Mostly behind the scenes, a major dispute is taking place between the US and Israel about construction in Jerusalem. Nearly everything comes down to one date: Dec. 6, the last day of Hanukkah, which is when the district planning and construction council is due to discuss the publication of a plan to build 9,000 housing units in Atarot. The Housing and Construction Ministry has waited 30 years for this moment. While the publication of a plan is not actual construction, and a long road still lies ahead, it marks a significant step forward for the plan that Benjamin Netanyahu and his predecessors froze in their years in power.
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Housing and Construction Minister Zeev Elkin, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, and Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar (the government's right-wing arm) are the ones behind the move. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are also part of the picture, and they are keeping mum. The Americans are incandescent with rage. They argue that this goes far beyond natural growth and mainly – will torpedo the two-state solution, at the center of which lies Jerusalem – or more accurately, two Jerusalems.
US State Department officials are reminding their Israeli contacts that even former President Trump's plan sought to separate the area of Kafr Aqab and the Shuefat refugee camp, which lie adjacent to Atarot, from Jerusalem. That plan even gave the Palestinians a tourism area of their own in Atarot, earmarked for "Muslim tourism to Jerusalem and its holy sites."
The Israelis are making it clear that when it comes to Jerusalem, "natural growth" is not the issue: "This is our capital, not a settlement," they are saying. They are also reminding the Americans that the Trump plan mentioned the annexation of about one-third of the land in Judea and Samaria. "Do you want to go back to that?" Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked. At the same opportunity, a holdover from the time of Netanyahu was pulled out – the possibility of finding an alternate site for "the Palestinian tourism zone" that would not hamper the construction of a Jewish neighborhood in Atarot. Bennett hopes that in Jerusalem, like in Judea and Samaria, similar construction permits for Palestinians will make it easier for the Americans to swallow this particular toad. Right now, several hundred housing units next to Givat Hamatos and another 1,000 or so in the area around Atarot are up for discussion, but it's not impossible that the price will go up.
Shaked and Elkin, as well as Bennett (despite the latter's self-imposed silence) understand that construction on the site of the old Atarot airport, on Jewish-owned land, is of vital importance to Jerusalem. Shaked herself lives on Atarot St. in Ramat Gan, a street named after the small Jewish community in northern Jerusalem that fell at the end of a heroic battle in 1948. She is well-versed in the history. But apart from that, she and Elkin know that construction in Atarot will determine whether Jerusalem's "northern finger," which Levi Eshkol and his friends annexed in 1967, will remain Israeli and Jewish, or whether the Palestinians will take it over and possibly even cut it off from Jerusalem municipal governance, as they aspire to do as part of their dream of a Palestinian state of their own.
Atarot is only one of the key issues in the impassioned dialogue with the Americans about Jerusalem. Now everything is on the table. Everything is interrelated. The Israeli position against opening a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem prompted the Americans to half-hint, half-say that if there is no consulate, there will also be no construction – not only in Atarot, but also on Givat Hamatos in the south of the city, 300 meters (984 feet) from the Green Line. They are also demanding that Israel stop moving forward with the big plan to build in E1 between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem. They even tossed out a visa waiver for Israelis during the discussion about construction in Jerusalem. Nothing was said explicitly. Everything is hints, but things are clear.
In Israel, no one believes that if they give into the Americans about the Jerusalem consulate for Palestinians, the Americans will give in on construction. Perhaps that is why bulldozers are already at work on Givat Hamatos. I was there this week. History. Even here, Netanyahu held things up for years and gave into international pressure. Shortly before the last election, he released it, and the construction tenders were finally published.
In the first stage, 1,250 housing units will be constructed, to be followed by another 1,350. The heavy equipment on the hill are currently carrying out preliminary work to ensure that there are no antiquities or graves at the site. It appears that infrastructure work will begin soon. As usual, a huge sign erected listed the names of 17 companies and professionals that will be doing the building and supervising it, but nothing here is usual. For Israel, this is nothing less than a formative event. For the Palestinians – it's a defeat.
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From the Palestinian perspective, Givat Hamatos might have been their last chance to divide Jerusalem from the south. The Palestinians' dream was to create an urban contiguity from Bethlehem through Beit Jala and Givat Hamatos to Beit Zafafa, leading up to the Malha Mall. Even today, they see this stretch as part of east Jerusalem – their future capital. This is exactly the opening Israel wants to close, thus preventing a wedge from the south that would thwart plans to connect Gilo to Har Homa. The battle over contiguous urban stretches as a tool to promote national interests has characterized the Israeli and the Palestinians' struggle over Jerusalem for years. The dispute over the plan to build a Jewish neighborhood in E1 is a good example.
In E1, which abuts Jerusalem from the east, the Palestinians also want to create an urban stretch of their own that would connect the northern and southern parts of the West Bank. Their north-south linkage would cut off Israel's planned west-east contiguity in the direction of the Dead Sea, which includes the E1 neighborhood and connecting Jerusalem to Maaleh Adumim.
For years, the Palestinians have been chipping away at the width of the remaining bridge between the two cities, through which the main traffic artery between Jerusalem and Jericho lies. Israel neglected to block illegal Palestinian construction in these areas. Khan al-Amar, which was settled illegally between Kfar Adumim and Mishor Adumim to the north of the highway is just a small part of our web of failures there. Soon, Israel might make some rectifications by declaring the slopes of Mount Scopus a national park. This is the site of important antiquities, but mostly the declaration stems from a desire to keep the Palestinians from grabbing more areas that would insert a wedge in the planned Israeli contiguity from Jerusalem to Maaleh Adumim to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea.
Atarot, Givat Hamatos, and E1 will determine the fate of the Palestinian dream of dividing the city, as well as the fate of the Zionist dream of keeping it together. But what is absurd is that the Israeli battle against the American consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem could hurt the fight to build in these three locations.
The Americans are hinting that the issues are linked. So it's possible that Israel should let the matter of the consulate rest and concentrate on the fight to build, and fight over the right thing. After all, settlement is what has decided and will decide the future borders of Jerusalem. Its symbols, like the consulate – no matter how important they are – play less of a role.
Even the US Embassy in Israel moved to Jerusalem only because of the facts Israel created on the ground in the united city, not the opposite. The US itself made this clear. So with all due respect to symbols – construction and facts on the ground, or as the poet Natan Alterman phrased it, "We will dress you in a gown of concrete and cement," are more important, and we should know how to pick our battles.
