Israel will agree to a division of Jerusalem, Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Oct. 8. According to Ramon, a close confidant of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the move is supported not only by the two men's centrist Kadima Party but also by coalition partners Labor and the right-of-center Yisrael Beiteinu (led by Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman). The plan has met opposition from others within the left-center-right coalition government, particularly the ultra-religious Shas party. Separately, the government denied reports that the Olmert administration has agreed to place Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem -- including Temple Mount, called Al Haram Al Sharif by Muslims -- under Jordanian jurisdiction.

At a time when the Olmert administration is very weak, any such radical move on its part could lead to its downfall. The plan therefore is not serious and instead only serves as a placeholder whereby the Israelis can signal to the United States that Israel is ready to make tough decisions and move toward a peace settlement with the Palestinians. However, such a move will allow the United States to go back to the Arabs -- who are pressuring Washington for substantive progress in the November U.S.-led international Middle East conference -- and argue that the Israelis are ready for tough decisions but the Palestinians are in disarray. The Israelis know that with Hamas in charge in the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank, there can be no such deal with the divided Palestinians. In fact, the Israelis are just waiting for Hamas to reject the offer so the Jewish state can return to business as usual, as in 1999 during the Camp David talks between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The reported plans to divide Jerusalem will provide political ammunition to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, however, in his efforts to undermine Olmert, since even discussion of concessions to the Palestinians on Jerusalem will have a big impact on the Israeli population. The Israeli strategy, therefore, comes with risks.

Jerusalem's Religious Mountain P.1.

Jerusalem's Religious Mountain P.2.

Conclusion: Jerusalem, united under Israeli rule since 1967 with free access for Muslims, Christians, and Jews to all their holy sites (except the Wakf-dominated Temple Mount itself, where access for Christians and Jews is limited), is now again on the chopping block leading up to the Annapolis conference in November.The Palestinians, say Palestinian rule over East Jerusalem is a bedrock demand and that it has to include the Temple Mount—unarguably the holiest site in Judaism while enjoying a questionable status as the “third holiest site” in Islam. Yet Muslims have full control over Mecca, Medina, and many other Islamic shrines, sites, and cities from Morocco to Indonesia. We hardly see it as unacceptable that Muslims should continue to live and worship freely in East Jerusalem under benign, democratic, pluralist Israeli rule.The latest push as announced by Olmert however now seems willing, to  ignore  the sequence of events beginning with Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in August 2005. Opponents argued that the retreat would strengthen Islamism among the Palestinians, enable massive weapons transfers into Gaza, and subject southern Israel to intensified rocket barrages. It all came to pass: in January 2006 the Palestinians elected Hamas to leadership; weapons and explosives keep streaming into Gaza in unprecedented quantities. The conventional wisdom was that Olmert, who in the early aftermath of the disengagement campaigned on his “convergence” plan for further territorial withdrawals, had dropped “convergence” under the impact both of the post-disengagement Gaza debacle and the war with Hezbollah in summer 2006, which also resulted from an Israeli retreat under fire. Even now, the allegedly moderate Abbas is a figurehead who does not even rule the West Bank.In fact as is known, West Bank rule is confined to parts of Ramallah; not just in Gaza which fell to Hamas in June, but on the West Bank too, neither he nor [Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad ever sets foot in the main towns. They are controlled by a coalition of Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades, Hamas, Jihad Islami and the radical 'Fronts,’ which are united by their dedication to his overthrow and war on Israel. And the Palestinian Authority—still nominally under Abbas’s rule, still pre-Annapolis, pre-“peace” solemnities—remains a source of hate propaganda including anti-American hate propaganda. Palestinian Media Watch has done the critically important work of informing the world that this year, to mark 9/11, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida just, today  Oct.9,  published and illustrated a prayer calling for the killing of Americans. Olmert’s motives thus  probably combine submission to U.S. dictates and remaining temptations of the Israeli peace ideology that took hold in the early 1990s with such dire consequences. Apart from the Left-dovish Ramon, other cabinet ministers from Olmert’s own centrist Kadima Party like Avi Dichter, Shaul Mofaz, and Ehud Barak himself—each of whom has held top-tier security positions—have registered deep reservations about the impending conference.