JustASC

The American Jewish Committee has released its annual survey of American Jewish opinion, and at least one Orthodox leader is crowing about this:

When asked whether Israel, in the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinians, should be willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction, 37 percent are in favor, and 58 percent opposed. In 2007, 36 percent answered yes and 58 percent no.

That would suggest that a majority thinks there is no compromising on Jerusalem, but what does it mean to be “a united city under Israeli jurisdiction”? 

Since Israel’s birth, the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem have spread inexorably and unilaterally, happily encompassing the holy sites barred to Jews under Jordanian rule and new neighborhoods in Western Jerusalem, and more problemmatically surrounding Arab villages and neighborhoods (I’m sorry — neighborhoods with a predominant Arab population) where few Jews dare or care to visit, and whose residents did not accept Israeli citizenship and essentially no longer have a choice. (And then there are the large Jewish neighborhoods built over the Green Line — large settlements like Maale Adumim that even doves presume will be part of Israel in a two-state solution). See this map, provided by The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise*:

 I suspect that many of those who support a “united Jerusalem” under “Israeli jurisdiction” (that would include me) would accept a redrawing of the map that retains the Old City under Israeli rule, keeps all of the larger Jewish neighborhoods either created or solidified since 1967, but cedes the Arab villages and neighborhoods to a Palestinian Authority, with some sort of access agreement to the Old City’s Muslim quarter and Muslim sites. That would only make de jure what is alredy de facto: With the exception of incursions by settlers and the occasional new neighborhood approved by the government, Israelis already live in  a divided city, Jewish and Arab.

The AJC poll would be more useful if it had a followup question: In the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinians, would you support a division of the Jerusalem municipality that reflects the city’s demographic and geopolitical realities while respecting Israel’s desire for a united city under its jurisdiction? 

* Curiously, the map was drawn by the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, but I assume that the unquestionably pro-Israel AICE considers it accurate, or they wouldn’t have reproduced it on their site.