The "holy city Jerusalem" that comes "down out of heaven from God" in the vision related by the author of the Revelation to John "has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel." (Rev. 21:10-11) Moreover, the seer writes, "The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it." (21:24)

There is, however, very little of the glory of God in the present struggle to define and control the contemporary city of Jerusalem, which now extends far beyond the walls of the Old City. Nations are not able to walk by the light of this rare jewel, for its light is shrouded by a dark shadow cast over the city due to the power struggle that now dominates life here.

The recent decision by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Cabinet to complete the Separation Barrier on the eastside of Jerusalem will greatly expand the size of the city, but will also divide Palestinians from Palestinians. Two maps are attached to help the reader understand what "Greater Jerusalem" now means. The first shows the plan for Jerusalem before the Cabinet decision last week, which was challenged in the Israeli High Court. The second map, just released by the Israeli government, reveals the slightly reduced area East of Jerusalem that now is to be included within the "Separation Barrier." (If you are unable to see these maps in your email program, you may access them at http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/jerusalem.maps.htm.)

Those inside the Separation Barrier will have access to Israel and East Jerusalem, if the borders created by the barrier become the borders of Israel. At Abu Dis, south of Jerusalem on a road that led to Bethlehem before the barrier blocked all travel, this means that neighbors are now divided. Those living on one side of the wall (for the barrier here is a high wall) are effectively annexed into the city of Jerusalem, whether they want to be or not. Those living on the other side of the wall are outside the city and unable legally to travel there.

There is a long history of inclusion and expulsion from Jerusalem. The Bible says that David took the city by defeating its Jebusite inhabitants. In 587 BCE ruling Judeans were exiled from Jerusalem by conquering Babylonians, but fifty years later were allowed to return after Persians defeated the Babylonians and took control of the city. As some descendants of the original exiles remained in Babylon, while others moved back to Judea, the beginning of Persian rule marked the dispersion of a people thereafter called "Jews" (from the Persian word for "Judeans"). This Jewish "Diaspora" continues to this day, despite the return of millions of Jews to the land of Israel.

The Jews who returned to Judea in the latter part of the sixth century BCE rebuilt the temple within a generation, but Jews in Judea did not enjoy independence under the Persian nor under Greek rule, which began about two centuries later. For the most part, Greek rulers did not interfere in the religious life of the Jews, but simply imposed taxes on them. In 169 BCE, however, Antiochus IV sacked the temple and put Greek statues in it. This act of desecration led to the Maccabean revolt and almost a century of independent Jewish government over Jerusalem.

In 63 BCE the Romans took control of Jerusalem, ending the short reign of Jewish kings and priests. When the Romans crushed the first Jewish revolt in 70 CE and destroyed the temple, all Jewish priests were banished from the city. The consequences of losing the second revolt against Roman rule in 135 CE were even more devastating, as thereafter Jews were not permitted to live in the city and were only allowed to enter one day of the year to anoint a rock on the Temple Mount. (The rock now at the center of the Dome of the Rock is probably this same rock, for it is the most prominent natural feature of the Temple Mount.)

Under Constantine, who converted to Christianity early in the fourth century, churches were built in Jerusalem and the city became largely Christian. In 361, however, the emperor later known as "Julian the Apostate" came to power. As part of his strategy to undermine Christians, he opened Jerusalem to Jews and encouraged them to rebuild the temple. Julian also renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, but he was dead three years later and his idea of a pagan city in Palestine died with him. After Julian emperors accommodated themselves to the growing strength of the church throughout the Byzantine empire. (The name change reflects the movement of the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which after Constantine was known as Constantinople).

In 638 Muslims defeated the Byzantine defenders of Jerusalem and took control of the city. After the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa Mosque were built (in 691 and 705-15 respectively), both Jews and Christians were excluded from the area on top of al Haram al Sharif (Temple Mount).

More than hour and a half centuries later, in 1099, Crusaders fought their way into the city slaughtered all its inhabitants -- men, women, and children, and also Armenian and Orthodox Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims. Under Crusader rule al Aqsa Mosque was first used as the residence of the King of Jerusalem, and then in 1131 was handed over to an order of soldier-monks known as Templars. The Crusaders used the Dome of the Rock as a church, until Saladin ousted them and took control of the city in 1187. After the altar was removed from the Dome of the Rock, once again only Muslims were allowed to worship there.

