For 40 years, the U.S. was satisfied with pro forma condemnations of construction in Jerusalem, and the Israeli government built 12 new neighborhoods that became home to 200,000 Jews. Then U.S. President Barack Obama and his team came along.
By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM
The neighborhoods of Pisgat Zeev and Shuafat in northeastern Jerusalem | Photo credit: AFP
In the spring of 2009, a winter frost was already on its way between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The first meeting between the American president and the Israeli prime minister, which took place in May that year and was later described by associates of Netanyahu as “very difficult,” raised almost at once the differences of opinion that would characterize the relations between the two on two central issues: the Iranian nuclear program and construction in Jerusalem and the settlements.
The first red light for Israel came when Obama informed Netanyahu that the U.S. intended to announce a new regional peace plan. Netanyahu tried to sound him out for details. Obama refrained from providing any, but the answer came two months after the meeting.
John Podesta, head of Obama’s transition team, and Mara Rudman, who would go on to serve as chief of staff to Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, proposed that the president work toward an agreement that would wrest sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem from Israel and establish a special international government in the holy belly of Jerusalem.
Podesta and Rudman’s plan was put together by the Center for American Progress, one of the think tanks Obama is closest to and most influenced by, which shaped the policy of the new American president from his first day in the White House.
The second blow was landed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who in a conversation with a senior Israeli official made it clear, in very undiplomatic language, that Israel “wouldn’t lay even one new stone in the settlements or in east Jerusalem.”
It was only natural that the “Biden Storm,” as it is now known in Jerusalem, came next. Vice-President Joe Biden visited Israel in March 2010, just as the Jerusalem Planning Committee approved 1,500 new housing units for the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood. “Biden,” say ministers from the second Netanyahu government, “went crazy. Just as it sounds.”
In his book “Ally,” Michael Oren, at the time the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., describes how Clinton “laid into” Netanyahu for 45 minutes straight and how he was called in to meet with her deputy, James Steinberg, and listen to a list of demands that Oren said was “unacceptable to Netanyahu or any Israeli prime minister.”
After the Biden visit, Israel announced it would suspend construction in Ramat Shlomo, in effect a construction freeze, until the matter could be squared with the U.S. But, according to one senior government minister: “After that, things turned sour.”
Israel found itself in a situation in which even construction in Jerusalem, which the U.S. has “allowed” for four decades, became difficult, if not impossible.
Neighborhoods the size of cities
Some historical background and necessary numbers: After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel tripled the size of Jerusalem and applied Israeli law, justice and administration to a further 70,000 dunams (over 17,000 acres), only a small part of which had been part of Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem.
Besides the Old City and the historic city, 28 Arab villages were annexed to Jerusalem. Israel made it a goal to unite the two halves of the city, expand it and establish a stable Jewish majority.
In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, new Jewish neighborhoods were built and became home to about 19,000 residents each. Just to compare, the 150 settlements in Judea and Samaria (excluding the outposts) are home to about 2,700 residents each.
Some of the new neighborhoods in Jerusalem reached the size of small cities: Over 50,000 people live in Ramot Alon in northwest Jerusalem; over 30,000 live in Gilo in the southwest; and over 40,000 live in the northeastern neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev. The prices of apartments there are equal to and sometimes higher than apartments in the west of the city. The tens of thousands of children who live in Gilo, Pisgat Zeev or Armon Hanatziv (also known as East Talpiot, in the southeast) and their parents know nothing of the “little Jerusalem” that existed before the Six-Day War. They never saw themselves as settlers, and don’t know that they are considered as such.
The numbers tell the story — 74% of the Jewish population living in Jerusalem was born into the reality of a single, unified city. The history that the Obama administration wants to send them back to is as utterly foreign to them as it is to 84% of the city’s Arab residents, who were also born into the reality of a single city.
