Divide and conquer

FACT - there is no city in the world that is divided. Why is that? Because it doesn't work! Cities are only divided as a result of war, such as Berlin (1945 - 1989) and Jerusalem (1948 - 1967). In a civic and ethnic sense it cannot work (the Vatican is too small to consider Rome to be divided). Many cities have large ethnic minorities or even majorities, but that doesn't mean they should be divided, such as Washington DC, that has a Black majority while it is the capital of a predominantly White country. There is no rational basis to redivide Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and of a Palestinian State. It just won't work!

That doesn't stop the do-good liberals of trying to foist this unworkable formula on Israel, because they believe in absolute rights, so every ethnic group should get to share control over its city. Why not divide New York into ethnic boroughs, Oh!, that's right it is already divided that way, as is every American city, but that doesn't mean the city itself should be divided. What's wrong with Jerusalem, always a predominantly Jewish city, having Arab neighborhoods, it works elsewhere, while dividing the city can't work. Also, giving the eastern Arab neighborhoods to a putative Palestinian state is asking for trouble, since Hamas is growing stronger and is likely to take over and its policies require destruction of Israel, just like its sponsor Iran (would you let an ally of Iran not only on your borders but within a few km of the center of your capital city?) If you really believed that they want peace, then maybe we could take a risk, but since there is no evidence in the real world of that, it would be stupid of us to go through with it. Being stupid doesn't mean that we should commit suicide (again!).

Of course, there is the demographic argument that if we incorporate too much land, then we will have too many Arabs and Israel will eventually cease to be a Jewish State because the Arab birth-rate is higher than that of the Jews. But, this is not such a serious argument as it applies to Jerusalem. The Arabs in East Jerusalem have been incoprorated into Israel, although not as full citizens with voting rights. But, they are a minority in Jerusalem and their birth rate is coming down while that of the Israelis in general has been going up (increasing size of Orthodox families).

Another liberal canard is that if the Arab-Israel conflict is settled then other conflicts will be quickly resolved. That is nonsense. Iran will want to destroy Israel just as much if there is peace with a Palestinian entity as if there is no peace. In fact, any Palestinain entity that made peace with Israel would itself become the target of Iranian ire, and would be attacked from inside by Hamas, Iran's Palestinian proxy. That is one very good reason why (illegal) Pres. Abbas doesn't want to have constructive negotiations with Israel and why he is finding excuses, (gifted to him by the Americans) to avoid restarting talks. Preconditions are a way to prevent talks going ahead, whether direct, indirect, proximal or remote. It seems to me that the US is conpletely misreading the current situation, since the Palestinians are completely recalcitrant and have shown no sign of being willing to compromise. If they ever change their tune (perhaps after Iran is taken down) then we could really negotiate with them. But, until then, no freeze and no division of Jerusalem.