The Dome of the Rock takes its name from legends about the rock within it, which Muslims remember as the place where Muhammad made his night flight to heaven and where, over a millennium earlier, God tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, whose mother was Hagar. The story of the testing of Abraham may be read in Genesis 22, which is scripture for both Jews and Christians, but in this earlier account the son nearly sacrificed is Isaac, whose mother was Sarah.

Muslims ruled Jerusalem from 1187 until the beginning of the 20th century. During these centuries Jews and Christians lived in Jerusalem, and were generally able to worship in peace. But Christians were not allowed to seek converts among Muslims, and both Jews and Christians were not permitted on al Haram al Sharif.

Occupation by the British changed all that, and under British rule more Jews began to immigrate to Jerusalem, continuing a pattern of migration that had begun in the 19th century when the city was under Ottoman Turkish control. Some of these immigrants hoped that Jerusalem might become a Jewish city at the heart of a reconstructed nation of Israel. After World War II, with the help mainly of Britain, France, and the United States, these Zionist hopes began to be realized.

The divided city of Jerusalem in 1948 at the conclusion of the war between Jewish settlers and the Palestinians, who were supported by the surrounding Arab nations, was united under Israeli rule after the war of 1967. Israel also gained control of most of the West Bank including the areas north, east, and south of the Old City. In the almost 40 years since the end of the 1967 war, large Israeli settlements have been built all around the Old City, despite the prohibition against construction on occupied land under international law and under agreements signed by the Israeli government including the Oslo Peace Process and the recent Road Map.

The Jewish settlements surrounding Jerusalem are on land that by law belongs to Palestinians, and the roads constructed to ensure safe passage between these settlements and Jerusalem have effectively converted more land from residential and agricultural uses to broad, asphalt barriers, which divide Palestinian communities and further impoverish them.

This is evident to anyone standing on the top of Mount Scopus, just north of the Mount of Olives, where I am now living in a guesthouse run by the Lutheran World Federation. To the north is the large complex of buildings housing Hebrew University. Walking around the campus, which is behind a high security fence, you can look down into the valley at the scattered homes of the Palestinians. Security is tight around Hebrew University, for Israeli guards patrolling the perimeter stopped me twice, as I walked around the campus taking photographs of the University and the valleys below it.

To the south of Augusta Victoria Hospital and guesthouse, on the western slope of the ridge, are the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. Palestinian homes and shops cover the top and eastern sides of the Mount of Olives, but in the distance toward Jericho is the massive settlement of Ma'ale Adumim where 30,000 Jewish Israelis now live. Further to the south on the ridges are other large Israeli settlements, with Palestinian buildings clinging to the lower slopes and sometimes Bedouins camped out in the more remote valleys.

In violation of the legal prohibitions against constructing settlements on Palestinian land, the Israeli government has confiscated land and strategically encircled the Old City of Jerusalem with settlements and roads in order, to create facts on the ground that are clearly intended to be irreversible. It is now estimated that over 200,000 Israeli settlers live in the Jewish settlements built in the West Bank around Jerusalem in areas contiguous to the Old City on the north, east, and south sides. (This can be seen at http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/jerusalem.maps.htm.)

In the present time of cooperation and relative peace between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority, construction is nonetheless taking place in most of these Israeli settlements, and the number of Jewish settlers continues to grow. Most of the settlers that the Israeli government plans to move from settlements in Gaza will be moved into settlements on the West Bank, many of which are located in a circle around Jerusalem.

The area now comprising "Greater Jerusalem," which in 1967 was largely Palestinian, is now primarily Jewish. (I say "Jewish" because Greater East Jerusalem includes many Arab Israelis as well as Jewish Israelis, but only Jewish Israelis are permitted to live in the settlements in the West Bank.)

The Revised Route for the Separation Barrier published last week by the Israeli Minister of Defense shows very clearly how far it extends east of Jerusalem to encircle a large section of the West Bank, which contains several existing Jewish settlements and areas designated for future settlement construction. The shape of this extension into the West Bank looks something like the head of a dog, facing southeast from the Old City, with one of the major settlements where "the right eye" of the dog would be. This map reveals that the Separation Barrier in some places is far beyond the Green Line, which is the dividing line between the West Bank that was conquered from Jordan in 1967 and the internationally recognized border of Israel.

The "dog head" extension of the Separation Barrier to the east of the Old City reaches over the Mount of Olives and down the eastern slope of the ridge almost half way across the West Bank. There are few roads going north and south on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives, and Palestinian use of roads on the western side of the ridge, closer to Jerusalem, is often denied.