According to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, “east Jerusalem” — a flexible term that also refers to the areas to the north, the south and the east of the old borders — is home to over 200,000 Jews, or some 40% of the entire population of “east Jerusalem” and 39% of all Jews in the city. This is not an “outpost” or a “settlement.”
Israel had a goal in mind for its work in Jerusalem. It paved roads, built infrastructure, erected a government complex in Sheikh Jarrah, declared the establishment of national parks, and more. Great things happened along the way, and so did plenty of mistakes. One was how the Arab population was treated. The huge disparity in the level of services and infrastructure that still exists between the two populations is testimony to that.
The U.S. never recognized Jerusalem, not even the western half, as the capital of Israel. It took care to put out moderate messages of condemnation against Israeli construction in the new neighborhoods in the east of the city, but was careful to keep the dispute on a back burner.
That conduct allowed Israel to continue building in Jerusalem almost unchecked. The real turning point came with the Oslo Accords, which were the result of American pressure. Former deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin and his people were the authors of the process that the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin first rejected, then adopted. As we know, the accords were followed by the terrorism and bloodshed of the Second Intifada, which killed over 1,000 Israelis and wounded thousands more.
But attorney Alan Baker, a diplomat and former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, notes that in the Oslo Accords — which despite everything no one on either side has canceled — Israel in effect agreed to negotiate on Jerusalem and include it as an issue in the talks for a permanent agreement.
Later, in the summer of 2000 (months before the intifada broke out), U.S. President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat met at the “Camp David II” summit. Barak agreed to divide Jerusalem. This precedent-setting agreement, which utterly contradicted all his oaths made only a few months earlier, did not come to pass, because Arafat rejected it.
President Bill Clinton agreed that the large Jewish neighborhoods Israel had built in Jerusalem would remain in Israel’s hands, and asked that the Arab neighborhoods of the city be transferred to a future Palestinian state.
Baker stresses that the government of the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, although it built in Jerusalem, “adopted the ‘road map’ at the beginning of the 2000s, the plan President George W. Bush presented. In doing so, it agreed to discuss the issue of Jerusalem in any permanent agreement and even freeze construction in the settlements.”
Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism), who was deputy housing and construction minister in the first Netanyahu government, recalls that the first massive disagreement between Israel and the U.S. over construction in Jerusalem took place sometime between Oslo and the road map.
“After heavy pressure, Netanyahu approved the start of construction in the Har Homa neighborhood, but needed to publish tenders. We were all waiting for the right time, and when we understood that the ‘right time’ was taking its time and maybe wouldn’t come, we decided to be clever,” Porush tells Israel Hayom.
“The law says we need to put out tenders for construction. The problem is that the whole world sees the tenders: Peace Now, the media, the U.S. So what do we do? We bought ad space in the Haaretz and Maariv papers, and instead of writing Har Homa, we made a ‘mistake’ and wrote Har Yona, which is near Nazareth,” Porush says.
“The rest of the details in the ad were correct. … It went to press at night. In those days, ‘Mabat Lahadashot’ [‘A Look at the News’] went on at 9 p.m. and after the [news broadcast] we fixed the ‘mistake’ and changed it back to Har Homa. All surveillance teams that tried to torpedo the construction, at home and abroad, never noticed the change. The next day it was published, tractors broke ground, and it worked. … Bibi shook my hand and was very pleased,” Porush says.
Porush suggests that when President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the prime minister should secure plenty of leeway to build in Jerusalem and its surroundings, even at the expense of moving the U.S. Embassy to the capital.
“We’re talking about a symbol versus a very practical matter that is vital to the capital, and I hope that Netanyahu opts for the practical,” Porush says.
Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Zeev Elkin says that only now, after the U.N. Security Council resolution last Friday, can we assess Netanyahu’s staying power in the face of Obama’s hostility, and the American opposition to Israeli construction in the settlements, or even in Jerusalem.
