In the heart of Jerusalem

THE mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, in condemning last Tuesday’s terror attack on worshippers in a synagogue, observed that the synagogue was “in the heart of Jerusalem.”

It wasn’t always so.

That synagogue was in Har Nof.

This neighborhood wasn’t always “the heart of Jerusalem.”

In fact, when Har Nof was founded, it wasn’t clear whether it was in Jerusalem at all.

The elastic status of that neighborhood is a microcosm of the entire Jewish-Arab conflict over the past 133 years.

Flashback: 1985. The 200 or so residents of Har Nof — who now number in the tens of thousands — were engaged in deep debate at Purim time.

Was Har Nof in Jerusalem?

If so, residents of Har Nof would observe Purim on the 15th day of Adar, like the rest of Jerusalem.

If not, Har Nof would observe Purim on the 14th day of Adar, like the rest of Israel.

It was argued, for example, that from the edge of Har Nof one could barely see the tip of the last house in what was then the furthest extremity of Jerusalem, the Givat Shaul neighborhood. This made Har Nof part of Jerusalem. Hence, Purim on the 15th.

It was counterargued that one really couldn’t see the tip of the last house from any residence in Har Nof, but only from the road that led into it. Hence, Purim on the 14th.

In the end, Purim was observed on both the 14th and 15th, out of doubt as to what the status of Har Nof really was — in Jerusalem; or not?

I am not vouching here for every detail in the debate, though, as a resident there, I was affected by it. My point is this: Today, no one would call Har Nof a “settlement,” and not just because it’s inside the 1967 border.

Jerusalem grows.

Israel grows.

The population grows.

Construction proceeds apace. As the late Ariel Sharon once said when a US administration wanted to forbid the natural growth of Israeli settlements, “What should I do? Tell the women to have abortions?”

If we remove the pejorative-political connotation of “settlement,” Har Nof is a settlement. It’s simple. In 1982, it was barren land.

Then, it was built into a large neighborhood.

The first residents moved in in 1984.That’s a settlement.

That’s how the Jewish community of some six million people was built in the land of Israel since 1881, when massive pogroms in Russia generated what is regarded as the beginning of modern political Zionism.

Every Jewish house in the land of Israel, wherever it is, is a settlement.

If one is opposed to settlements, one is opposed to the State of Israel.

The whole state is a settlement.

If one is opposed to it, one maintains that the Jews have no right to live in the land which Jews have lived in since antiquity.

It is artificial to divide between pre- and post-1967 borders of Israel, calling the Jewish communities in the pre-1967 borders non-settlements, and the Jewish communities in the post-1967 borders settlements.

On both sides of those 1967 borders, Arabs lived; and, since 1881, Jews, too, in significant numbers.

If one can legitimately divide between pre- and post-1967 borders, why not divide between pre- and post-1881 borders? Call the pre-1881 communities legitimate, and the post-1881 communities “settlements.”

It’s a reductio ad absurdum, even setting aside the fact that for millennia Jews have lived in the land of Israel.

Either Jews have a right to live in Israel, or they don’t.

JUST because Jews have the right the live anywhere in the Biblical land, they should not lord it over the Arab residents there. The non-violent among them have a right to live there, too. The Torah itself acknowledges the permanence of the gentile resident of the land.

But the issue today is the opposite. The issue today is not whether Arabs have a right to live there, but whether Jews do.

To affirm the right of Jews in 1982 to live in Har Nof, then a barren land called “Givat Shaul Bet” — which everyone today, except the likes of Hamas, accepts as part of Jerusalem and Israel — is to affirm the right of Jews in 2014 to live anywhere else in the land, just so long as Jewish settlement does not displace other peaceful residents already legally living there.

What about a Palestinian state, you say? If given a state, people who rejoice at the death of Jews praying in a synagogue would endanger Jews and themselves. If people think so little of humanity that they rejoice at the murder of innocent Jews, they would turn on innocent Palestinians, too. They already do, in “honor killings.” I am skeptical that a viable Palestinian state can arise out of a culture of hatred.

Mayor Nir Barkat said, upon hearing the news of last Tuesday’s terror attack: “Jerusalem bows its head in pain and sorrow on this difficult morning.

“Jerusalem residents peacefully praying in a synagogue in the heart of Jerusalem were cruelly slaughtered in cold blood while wearing their prayer shawls.

“We will not surrender to terror.

“We will stand strong and defend our city from those who try to disturb the peace of our capital.”

Jews have no right to that capital if it is not acknowledged that it was the capital of the Jewish nation some 3,000 years ago.

That capital, that settlement — that is the undying, underlying issue in the Arab-Jewish conflict to this day.

Until the Jewish right to settle in the land of Israel is accepted, the conflict will continue.

That’s what Sec. of State John Kerry didn’t get when he embarked on his doomed-from-the-beginning negotiations between Israel and the PA in 2013.

Doomed because he avoided the real issue.

Which isn’t borders.

Or “settlements.”

Or anything else but Israel’s right to exist anywhere in the land of Israel.

Murderous opposition to that is nothing other than, to use the phrase of Kerry’s boss, President Obama, “pure evil.”

Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News