The Jerusalem Powder Keg
Amman/Brussels |
2 Aug 2005
While all eyes are focused on Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, what happens in Jerusalem over the next few months may have a more decisive impact on the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The prospects of renewed conflict sparked by Israel's ongoing efforts to consolidate control over the city are increasing.
The Jerusalem Powder Keg,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, explains how the route of the separation barrier, the planned connection between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, and the construction of new Jewish neighbourhoods/settlements in and around Jerusalem are undermining the territorial integrity of any future Palestinian state, the hope and expectation that Arab East Jerusalem will be its capital - and Palestinian pragmatists.
If the process now under way is completed, some 200,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites will end up inside the Jerusalem envelope, increasingly separated from the West Bank; 55,000 others will be outside the barrier, disconnected from their city; and the West Bank will be close to being split in two.
"Current activity around Jerusalem to link up Jewish West Bank settlements to East Jerusalem will not only undermine chances for a viable two-state solution, but create an explosive mix that will imperil the very security Israel states it is trying to guarantee", says Robert Malley, Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa Program Director.
"Israel has every right and duty to protect its citizens", says Gareth Evans, Crisis Group President. "But the last thing that is needed in the present fragile situation is to provide a pretext for Palestinian radical militants to discredit the current Palestinian leadership.
"It will be hard to move the peace process forward over the next twelve months, but the really critical need is to stop it careering backward. And for that to happen, the international community - especially the U.S., acting through the Quartet - needs to be unequivocal in holding both Israelis and Palestinians to their Roadmap obligations".