Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was forced on to the defensive on Wednesday after Binyamin Netanyahu accused him and his new party, Kadima, of planning to give up part of Jerusalem in a future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Sharon denied a report in Newsweek that said he was willing to give 90% of the West Bank to the Palestinians and compromise on Jerusalem in return for peace. According to the article, Sharon’s opinion-poll expert, Kalman Gayer, said the Israeli prime minister would ”in theory” accept ”a compromise on Jerusalem, in exchange for peace”.
Sharon rejected his aide’s remarks as ”senseless and absurd”, adding: ”The entire united Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel forever.” However, Jerusalem is already a divided city with two languages, two peoples and little mixing between them.
But Netanyahu, prospective leader of the Likud party that Sharon left, was quick to emphasise the ideological divisions in the new party. He said: ”The cat is out of the bag. Sharon’s aides are revealing what he is trying to hide, but everyone already knows Sharon will divide Jerusalem and bring the Palestinians back to the 1967 borders.”
Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres in the 1996 general election using the slogan ”Peres will divide Jerusalem”. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. The east is home to approximately 200 000 Palestinians who do not share the same rights as other Israelis despite annexation.
The future of Jerusalem is one of the most contentious issues for the Palestinians, who insist East Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state. In the past 20 years, Israel has attempted to cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank by building settlements around it. East Jerusalem is being further divided by Israel’s security wall, which threads through the city’s Arab communities.
Sharon is renowned for keeping his political ideas close to his chest, leaving even close advisers in the dark until the last moment. He also has few qualms about embarking on policies opposed to his previous positions. At the last election in 2003, he opposed the Labour party’s policy of withdrawal from Gaza — until he adopted it himself several months later. Before the election, he said that Netzarim, a Gaza settlement evacuated in August, was as much a part of Israel as Tel Aviv.
On Wednesday, Haim Ramon, a Kadima member of the Knesset, said he did not know of one sane person who wanted to keep the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. He told Army Radio that it would be a mistake for Israel to retain large Palestinian areas ”because it would mean Jerusalem would be the capital of a non-Jewish, non-Zionist Israel”.
In the remarks attributed to him by Newsweek, Gayer said: ”Sharon would accept a Palestinian state in Gaza and 90% of the West Bank, and a compromise on Jerusalem, in exchange for peace.” He has denied the quotes attributed to him. — Guardian Unlimited Â