By MIKE SEID  
Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president, has a stern warning for the religious faithful. "Taking the holy sites of Jerusalem which are presently protected and secure and putting them under the uncertainty of Palestinian rule or of some poorly defined special regime for the holy basin is to put their future in great doubt."
Gold's warning is not simply a theoretical exercise. At next month's planned summit in Annapolis, the fate of this special city appears to be on the table.
It all began with a statement by Vice Premier Haim Ramon two weeks ago. "Whoever thinks the subject of discussions will be limited to the structure of Palestinian institutions is deluded. Israel has an interest to get recognition of all of Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods, and to hand over control of Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians," he said.
His plan proposes splitting Jerusalem, transferring the city's Arab neighborhoods to Palestinian control and giving up sovereignty over parts of the Old City (excluding the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall).
Ramon's statement unleashed a firestorm of political activity and realignment. But, as Gold takes pains to explain, Jerusalem is not just any piece of territory or any political football.
"Jerusalem has been a part of Jewish faith and religious practice since the time of King David and King Solomon," he says. "The most widely practiced ceremonies in Judaism today, the Passover Seder and the Ne'ila prayer of Yom Kippur, close with the declaration 'Next year in Jerusalem.' The call for rebuilding Jerusalem is a part of Jewish daily prayer and of the grace after meals. Thus Jerusalem is at the heart of Jewish religious consciousness."
Gold likewise stresses Jerusalem's significance to Christians and Muslims, though with some qualifications. "Christians treasure the importance of Jerusalem, but their main institutions developed elsewhere," he says, referring to Rome and Constantinople. "For Islam, Jerusalem has special meaning. But Jerusalem never appears in the Koran. And the proper place of pilgrimage for haj is Mecca, with Medina being the second most holy city in Islam. Jerusalem was never the seat of the Islamic caliphate."
Gold concludes, "Only a free and democratic Israel can protect Jerusalem for all faiths." But this does not reflect the view of those attending the US-sponsored summit.
As such, leaders of the three major faiths must deal with the proposed division. The competing claims of Jews, Muslims and Christians cannot all be realized. In interviews with In Jerusalem this week, the emotions of faith representatives ran high. All shared one major concern: to fiercely safeguard the holy places and ensure freedom of worship.
MK Rabbi Benny Elon (National Union-NRP) speaks about a different kind of division concerning Jerusalem. "Today the world is divided between those who recognize the full meaning of holiness of Jerusalem for the Jewish people according to the Bible, and the rest that recognize it but fight against it. And this is exactly what the Muslims are trying to do," he says. "Jerusalem is the place where the Jerusalem above and the Jerusalem below meet. The place where heaven and earth kiss."
The impact of the return of Jewish sovereignty to this city cannot be overstated according to Elon. "The Bible spoke about how one day God would return us to Zion. The fact that He now has, means that it's real. He never abandoned us. He kept His covenant with us. It is an earthquake."
One of the consequences of this return is that those Christians who once believed the Jews no longer were God's chosen people, an ideology known as Replacement Theology, were forced to alter their assessment. "Today, after the existence of the State of Israel, they [Christians] understand more and more that this theory has nothing to do with reality and the opposite is right," says Elon.
For Elon, the future of Jerusalem has a universalist message. "When Jews and others recognize the meaning of Jerusalem according to the Bible, the importance of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, they can take part in it in joy and celebration. And take part in the vision of Isaiah for the future to dance in the streets of Jerusalem. They will come to Jerusalem to sing this song."
Other Orthodox rabbis concur. Rabbi Sholom Gold, the founder of Kehillat Zichron Ya'acov in Har Nof and the dean of Avrom Silver Jerusalem College of Adults, says dividing the capital is unthinkable. "It would be a travesty of Jewish history and whoever does it must answer to 4,000 years of history from Abraham until today."
Rabbi David Stern, the director of the Old City-based Jerusalem Connection, is certain that this debate is a critical trial for the Jewish people. "This is the test of the generation to be able to stand up and state unequivocally that this land is ours."
Evangelical Christians couldn't agree more. "We recognize first and foremost that God attached the Jewish people to this city centuries before the rise of Christianity and Islam," says David Parsons, media director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), an umbrella organization that rallies evangelicals.
"On one level Jerusalem is intended to be a house of prayer for all peoples and therefore must be shared. But on another, deeper level, God attached the Jews to this city and called it your holy city," says Parsons. "Jews are the proper custodians of the holy sites. And we are comfortable with that because your scripture says you must keep it open to all for prayer. And Israel has the best record in this regard when you compare it with the city's other conquerors."
While his organization stands up for Jewish claims, Parsons also recognizes that ICEJ cannot, to borrow a phrase from another Christian denomination, be more Catholic than the pope. "We join our faith with the faith of Jews who want to retain sovereignty over all the city. But at the end of the day, Israel is a democracy and Israelis must decide what to do. One can sometimes misapply vicarious faith. And God is ultimately interested in what you think about it."
Original Source