Middle East Policy, Volume VII, Number 3, June 2000

Book Review

Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem, by Amir S. Chesin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. 251 pages, with notes, maps and index. $27.95, hardcover.

W.C. Harrop
Former U.S. ambassador to Israel, 1992-93

The authors of this book were themselves involved in the events which they chronicle. They also had access to relevant archives, particularly the papers of Teddy Kollek, the internationally revered mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 (two years before the city was reunited) until 1993, almost 30 years. There are three interwoven themes. First, a detailed dissection (perhaps "vivisection" would be more appropriate) of the Israeli government's systematic discrimination against the Arab citizens of East Jerusalem, a process which began immediately in June 1967 and (notwithstanding an elaborate public relations campaign to the contrary) continues to the present day. Second, an iconoclastic analysis of the historic role played by Teddy Kollek, an analysis which is hard-edged yet not unsympathetic, a psychological study of a larger-than-life politician who was disingenuous despite himself. Third, written more in sorrow than in anger, a discussion of the great harm Israeli policy has done to Israel's own interests, along with speculation as to how an honest attempt to incorporate the Arab population into Israeli Jerusalem might have eased the difficult passage toward a settlement.

Of the three authors, Amir Chesin, was Mayor Kollek's adviser on Arab affairs from 1984 to 1993 and then stayed on for a year under Kollek's successor, the conservative Likud politician Ehud Olmert. Bill Hutman was a senior reporter for The Jerusalem Post specializing in coverage of the city. Avi Melamed was deputy adviser to the mayor on Arab affairs from 1991 to 1994 and principal adviser from 1994 to 1996.

Israeli policy ever since 1967, say the authors, has had four objectives: (1) rapidly expand Jewish population in East Jerusalem, (2) hinder the growth of the Arab population, (3) induce Arab residents to move out of the city into the West Bank, and (4) surround East Jerusalem with a barrier of Jewish settlements separating it from the Palestinian population of the West Bank.

The authors document the techniques remorselessly pursued to obtain these ends, including discriminatory zoning provisions, strict limits on construction of new Arab housing, denial of basic municipal services (water, sanitation, electricity, trash collection, road pavement and maintenance, parks and sports facilities, adequate schools) to Arab areas, subsidization of housing for Jewish families in East Jerusalem, expropriation of Arab land (23,378 dunams -- about 5800 acres -- over 25 years) for construction of nine Jewish neighborhoods to close the ring around Arab Jerusalem, and the construction of housing units in the West Bank to lure Arab residents out of the city.

By 1996, some 157,000 Jews had moved into East Jerusalem, almost matching the 171,000 Palestinians. This demographic change, particularly notable given the far higher birth rate of the Arab population, is a measure of the single-minded determination of Israeli policy. Meanwhile, and again despite the sharp difference in birth rates, the overall population balance in the city remained about the same as in 1967: approximately 71-percent Jewish and 29-percent Arab.

Israelis generally, and certainly Mayor Kollek, understood the political importance of presenting their harsh policies in a more humane and gentle light, and Kollek was a master at persuading visitors to Jerusalem, and the international public as a whole, that his government was acting with enlightenment and compassion toward the Arabs of East Jerusalem. Even during the intifada, he liked to stroll without bodyguards in Arab communities to demonstrate the affection in which he was held by the Palestinian citizens of his city and came under real danger on several occasions.

Kollek well understood the risks Israel ran by not doing more to improve the Arab standard of living (the intifada was especially virulent in Jerusalem). His repeated but unsuccessful efforts to obtain more resources for East Jerusalem from a string of Israeli prime ministers -- Meir, Begin, Peres, Shamir, Rabin, -- were quite authentic and even heartfelt, as was his creation and promotion of the international Jerusalem Fund for the betterment of the entire city.

This public persona of the mayor is well-known and admired. The authors of this book, however, reveal a different and darker side: Kollek was the architect and executive of the policy to shift Jewish population into East Jerusalem. Perhaps more tellingly, the reason he was driven to seek special supplementary funding to support municipal programs in East Jerusalem was that he failed to allocate any reasonable share of his regular budget to the Arab neighborhoods. A friend of Kollek's, former Foreign Ministry Director General Reuven Merhav, undertook a historical analysis of the city budget in 1990 on the mayor's behalf. After overcoming the resistance and dissimulation he encountered from city government officials, Merhav assembled the data and found that, while the Palestinians comprised 28 percent of the population of Jerusalem, they had been allocated only 2 to 12 percent of the budgets of the various municipal departments. While there is some ambiguity as to whether Kollek had been fully aware of the severity of this discrepancy, the report was so damning of the mayor's administration that it was quietly shelved.

A last and rather sad passage on Mayor Kollek is an account of his final, unsuccessful campaign for reelection in 1993 at age 82. He was exhausted and wanted to retire but was urged to run once again by Prime Minister Rabin in order to save Jerusalem for the Labor party. Although he had never been able to attract any significant turnout of Arab voters in previous elections, Kollek persisted in the belief that his support for the Arab citizens of Jerusalem – which the Arabs knew, perhaps better than he did, was long on rhetoric and woefully short on delivery – would lead to their voting in numbers for him. They did not do so, and he lost. This election also turned on the growing proportion of ultraorthodox Jewish voters in the city and on the reluctance of Arab leaders to see their people lend legitimacy to Israeli rule by participating in the election, but this is a different story.

The authors believe that Israel has tragically mismanaged the governance of Jerusalem and, by demeaning the lives of its Arab citizens, has made a lasting resolution of the conflict between Arabs and Jews far more difficult. They say they have written this book, which certainly hangs Israel's dirty laundry out to dry, so that “lessons learned from past mistakes can help build a better future.” Although somewhat uneven in style, the book tells a fascinating, if at times repugnant, story with complete candor. It should be read by anyone interested in the future of Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine. The intensity and passion of the three Israeli Jewish authors, and perhaps also their chagrin at their own role in the story, waves like a flag in the final paragraph:

Do not believe the propaganda – the rosy picture Israel tries to show the world of life in Jerusalem since the 1967 reunification. Israel has treated the Palestinians of Jerusalem terribly. As a matter of policy, it has forced many of them from their homes and stripped them of their land, all the while lying to them and deceiving them and the world about its honorable intentions. And what makes all this so much more inexcusable is that there was no reason for it. Governing Jerusalem properly would not have jeopardized Israel's claim to the city. Indeed, it likely would have eased the growing conflict over Jerusalem's future. That massive error in judgement, we believe, is the tragedy of Israel's rule in East Jerusalem since 1967.