“After his and [Secretary of State] Clinton’s statement, ‘not a single stone,’ Netanyahu and his governments built about 2,000 housing units in Jerusalem each year, some beyond the Green Line. True, that’s not enough, but considering the impossible conditions with Obama and his administration, it’s a lot,” Elkin says.
Elkin adds that Jerusalem’s true housing needs stand at 4,000 new housing units annually. He expressed hope that when Trump is president, it will be possible to build many more. Specifically, he recommends taking immediate steps to carry out already-approved plans for Ramat Shlomo in northern Jerusalem and Givat Hamatos in the southern part of the city, both of which are currently frozen.
Elkin notes that it will also now be necessary to play catch-up with planning, which also slowed greatly in the face of U.S. pressure. Elkin says that there are issues other than the question of relations with the U.S.
“Jerusalem has truly been weakened. For many years, it has had negative population growth, and lots of Jews are leaving it, mainly because there aren’t apartments in Jerusalem. As a result, the Jewish majority in the city is constantly shrinking, even though the Jewish birth rate and natural growth of the Jewish population in the city has overtaken that the Arabs for the first time. But when they have nowhere to live, that doesn’t matter so much,” Elkin says.
The ritual of coordination
When, exactly, did the U.S. turn on Israel and stop being satisfied with pro forma condemnations? When did American pressure become so heavy that the authority to decide on construction in Jerusalem beyond the Green Line was in effect taken away from the municipal planning bodies and forced to get preliminary approval from the Prime Minister’s Office?
Former Housing Minister for the Sharon government Effi Eitam remembers written orders from former Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein that established new procedures for construction in Jerusalem.
“I don’t remember all the details, but Sharon asked me to inform then-U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer every time we intended to issue a new construction tender in Jerusalem. It was called ‘neighborhoods requiring coordination,'” Eitam says.
“It was a kind of ritual. I’d go to Ambassador Kurtzer and tell him that we were about to publish a tender for X number of housing units in Jerusalem. Kurtzer would express his opposition, and I would tell him what Jerusalem meant to us and insist. Then we’d publish the tender, and it went through ‘peacefully.’ The procedure was defined as ‘coordination’ and ‘informing.’ Back then, nothing actually stopped us.”
Meir Sheetrit, who was the first housing minister under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, also remembers that all Jerusalem construction beyond the Green Line was coordinated with the PMO.
“In our time, there wasn’t any pressure. Those were comfortable times, after the disengagement [from the Gaza Strip]. Sharon, who was already in a coma, and his successor Olmert, each implemented Bush’s ‘blocs letter,'” Sheetrit says.
“That letter, which was kind of a reward for the disengagement [from the Gaza Strip in 2005], allowed Israel to build more or less freely in major settlement blocs and large population concentrations in Jerusalem.” Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would later deny such a letter existed.
But by the end of Olmert’s term, the picture changed. Sheetrit was succeeded in the Housing Ministry by Ze’ev Boim, who served as housing minister from July 2007 until March 2009. Boim did not like being dictated to by the Americans, and liked even less the instruction from Olmert’s office on the matter of construction.
The next two construction ministers, Ariel Attias (Shas) and Uri Ariel (Habayit Hayehudi), found themselves facing frustration when it came to construction in Jerusalem. Obama was already in power in Washington. Every construction plan, and often even advancements in planning stages, was “sent up” to Netanyahu’s people to be reviewed.
When he was first in office, Netanyahu formally accepted a limited-time freeze on construction in the settlements. Jerusalem wasn’t mentioned, but a policy was set up for Jerusalem that Attias called “the waiting policy.” Everything was practically at a standstill.
Uri Ariel was forced to swallow the bitter pill, but when he had the opportunity to approve a re-submitted (as opposed to a new) tender to build in Gilo, he jumped at it and did so without coordinating with the prime minister.
