Thursday, July 27, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.
Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.
Anybody being surprised by the inability of Israel and the Palestinians to agree on who controls Jerusalem has been out of touch with reality. The problems presented to both sides by history were recently described in the Los Angeles Times by Amy Wilentz, who is writing a book about Jerusalem:
"Indeed, it's hard to imagine any leadership of any Middle Eastern sect that -- once gaining control of the Old City -- would willingly hand it over to another. It's never happened in history: You have the Old City, you keep the Old City. The Jews did; the Christians did; the Muslims did; the Crusaders did; the Ottomans did; the Jordanians did; and the Jews did again. It can only be won by siege."
Wilentz gives readers a point of view that she backs up with some historical facts. If the people facing tomorrow only copied past successes and failures the future would be dim. Historical knowledge should be used to avoid present and future pitfalls and not used as a blueprint to be followed in committing more mistakes.
After making this observation allow me to agree with Wilentz and use recent history to show why the Jews find giving up control of Jerusalem, especially the Old City, so difficult. They were denied access to the Western Wall of the Second Temple (Wailing Wall) in the Old City from 1948 to 1967. During those 19 years the occupying Jordanian army desecrated the Jewish cemetery and used it for their horses and toilets. That's the way it was until 1967, when Jordan attacked the Israeli army already fighting several other Arab nations. In short order, after some bloody fighting, the Jordanians retreated back across the Jordan River.
The Jews, upon returning to the Old City in 1967, vowed to never again allow another nation to determine access to their place of prayer. In jubilation somebody placed an Israeli flag atop the Muslim's Dome of the Rock. Gen. Moshe Dayan, Israel's defense minister, made them remove the flag immediately. Since that day Israel has allowed all people of three great religions freedom to worship in the Old City.
Many years ago I learned that, as a Catholic, my freedom to visit and pray at the Holy Sepulchre is guaranteed by Israel. As a frequent visitor to Jerusalem and other cities in Israel my freedom to worship and move about without interference from anybody has been a most rewarding experience. This doesn't mean that I wander about Muslim areas that terrorists frequent, nor do I drive down Bar Ilan Road on the Sabbath to be stoned by the ultra-Orthodox Jews. Common sense dictates either action invites unneeded attention and trouble.
Author Karen Armstrong also uses history as a backdrop for her suggestion written in the New York Times:
"Pragmatic coexistence has worked better in Jerusalem than rigid ideology. Is such a solution an impossible dream today? In 1871, the new kingdom of Italy appropriated the papal states and confined Pius IX to the tiny city-state of the Vatican, where he lived in high dudgeon as a self-proclaimed prisoner. Until 1937, the popes refused to recognize the new Italy or to negotiate with it. Today, Rome is the capital of two sovereign states, which live together in peace. Could this be a model for a future Jerusalem?"
This could be a reasonable suggestion, but there is truly little similarity between the population of Rome and Jerusalem. Also, only 33 years have passed since the Jews were able to return to the Western Wall and clean up the mess left in their graveyard by the Muslim army of Jordan.
Politicians and diplomats may be demanding too much too soon from the people now seeking a peaceful solution for Jerusalem.
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