Slouching Towards Partition?

I go offline for a few days and some Israeli diplomats get the crazy idea of partitioning Jerusalem and that they wont pass up the opportunity to deal with the Palestinians? 90,000 Palestinians will apparently get Jordanian citizenship. As many here know, that would actually reflect the real history of the region, and not the invented one propagated by Palestinian terrorist sympathizers. The problem is that these reports also suggest that Israel is getting ready to partition Jerusalem. The story is disputed by the Israeli government though I have to wonder whether this was floated to gauge reaction to a possible framework under which Israel would cede parts of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

The Prime Minister's Office said that no agreement had been reached on the holy sites in Jerusalem.

According to the report in the London-based newspaper, Olmert and Abbas had agreed that the Temple Mount sites would be under Jordanian jurisdiction in a final peace deal, and Jordanian citizenship would be granted to 90,000 east Jerusalem residents.

The report also said it was likely that a supreme supervisory commission would be established, which would include representatives from the UN, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the PA.

The report drew strong criticism form the right-wing.

MK Uri Ariel (NU/NRP) said: "If the report is true, the Israeli government has stripped itself of any linkage to Zionism or its Jewish roots."

Hasn't anyone bothered to check their history books from 2000 or 2005? Don't they realize that concessions and appeasement of terrorist groups do nothing to improve Israel's security situation? Gaza is now Hamastan from which rockets and mortars are launched on a near daily basis. Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon in 2000, and Hizbullah turned it into an armed fortress with bunkers and ammo dumps from which they launched a destructive war across Israel's northern border for a month last year. That inconclusive end - along with tepid and indecisive acts by the Israeli government to prosecute the war to actually win it, shows what happens when you give up territory without defeating those who seek it.

Concessions are seen as weakness to be exploited. Israel should be negotiating from a position of strength, but time and time again we see that they're doing the opposite - they're making concessions where none is needed or required or demanded of them because the Palestinians themselves have never lived up to their obligations under Oslo or any of the successive diplomatic efforts.

What ends up happening is that diplomats end up reworking the same failed strategies in the hopes that this time they'll get it right. The problem is that those strategies usually end up with dead on both sides - as the Palestinians continue to launch terrorist attacks and Israel defends itself.

The notion of giving up parts of Jersualem, including the Temple Mount should be abhorrent to Israelis and everyone in general. Israel, and the Jewish people have historical ties to the City for more than 2,000 years, and the Temple Mount is the most sacred spot on the planet for all Jews. Ceding those areas to any other group puts the access to those areas under the power of someone other than Israel, and as we saw in the period between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan controlled the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem, that meant that Jews could not access the holiest sites at all.

That is a scenario that should not be repeated.

It would be a mistake of monumental proportions, and it would gain Israel nothing in terms of peace and security. Peace on a piece of paper is not the same as peace on the ground. The Palestinians have repeatedly shown themselves incapable of making peace - or living up to their obligations. Yet, the world puts the onus of responsibility and making concessions on the Israeli government.

That is a recipe for disaster, and the Israeli government would be wise to resist all calls to partition or cede territory that is part of Jerusalem - especially the Temple Mount.

UPDATE:
Just remember that the Palestinians are really pushing for peace when they fire new and improved rockets. However, their version of peace is quite different than yours or mine. It means the peace of annihilation of all that Israel is and stands for. They want to eliminate Israel from the map, and while they may lack the means to do so, they haven't given up trying. Every diplomatic effort ignores that basic truth, glossing it over in the hopes that someone will eventually choose diplomatic acts instead of military ones.