Sources close to Ariel told Israel Hayom that Netanyahu often put the blame on Ariel by scolding him or portraying him to the Americans as a rogue whom they’d lost control of. His associates also said that “in the end, all the limitations on construction in Jerusalem didn’t prevent the Security Council from coming down on us, but speaking candidly, if the limitations hadn’t been in place, the blow might have come earlier and been stronger.”
Ariel himself, currently agriculture minister, has little to say about the matter. “The test is to stand your ground, resist pressure and not allow the first freeze, because more will follow and it will gain traction. That’s true for Judea and Samaria and it’s doubly true for Jerusalem.”
People in the Housing Ministry recall that when Attias and Ariel were in charge, “the easiest time to get construction tenders for Jerusalem approved — sad as it is — was after the worst terrorist attacks. Those attacks helped the top tier of the government get us, bit by bit, enough room to execute a few of the plans as a ‘fitting Zionist response.’ After every terrorist attack, the plans went up to the heads of the government, who decided when and how much to release,” the sources in the ministry say.
An irreversible decision
The PMO reminds us that Obama has another three weeks in office, and “it ain’t over till it’s over.” Netanyahu is asking his ministers to restrain themselves, avoid provocative declarations and not disclose their plans for the future.
For Netanyahu, Jan. 20, the day Trump will be sworn in, should be a new day. Will things in fact be different once Trump is in the White House? And what does the U.N. Security Council resolution actually mean for construction in Jerusalem?
Baker, who has a wealth of diplomatic experience, stresses that the resolution is a non-binding one and recommends “not getting too upset over it.”
However, Baker also notes that the resolution is irreversible.
“A Security Council resolution can’t be canceled. Even the resolution condemning Zionism wasn’t canceled, another resolution [was passed] declaring it irrelevant,” he says.
According to Baker, the worst part of the resolution is “the U.S.’s willingness to allow a resolution to be passed declaring territories occupied by Israel … and that the ‘occupied territories’ include east Jerusalem, too. This is a statement by the U.S. that both the territories and east Jerusalem belong to the Palestinians.
“This resolution in essence sends the Palestinians the message that they don’t need to hold direct negotiations with the Israelis or reach a compromise with them, because they’ll get what they want from the international community without negotiating.”
Baker recommends that Israel insist on rejecting any ruling that Jerusalem is occupied territory.
“Make it clear that we have not accepted that in the past and will not accept that in the future, and stress that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” he says.
MKs from the Likud party are hoping that when Trump enters the White House, Israel will not only be able to go back to building in Jerusalem and greater Jerusalem more freely, but that the strange procedure of notifying the Americans every time a building tender is issued will cease.
Sources in Likud say that currently, Israel is also hampered when it comes to executing demolition orders for illegal structures in Jerusalem. American pressure even led to a freeze on small-scale building plans near the border between the eastern and western halves of the city, in densely populated Arab neighborhoods such as Shimon Hatzadik.
Likud MKs also say that the Jerusalem Municipality will need to make certain changes to its policy, which is weighted toward increasing the density of the city.
According to a Likud source, “Often, the municipality has backed off from construction in the new neighborhoods of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line out of fear that haredim will organize and take them over, changing the internal Jewish demographic makeup of the population. The haredim are part of the fabric of the Jewish population in Jerusalem, and when we look at the Jewish and Arab demographics in Jerusalem, it’s wrong to separate the haredi and the secular [Jewish] sectors.”
The party also hopes that the government will be able to work with the new U.S. administration, including through incoming Ambassador David Friedman, who is considered a supporter of Israel and someone who supports the settlement enterprise and populating Jerusalem. One of the immediate goals will be to “unlock” stalled building plans, restart the wheels of the Jerusalem planning machine and finally build the neighborhood in Area E1, which lies between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem and has broad national support.
The goal of the plan, Likud says, it to connect the two cities and stop contiguous north-south Palestinian construction that would cut Maaleh Adumim off from the capital. Netanyahu supported the plan in the past, but inherited Olmert’s obligation to keep it frozen. With Trump about to take power, it’s time to unfreeze it.