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Jerusalem: From Sacred Trust to Faithless Abandonment By Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the highly controversial and arguably illegal resolution no. 181, recommending a partition plan for Palestine and its dismemberment into two states-- a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state, with a proposed international regime (a Corpus Separatum) for Jerusalem and its environs. The British Mandated Government, having failed to contain Jewish terrorist gangs and, fearful of alienating the all-influential Jewish lobby in the United States threw the towel into the ring and handed back its sacred trust to the United Nations the residuary legatee of the defunct League of Nations. The proposed special international regime, for governance of the City of Jerusalem was spelled out in elaborate form in Part III of the Partition Plan and, was envisioned to come into effect not later than Oct. 1, 1948. The boundaries of the much expanded city was described in paragraph B as comprising, in addition to the municipal boundaries, the surrounding towns and villages including the most southern Bethlehem, the most western Ein Karim, including Qalunya and the built-up area of Motza; and the most northern Shu’fat. The special regime would have meticulously preserved not only the unique spiritual and religious interests of the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the world, but no less importantly, the security, well-being and, all constructive development efforts for the welfare of Jerusalem’s citizens. The then existing local autonomous units in the territory (villages, townships and municipalities) of the Arab and Jewish sections of new Jerusalem would have established special town units-- within the municipality of Jerusalem for self-administration. A legislative council elected by the residents, on the basis of universal suffrage and proportional representation, would have had the power of legislation and taxation. All the residents would have become ipso facto citizens of the City of Jerusalem. It all sounds like a dream, a beautiful dream, all of a sudden turned into a nightmare by the grotesque failure of the United Nations Security Council to act upon its own resolutions to this effect. Instead, Jerusalem and its citizens of all denominations and creeds became a hopeless victim of violence, terror, acts of destruction, and lawlessness, which culminated in an all-out uprooting, dispersal and exodus of western Jerusalem’s Arab inhabitants. Valiant resistance by Jerusalemites in the Old City, aided by regular and highly trained Jordan Army units, saved the Old City from a similar fate after three days and nights of intensive Israeli bombardment of the historic city. A cease fire, punctured by numerous violations and transgressions came into place, culminating in a permanent Armistice Agreement between Transjordan and Israel on April 3, 1949. Thus, only after Israel had seized the southeast part of Palestine down to the Gulf of Aqaba and had obtained the strategically and economically important triangle belt of land in central Palestine did Israel finally agree to sign that Armistice. In the meantime, the entire population of greater Jerusalem and of western Jerusalem itself, who had been evicted en masse by the war or by such terrorist acts as the Deir Yassin massacre of its population, crowded the already crammed premises and living spaces of the Old City waiting for some miracle of salvation, which would enable them to return to their homes which they had involuntarily abandoned a few hundred meters away, pending the return of peace and sanity to their beloved city. Their anxious waiting has persisted tantalizingly for half a century. And to compound their exodus and tragedy, Israel on June 6, 1967 occupied the rest of Jerusalem and its environs and declared it within that same month a part of Israel. Numerous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions have been passed over the decades declaring all Israeli measures of annexation null and void and bereft of all legal validity. But the situation on the ground told a fundamentally different story as we shall see in the continually unfolding tragedy of Jerusalem and its people. April 21, 1999 Born in Jerusalem, Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh has held a number of prominent government posts. He was a representative of Jordan at the Mixed Armistice Commission. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Royal Court and has served Ambassadorial posts to Egypt, Turkey, Italy, and Austria. He was also the Permanent Ambassador of Jordan to the UN. Dr. Nusseibeh is author of various books, including The Ideas of Arab Nationalism, Palestine and the United Nations and A History of Modern Jordan.
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