Sharansky's flawed 'nash kontrol'
By BERNARD WASSERSTEIN
The Jerusalem Post Monday, October 25, 1999

Two cheers for Interior Minister Natan Sharansky's decision
last week to rescind the regulation that deprived Arab
Jerusalemites of residency rights if they moved elsewhere.

This regulation had been applied in recent years even to
Arab residents who moved outside the municipal boundary
while continuing to work in the city. Yet the concurrent
refusal to grant sufficient permits for construction of
housing for the burgeoning Arab population virtually
forced many Arabs to build homes elsewhere. The purpose
was clear: to limit Arab population growth in Israel's
supposedly "unified" (in reality utterly divided) capital.

The case of Dr. Musa Budeiri, highlighted in this column
over past months, has proved to be a turning-point. Last
month, following the personal intervention of British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sharansky withdrew what
amounted to an expulsion order against the Palestinian
academic. Now he has drawn a logical political conclusion
from that decision.

"It was an impractical policy that served no purpose. I
am happy that we are stopping it today," he said.

Incidentally this gives the lie to those naive souls who
earnestly protest that Israeli governments never yield to
pressure. On any historical reckoning and on issues great
and small, the reverse has been much more commonly the
case: Israeli governments have rarely yielded save under
pressure.

The Israeli withdrawal from Sinai after the 1956 Suez
campaign was a case in point. So was the Wye agreement,
signed only after painful American arm-twisting. Above
all, the change of heart that led the Rabin government to
sign the Oslo agreements would have been inconceivable
without the pressure of the intifada.

On human rights issues, in particular, what is required
is more pressure, not less. I recall the contumely with
which self-styled supporters of Israel, more than a
decade ago, greeted allegations by the London Sunday
Times that Israeli interrogators were routinely using
torture against Palestinian suspects.

The Israeli then-ambassador in London protested
indignantly that this was a propaganda smear. Yet it was
subsequently proven to be true. And it is difficult to
imagine that the Supreme Court would finally have
outlawed the practice earlier this year without long-term
pressure from human rights activists at home and abroad,
including that of B'Tselem and Amnesty International.

In applying such pressure B'Tselem was acting in the
best traditions of patriotic, humane Zionism.
And Amnesty was applying the same standards that it
applied in reports on South Africa, China, and
Northern Ireland. I wonder where we would all be
without such ginger groups? (I know where
Sharansky would be.)

What is worrying about last week's decision is not the
new policy but its stated justification. Sharansky
explained: "As someone who believes that Jerusalem must
remain part of the State of Israel and under its
sovereignty, I believe we must look out for everyone's
human rights, including those living in eastern Jerusalem
or in western Jerusalem."

Has the minister thought through the implications of this
statement? Eastern Jerusalem Arabs have lived for
thirty-two years under an occupation regime, dressed up
as "unification", in which they have had next to no
political rights. The change in residency regulations
does not alter that.

If Sharansky genuinely believes what he says, logic
demands that he accord to the inhabitants of eastern
Jerusalem the same political rights accorded to those in
western Jerusalem: first and foremost the right to
self-determination.

In this connection, let's dispose of another propaganda
myth - the so-called "Jewish majority" in Jerusalem. This
majority exists only because of the gerrymandered
municipal boundaries since 1967. Taking the Jerusalem
urban region as a whole, Arabs and Jews are about equal
in numbers.

Sharansky is like a well-meaning, somewhat liberal-minded
British colonial administrator. He thinks that by
according subject peoples fair treatment, decent
administration and the rule of law he will induce them to
accept permanent imperial subjugation. They will not and
they should not.

It is high time that political control of the Arab areas
of eastern Jerusalem was handed over to the people who
live there - Palestinian Arabs. This is not only the most
just but also in the long term the most practical solution.

If the Israeli government wishes to use its current strong
bargaining position sensibly, it should not chase the fata
morgana of a "unified" city wholly under Israeli sovereignty.
Instead it should negotiate a territorial exchange: all-Jewish
settlements near Jerusalem such as Ma'aleh Adumim would
become part of Israel; in return, Arab-populated areas of the
Jerusalem region, including those within the current municipal
boundaries that are wholly or largely Arab, should be
incorporated into the State of Palestine.

Then we could truly give three cheers for "nash kontrol"!