13 March 2000—Early on the path to Middle East peace, argued Ziad Abu-Zayyad, Palestinian and Israeli perceptions of a final settlement diverged. While Palestinians understood the Oslo process to be a compromise in the struggle for “historic Palestine,” Israelis viewed the Oslo endgame as no more than a “partition of the West Bank.” Thus, Palestinians and Israelis have approached their ultimate destination—“a just and lasting peace”—from very different vantage points.

For the Israeli negotiator, reasoned Abu-Zayyad, it is “as if the [Palestinian-Israeli] conflict began in 1967,” when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. The events of 1948—the creation of the state of Israel and the attendant, catastrophic dispossession of the Palestinian nation—have been expurgated, he suggested, by a “peace process” that bestows Palestinian “authority” and acknowledges Israeli culpability in equally meager measures.

Abu Zayyad expressed these views in his March 7 briefing on “Palestinian Refugees, Jerusalem, and the Final Status Negotiations.” Without denying any of the exigencies facing Palestinians—both in historic Palestine and in the diaspora—he sounded what he called an “optimistic” note: “We are,” proclaimed the Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of State for Jerusalem Affairs, “strong in our weakness.”

The Palestinians’ strength, he ventured, is in their numbers. In Jerusalem, for example, Abu-Zayyad estimated that there are 200,000 Palestinians. They, coupled with another estimated 190,000 residing in “neighboring Palestinian areas,” will remain “a bone in the throat” of Israel. The sheer presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians does not suggest Israeli magnanimity, however. On the contrary—from a long list of policies designed to “maintain the Jewish character” of Jerusalem, Abu-Zayyad distilled a deliberate “two-track policy” pursued by all Israeli governments since 1967. After Israel occupied East Jerusalem, along with the rest of the West Bank and Gaza, in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, it institutionalized efforts to “minimize the number of Arabs” and maximize the number of Jews in the city.

Israel has succeeded, albeit not completely, in realizing its first goal. By refusing to grant building permits and by designating extensive tracts of land as “green areas,” Israel has “created severe housing shortages, especially with young couples” who move to “neighboring areas like Abu Dis.”

As the density of the Palestinian population shifts to these outlying areas, it becomes easier to argue against any PA foothold in the city. Indeed, Israel has seized upon this logic to revoke residency from Palestinians whose “center of life” is outside the Israeli-imposed municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. In this way, said Abu-Zayyad, “Arabs are viewed as visitors in Jerusalem,” and thousands are forced to “smuggle themselves each day” through the “state terror” of Israeli checkpoints.

Concurrently, since 1967, Israel has constructed Jewish-only settlements throughout East Jerusalem. Referred to now as “neighborhoods,” these settlements established a normative presence in what Israel deemed to be its “undivided capital.” This was in keeping with a “secret” 1974 decision—one that is, in Abu-Zayyad’s words, “not secret anymore”—to limit the percentage of Palestinians in Jerusalem to 27 percent of the city’s total population. Noting the psychological effects of such measures on Palestinians, Abu-Zayyad emphasized that “there is no substitute for Jerusalem.”

He denied that a building currently being constructed in Abu Dis is intended to house the Palestinian Legislative Council, adding that “no one had [Abu Dis] in mind” as the capital of a future Palestinian state. “Jerusalem,” Abu-Zayyad reiterated, “is Jerusalem, and Abu Dis is Abu Dis.” Responding to related concerns about a feeble PA mandate, particularly among Palestinian refugees, he discounted the likelihood of a worldwide Palestinian referendum on so-called “final status” issues (such as Jerusalem): “For practical reasons,” he concluded, “I do not think this will be possible.”

The above text is based on remarks delivered on 7 March 2000 by Ziad Abu-Zayyad, Minister of State for Jerusalem Affairs in the Palestinian Authority. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine or The Jerusalem Fund. This “For the Record” was written by Palestine Center Writer/Editor Samer Badawi; it may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Palestine Center.

This information first appeared in For The Record No. 33, 13 March 2000.