U.S. Embassy Move to Jerusalem Is Misguided and Illegal

Ghada Karmi

In the recent hectic events overtaking the Israelis and Palestinians, everyone seems to have forgotten that in October 1995, the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is legislated to take place by 1999, but the U.S. president can use his veto to prevent the embassy move indefinitely. However, such maneuvers may only delay, but not reverse, the U.S. legislation which is now in place. Also, at the same time that Congress voted to move the embassy, it also endorsed for the first time ever a “united Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital, right in line with Israeli policy.

The U.S. decision was and still is profoundly wrong, legally, morally and politically. Legally speaking, the status of Jerusalem is governed by U.N. Resolution 181 of 1947, which internationalized the city as a “corpus separatum” under U.N. trusteeship. The U.S. voted for this resolution and subsequently supported all other resolutions which pronounced Israel’s 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem illegal, and its activities there as null and void.

In 1980, the U.S. voted for Security Council Resolution 465 which, inter alia, criticized Israel’s settlements in Jerusalem. In 1990, the U.S. reaffirmed that Jewish areas implanted in East Jerusalem had the status of illegal settlements.

Despite this, however, there is no doubt that American adherence to the international position on Jerusalem has eroded steadily over the last decade. At the Madrid peace conference of 1991, the U.S. agreed to Israel’s preposterous demands that no Palestinians from Jerusalem could participate.

In 1993, Secretary of State Warren Christopher introduced the term “disputed territories” for the first time in place of the legally accepted “occupied territories.” This marked a clear departure from previous U.S. policy and a growing adherence to the Israeli position which regards all U.N. resolutions critical of Israel as irrelevant.

In the fuss over Israel’s opening of the “archeological” tunnel in East Jerusalem in September 1996, the U.S. significantly avoided making the central point that all Israeli construction in the annexed city is illegal. Thus, the 1995 congressional vote to move the U.S. Embassy, while flagrantly contravening international law on Jerusalem, is also no more than the logical result of the administration’s continuing policy of deviation toward the Israeli line. If the U.S. really does move its embassy to Jerusalem, then this will signal a contempt for international law equal only to that of Israel.

On the moral question, the U.S. decision fares even worse. In 1967 when Israel seized East Jerusalem, it was wholly Palestinian Arab. Today, 85 to 90 percent of East Jerusalem land is in Israeli hands, with only 13 percent left for the Palestinians. This remarkable switch of ownership was accomplished by a systematic Israeli government policy of land expropriation and subsequent Jewish colonization. Consequently, there are today chains of Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land in three layers surrounding Jerusalem: an outer ring of enormous settlement towns like Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion; a middle ring of seven settlements closer to East Jerusalem; and an innermost ringmost intolerable for the Palestiniansof fanatical, ultra-Orthodox Jewish groupings living in the midst of densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods.

These innermost settlements are supported by the present Israeli government and funded with money from U.S. Jews. Two U.S.-funded Jewish groups, the Ateret Cohanim and Elad, have been extremely active in taking over Arab houses in the Old City and in the Jerusalem suburb of Silwan, to the impotent anger of their Palestinian owners.

More Settlements

Despite these enormous Israeli gains, more settlements are planned for Jerusalem: 6,519 houses to be built on Jabal Ghoneim (Har Homa) south of Jerusalem, 280 acres to be taken from Beit Hanina, east of Jerusalem, and 100 acres from the suburb of Beit Safafa. Within the city, hundreds of houses are planned for Ras al-Amud on the Mount of Olives, a new settlement at the bottom of French Hill, and hundreds of houses to be built in Abu Dis. This policy of colonization has created an artificial Jewish majority in East Jerusalem, which now has a population of 170,000 Jews to 155,000 Arabs. The combined population of East and West Jerusalem and annexed West Bank areas now is 72 percent Jewish and 28 percent Arab.

