of thousands of Jews to flee from it. Each year about 18,000 Jews leave the city. The main reason is the grave shortage of housing. Halting the process of emigration from Jerusalem is not possible without multiplying the annual building of dwellings. This is from the Introduction to Jerusalem: Delusions of Division (Hebrew, 2015; English edition forthcoming, 2015). The author was a reporter for Ha'aretz in 1983-2010 and currently writes for Israel Hayom.
2015-05-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive