On My Mind; ‘Judaizing Jerusalem’

By: A.M. Rosenthal
The New York Times, December 20, 1996

“The Israelis are trying to
Judaize Arab East Jerusalem.”

All friends of Israel, of whatever
faith, whatever thoughts about achieving
Israeli-Palestinian peace, should grasp
what meanings lie beneath those words.

They have been used in public often,
but until recently only by Arabs for whom
control of Jerusalem is a goal never to
be abandoned and hatred of Jews never
forgotten.

Now it pops up in the Western press
as a dangerous reality. The Dec. 23 issue
of Newsweek, in its “news”
columns, says as a matter of regrettable
fact that religious Jews are “part
of an effort to Judaize Arab East
Jerusalem.” Even when the specific
words are not used, the meaning is often
clear, as in a recent “60
minutes” segment on Jerusalem.

The thrust is plain: Any plans of
Jews to live in any part of Jerusalem to
which Palestinians lay particular claim
at the moment is wrong and will destroy
the chance of peace.

The attitude behind the
“Judaization” charge is of
utmost importance to those who wish
Israel to live free and proud. The right
to live anywhere is separate from the
decision to exercise that right at any
given time. A case might be argued that
this is not the time for more Jews, no
matter how few, to set up homes in the
eastern part of their capital or the West
Bank.

But to deny the right of Jews to live
anywhere in Israel makes them lesser in
nationhood than any other people.

“Judaization.” It is an
accusation: Jews who live in
neighborhoods demographically Arab are
interlopers in their capital, pushing in
where they have no right to be,
threatening the daily lives and religions
of the real Jerusalemites.

“Judaization.” Those who
use the word should say it more plainly:
the Jewing of Jerusalem.

I asked a colleague the word that
sprang to mind when he heard Judaization.
“Hymietown,” he said. For me,
it recalls the antonym — Judenrein.
Arabs are familiar with that. It is what
they accomplished when Jordan occupied
the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 — all
Jews out.

Eight former Secretaries of State and
national security advisers in a letter to
Israel, endorsed quickly by President
Clinton, warned Israel against
“unilateral” action — meaning
increasing settlements on the West Bank
or anywhere.

They certainly do not talk of
Judaization. But the warning is that more
settlers could destroy peace. This
amounts to advance justification of any
Palestinian attack against settlers on
the grounds, true or false, that they
were newcomers.

Two signers told me the statement was
drafted at least three weeks earlier,
held up so as not to jeopardize the
Hebron talks. It was released after Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made remarks
they thought meant more settlers.

This is what the statement did not
say: Long before Israel’s creation and
ever since, Arabs have been fighting not
“settlements” in any particular
place, but the very presence of Jews
among them.

Mr. Netanyahu has problems. Shimon
Peres runs around as if he were still
Prime Minister. Washington wishes he
were. Cabinet members threaten to deprive
him of the votes of their vassals in the
Knesset. Yasir Arafat wins one propaganda
victory after another; he shows himself
as smart as any Israeli prime minister.

And foreign governments constantly
denounce Israel — a situation that
arises because it was so ordained that
the Arabs would get the oil and the Jews
the matzohs.

Mr. Netanyahu is not yet setting the
world on fire. He has not shown the
leadership, eloquence and intellectual
power that people expected from a man who
made his mark as a great communicator. He
promised major liberalization in the
Israeli economy. When? His friends do not
know if he will accept a
“unity” government that would
share power with Labor or reject it as
nullifying his election. But one job he
should do quickly.

Peace is feasible technically and
even politically. But under Labor or
Likud, it will not endure as long as
Palestinians and their apologists talk of
the Israeli Jews as interlopers.

It is Mr. Netanyahu’s urgent task to
explain that to the world. All who hold
worthy the concept of Israel must
understand what it means — this talk of
Judaization, the Jewing of Jerusalem.