The Israeli government argues that the Separation Barrier along its present route is a necessary security measure, and it may be that the barrier in some places has made it more difficult for suicide bombers to reach the cities of Israel. But the Separation Barrier is not really a security measure, or the Israeli government would call it a "Security Barrier." Instead, it is an aggressive strategy to further "separate" Palestinians from Israelis, by making their lives so miserable that more of them will chose to move away to other parts of the West Bank or to other countries.

The Separation Barrier divides Palestinian families and communities, who live on both sides, and makes travel to work and to schools extremely difficult and time consuming. It is not a barrier that keeps all Palestinians out, for it includes thousands of Palestinians in "Greater Jerusalem." Furthermore, the Israeli government does not know (and cannot know) that all the potential suicide bombers are outside the barrier. (Pictures of the barrier at Abu Dis may be seen at http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/jerusalem.photos.htm.)

The purpose of the barrier is to pressure Palestinians to leave the area included within Greater Jerusalem on the north, east, and south sides of the Old City in order to facilitate the settlement of Jewish Israelis in this area.

The demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem is further evidence of the expansionist plans of the Israeli government. A recent Army report concludes that demolishing the homes of terrorists has not deterred violence by Palestinians, but has likely had the opposite effect. Yet, the government almost daily is demolishing Palestinian homes around Jerusalem. The reason given by the Israeli government is that the Palestinian landowners lack building permits. But the landowners lack such permits, because the Israeli government refuses to allow Palestinian landowners to build on, or improve, their land in East Jerusalem.

Similarly, the confiscation of Palestinian land for settlement construction and the building of access roads only for use by Israelis cannot be justified as reasonable security measures necessary to protect the nation of Israel within its internationally recognized borders. These aggressive settlement activities understandably anger Palestinians, and also give credence to their claims that the Israeli government is undermining the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

At a recent forum in West Jerusalem Michael Warschavski, Chair of the Alternative Information Center, argued that the present Israeli government has no intention of disengaging from most of the West Bank where now more than 400,000 Jews are living in settlements constructed on Palestinian land. On the contrary, he said, the Jewish settlements have been carefully planned to encircle Jerusalem and to dominate the road systems and control the hilltops throughout the West Bank, so the areas of the West Bank left to Palestinians will be weak and fragmented.

The forum moderator and Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Jeff Halper, supported Warschavski’s assertion that the Separation Barrier is a cynical strategy being used by the Israeli government to secure a Greater Jerusalem and a Greater Israel, which will include in Israel most of the land taken from Palestinians during and since the 1967 war.

For more than three millennia Jerusalem has been a place claimed by one people at the expense of others, and in this long history invaders have often dominated those living on the land. The Bible says that David captured the city of Jerusalem from its Jebusite inhabitants (2 Samuel 5:6). The Hebrew scriptures also record the conquest of Jerusalem by Babylonians and Persians, and the struggle by the Macabbees against Greek rulers. (See Kings, Chronicles, and the Prophets.) The New Testament was written during the time of oppressive Roman rule, and in the following centuries Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims from Arabia, Crusaders from Europe, again by Muslims, by British forces during World War I, and most recently after World War II by European Jewish survivors.

Might Jerusalem today yet become a beacon of light and hope for the nations, as the Jewish scriptures foretold long ago? (Isaiah 49:6) Certainly, for this vision to be realized, Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews, would have to find a new way to live together.

As unlikely as it seems, this is the goal of some Jewish Israelis, who oppose the occupation and the continuing confiscation of Palestinian land by the Israeli government. Rabbis for Human Rights, an organization based in Jerusalem with a growing North American chapter, protests house demolitions, monitors checkpoints along the Separation Barrier, helps Palestinians reach and farm their land on the Israeli side of the barrier, and teaches yeshiva students and soldiers that living ethically as Jews means supporting human rights for Palestinians as well as for Jews.

The Chairperson of Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbi Tzvi Weinberg, reminds his fellow Jews of the Torah admonition: "Justice, justice shall you pursue so that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God gives you." (Deut. 16:20) If Israel is now to live up to its promise and become "a light for the nations," Jewish Israelis must seek not only peace, but also justice.

Whether Jew or Muslim, Christian or secular, may we all support the nonviolent struggle for a just peace, for both Palestinians and Israelis, who live in and around Greater Jerusalem.

Bob Traer, 27 February 2005

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are personal and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

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