The consequences for the Palestinians of Jerusalem have been extremely grave. They have become a minority in their own city, choked off by settlements from their countrymen in the West Bank and the objects of a policy of municipal discrimination which should raise an international outcry. Palestinians pay 26 percent of Jerusalem’s taxes but receive 5 percent of the services. They also are granted far fewer housing permits than are Jews. Between 1968 and 1974 only 58 permits were issued to Palestinians, and in 1993 only 3.8 percent of all houses built were for Palestinians.

This shortage has forced them to build houses illegally, with the result that many are demolished by the Israelis. In September, the Israelis destroyed a Palestinian community center for the handicapped allegedly for this reason. Because of homelessness, at least 50,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave Jerusalem since 1967, and this number is still rising. New laws were introduced last March aiming to remove Jerusalem residency rights from such people and numerous petty laws are in force to deprive others of their permits. This blatant attempt to empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants has received a boost under Israel’s present government.

All these Israeli activities are aimed at altering Jerusalem’s demographic and geographic character and thus strengthen Israel’s claim to it as the eternal capital of Israel.

The Jerusalem 3,000 celebrations, ending in December 1996, were a flop. But they were designed to impose a fraudulent Jewish historical and cultural identity on the city.

The fact that Israel has been able to get away with its colonization program so far in no way changes the basic immorality of what it has done. Nor does it absolve the rest of the world, America included, of the responsibility of opposing Israel’s immoral acts. How is it possible in good conscience to defend the theft of Palestinian land, the devices Israel uses to expel Jerusalem’s Palestinians, and the routine discrimination against harmless citizens whose only crime is that they live in a city Israel wants exclusively for its own people? The U.S. decision to recognize Israel’s claim to Jerusalem is nothing less than acquiescence in these illegal and immoral practices, and gives a clear signal to the world of a system of values and principles distorted by the need to exonerate Israel from any wrongdoing.

The third objection to the congressional resolution to move the U.S. embassy involves the political aspects. On the face of it, it seems to have been taken in a total vacuum of knowledge about the significance of Jerusalem for the Arabs, and for the Islamic and Christian worlds. Much as the city has been celebrated by Jews, in fact it holds unique importance for these other two major world religions. Jerusalem occupies a major role in Muslim theological dogma, and in Arab history. From 638 A.D., until the end of the First World War the city was in virtually uninterrupted Arab/Muslim control. As such, the city has played a major role in the history of both Christian and Muslim Arabs.

The modern Palestinians are the physical inheritors of this history. For them, it is an indivisible part of a heritage which is concrete, not mythological. It would be very foolish to assume that all of these constituenciesArab, Muslim, Christianwill sit by placidly while Jerusalem is physically and politically wrested from them. For the U.S. Congress to imagine that its cozy understanding with Israel over Jeusalem will be forgiven and forgotten by all these factions signifies either arrogant contempt or feckless ignorance.

Of course, the U.S. calculation could be that the Arabs are too disunited and ineffectual to oppose Israel’s takeover of the city. It certainly is true that, despite proclamations and protests, Arabs inside and outside Palestine have failed to halt any of Israel’s actions. But Arab governments are not synonymous with public opinion, and do not necessarily represent the wishes of their populations.

It is largely this dissonance between rulers and subjects which has provoked the growth of informal, sometimes violent movements in Arab countries which have no other means to express their frustration. The ability of such movements to disrupt regional stability has been shown in, for example, the suicide bombings in Israel in early 1996, the war with Hezbollah in south Lebanon and, most recently, the Palestinian response to the tunnel opening in Jerusalem. In view of the centrality of Jersualem to the Arabs, it is inconceivable that exclusive Israeli domination over the city will pass unnoticed. On the contrary, we may safely anticipate more powerful and more ruthless reactions than any seen so far.

Given the vital importance which the Middle East holds for the U.S. in terms of oil and security for its regional ally, Israel, it surely cannot be in America’s interest to help create a situation which could threaten those same priorities. One wonders how much forethought was given to these Americanas opposed to Israelipolitical considerations when the decision was taken by members of Congress to move the embassy. If this misguided and dangerous decision really is carried out, then the political costs for the U.S. could be considerable. President Clinton, now assured of another term in office, should forthrightly reject the embassy move and thereby act for America, not Israel.