Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia

Epilogue: Jerusalem Redivided

Epilogue: Jerusalem Redivided Immediately following the conquest of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War, senior commander Moshe Dayan issued two controversial orders to the Israeli army: relinquish direct control over the Temple Mount and dismantle the Green Line. The social and political utility of the partition , which Dayan coauthored in 1948, had long since expired in the eyes of many Jerusalemites on both sides of the city. It had become an emblem of shame; it offered a bitter reminder of Jerusalem’s failure to achieve the social integration envisioned by Israel’s early intellectual leadership and idealistic kibbutzim. The barricades came down according to plan on 29 June 1967. This procedure involved the rapid removal of 16 km of barbed wire, several large concrete ramparts, fifty-five fortified guard stations, and hundreds of mines in the buffer zone. True to his military objective and his public promise to extend ‘‘the hand of peace’’ to Israel’s Arab neighbors, Dayan ushered in a period of relative peace and cooperation in Jerusalem that lasted until the start of the first intifada in 1987. Thirty-four years after his uncle ordered the barricades of Jerusalem to be removed, the then Israeli national security advisor Major-General Uzi Dayan launched a determined political campaign in support of a new ethnic partition. High-level approval for a ‘‘security fence’’ dividing Israel from the West Bank was secured in July 2001 after six years of research and lobbying in the Israeli Knesset. By October 2002, amid growing concerns abroad regarding security and terrorism, work began on approximately 570 km of wall and fence stretching from north to south and conforming to the former Green Line for about 11 percent of its length, with substantial deviations to the east in order to embrace farflung Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The cost to Israeli taxpayers is approximately $2.7 million per kilometer . The cost to Palestinians living in the West Bank is the loss of about 14.5 percent of West Bank territory formerly east of the Green Line, the dis-  Epilogue Figure E.1. Palestinians waiting at the Qalandiya checkpoint, c. 2002. Authors. placement of approximately 875,000 individuals, and separation for thousands from relatives, jobs, schools, and hospitals. The regional barrier passes through Jerusalem with a 51 km segment separating Israeli Jerusalem from Palestinian suburbs to the east. Construction of this new partition, named ‘‘enveloping Jerusalem’’ by municipal authorities , began in October 2003. The partition severs links between East Jerusalem and Ramallah to the north, passes eastward just south of Rafat to the Qalandiya checkpoint, then moves southward to incorporate the Jewish settlements of Neve Ya’aqoy, Pisgat Ze’ev, and Ma’aleh Adumim while excluding the Palestinian suburbs of Hizma, Anata, and Abu Dis. Near Dar Salah the barricade turns again westward toward Gilo, an Israeli suburb to the south of Jerusalem, bending to incorporate the historic site of Rachel’s tomb. Most of the barrier in the Jerusalem area is composed of concrete walls 6 to 8 m high. Approximately 220,000 Palestinians residing in eighteen communities along the barricade route will be directly affected. Jerusalem, having strained under physical partitions for nineteen years and celebrated a ‘‘mutual invasion’’ with their removal in 1967, divided it- Jerusalem Redivided  Figure E.2. The new partition dividing east and west Jerusalem as it passes through the Palestinian suburb of Abu Dis, 2003. Authors. self again. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the barrier ‘‘an essential element in securing Jerusalem.’’ Uzi Dayan argued that the barrier is reversible , promotes stability on both sides, and is ‘‘linked to Israel’s strategic goals’’—including maintenance of the nation’s ‘‘identity as a Jewish democratic state.’’ He pointed to the example of the Gaza Strip enclosure walls to support the assertion that ‘‘there is no question regarding the effectiveness of a continuous physical barrier in keeping out infiltrators bent on committing terror.’’ It was claimed that no suicide bombers had emerged from the Gaza Strip in the three years following the installation of fortified perimeter fence. Though the Gaza fence may have been the nearest example, it was not the most relevant. If predictions about the value of Jerusalem’s new partition are desired, Belfast and Nicosia provide closer analogues. Urban managers in both cities promoted walls as a pragmatic, temporary reply to urgent security crises. The walls they built remain after more...