APN : Just pehaps...Jerusalem would turn from a problem into a solution

APN:Middle East Peace Reports:RETHINKING JERUSALEM:

An op-ed by Moshe Amirav, who recently published a book entitled Jerusalem Syndrome, suggests that the time might be ripe for Israelis to re-imagine the fate of Jerusalem. He writes that "as a paratrooper who was injured in 1967 in the battle for the liberation of Jerusalem and hoped to combine both objectives – a united city and a city of peace – I now feel disappointment and pain. My city is not united and has become a 'city of dispute.

'Perhaps we should try to accept Jerusalem as it is: A multicultural, inter-religious and bi-national city? Perhaps Jerusalem is secretly laughing in its heart of hearts, mockingly looking from the heights of history upon the new Israelis who seek to make it into something that it is not, and will never be? Perhaps dividing Jerusalem, as a political program, will achieve more for us, the Israelis, than the anachronistic program of unifying Jerusalem? And what would we lose if the Old City were to turn into a place where we are partners rather than owners? How terrible would it be if such a small portion, less than one percent of the capital's area, would be given an international status? What would happen?

'This is what would happen: Jerusalem would turn from a problem into a solution. If we turn Jerusalem into the great key to the conflict, in its broader sense, not only the political sense, new vistas will be opened to us. Jerusalem can be the key to the heart of the Muslim world, to reconciliation with the Arab states, to peace with the Palestinians.'(Yedioth Ahronoth, 5/16/07)