If any Israeli government ever decides to start sliding down a slippery slope – both in terms of security and Zionism – and tries to divide Jerusalem with fences and barbed wire, split the Old City, or make any compromise about the Temple Mount – it will have to overcome the obstacle enacted by the Knesset on Tuesday.
Ironclad orders that require a special majority of 80, rather than the usual 61 out of 120 MKs, are very rare in the Israeli legislative process. Such orders involve changes to basic laws. Thus far, such votes have only been held to prevent the suspension of a democratic government in times of emergency or on the issue of postponing a general election and keeping a government in place. Now, the legislative body has decided that keeping Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, whole is at least as important as laws to protect democracy.
This is a practical law, not a theoretical one. The Knesset has now placed a serious obstacle in the path of any government that tries to hand over Jerusalem neighborhoods including Issawiya, Jabel Mukhabar, or Tzur Baher to the Palestinians. These neighborhoods and others like them lie flush against Jewish neighborhoods such as French Hill or Mount Scopus in the north, or Armon Hanatziv or Kibbutz Ramat Rachel in the southeast. On Tuesday, the Knesset reduced the likelihood that the Palestinians will ever resume shooting attacks from the seam like the ones in Gilo after its neighbor, Beit Jala, was handed over to the Palestinians.
The new legislation is also vital to prevent any possibility that, after a division of the city, the Palestinians would interfere with freedom of access to and worship at the Jewish holy sites in the city. They have done so in the distant and recent past with the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, and Rachel's Tomb.
The law will also preserve the joint day-to-day life shared by Jews and Arabs in the capital. This is something else that exists in Jerusalem, along with the ethno-religious conflict, and to a much greater degree than most of the public is aware of. Dividing the city would definitely hurt that co-existence.
This is one of the most Zionist laws to be passed here. As it should, it empowers the existence and weight of the Basic Law: Jerusalem as part of the legal fabric of our national life. It puts up another barrier to ridiculous diplomatic or security adventures like the ones the two Ehuds, Olmert and Barak, have brought down on our heads in the past two decades.
