Whenever Israeli politicians want to generate applause, all they need do is speak passionately about ‘united Jerusalem’, and a standing ovation is guaranteed. Yet as indicated by Dr. Moshe Amirav, in his book The Jerusalem Syndrome (Carmel, Jerusalem, 2007, Hebrew), the purported ‘united city’ is a myth. Nine new neighbourhoods have been built in the Eastern side of the city since 1967, billions of Shekels have been invested, and still ‘this forty-year policy has only generated disappointments and failures. The more Israel tried to unite its capital, the more those weak ties, which had connected the two parts of the city, were undone, one by one’.

Amirav, who was advisor for Jerusalem affairs in Ehud Barak’s government, lists the six national goals that Israeli policy-makers have had for the capital: gaining international legitimisation for Israeli sovereignty over the city; building settlements on the East side, to secure Israel’s hegemony there; increasing the Jewish majority to guard against the prospect of a bi-national city; turning Jerusalem into a great economic centre; establishing equality and coexistence with the Arab Jerusalemites; and separating the issue of the Holy Sites from the political conflict over the city. Not one of these goals has been achieved, claims Amirav. Even if one judges less harshly, a consensus remains that a gap exists between rhetoric and reality.

Jerusalem is the key to understanding two significant issues that are crucial to understanding Israel: the conflict with the Palestinians, and the socio-economic-cultural trends within Israeli society itself. A candid examination of Jerusalem might help us understand those issues better.

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Recently, my father-in-law fell sick during the weekend, and I took him to the doctor on duty. Since he belongs to a certain provider of healthcare, the only option available to him was to see a doctor at a clinic in Sheikh Jarach, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem. For me it was a novel and eye-opening experience. There we were, the only two Jews among close to hundred Arabs, all waiting to benefit from modern Israeli medical treatment. Anyone who has ever been in either of the two Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem, or in Sha’are Zedek, has witnessed the same.

How come Israelis, who raise hell whenever the Palestinian right of return is heard, took it upon themselves to be responsible for a quarter of a million Arabs in Jerusalem?

It all began in 1967, when immediately after the war, the government rushed to annexe vast territory to Jerusalem. In the euphoria which prevailed after the mind-boggling victory, little thought was given to the long term results. So Arab villages and refugee camps which had not, until then, been anything to do with Jerusalem, became neighbourhoods of the city with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen.

The oratory employed when discussing a united Jerusalem shouldn’t disguise the reality of the city: when it comes to infrastructure and standards of living, it is divided into two totally different spheres. Go visit Abu Tor, which starts as an up-scale Jewish neighbourhood, and drive down the street into the Arab part. The differences stare you straight in the face. Or go to beautiful Jewish French Hill, and compare it to the adjacent Isawiya, which looks like a third-world shantytown.

Trying to unite the city using the authority of the legal system didn’t help either. The Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel enacted in 1980, which declared that ‘Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel’, achieved little beyond the displeasure of the international community. Of the 24 countries recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, 22 relocated their embassies, and the two remaining countries — Costa Rica and El Salvador — did so in 2006. Even the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally, has made it clear that its embassy will remain in Tel Aviv until a settlement regarding Jerusalem is agreed with the Palestinians.

As long as the dire situation in Jerusalem remains confined to the political realm, the prospect of a solution is still feasible. Recently, in a speech delivered in the Knesset on the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dared speak the unspeakable. He said that many Arab villages ‘were artificially annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, did not constitute a real part of the city, and were rarely, if ever, visited by Jewish Israelis’. They could, therefore, be given up without damaging any Israeli interest. That Olmert, as Mayor of Jerusalem, used to refute such arguments with venom, is inconsequential: things obviously look different once you become prime minister.

Neither did Olmert’s speech send Israelis rioting in the streets. A survey presented at the recent Herzliya Conference for the Balance of National Security, showed that 57% of the population are willing to give up the Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. But when it comes to the opinion of the Jerusalem Jews, however, only 39% are willing to do so.

One way or another, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon felt confident enough to declare that the city should be divided (sic!), with Jewish sovereignty over Jewish neighbourhoods and Palestinian sovereignty over the Arab ones. Again, no storm has erupted; Israelis have long been acquainted with the idea that in any peace settlement, the Palestinian capital will be in East Jerusalem. And furthermore, since the residents of Jerusalem share the same physical space and need the same services, a single metropolitan city council might run Jerusalem, with strong, active borough participation.

This political re-division of the city, though complicated in itself, pales in comparison to the possible scenarios regarding the future of the holy sites. Again, it was during that euphoric moment in June 1967, that Israel annexed Temple Mount. Zalman Aran, the Education Minister at the time, argued that annexing the sites holy to Islam might set Israel on a collision course with hundreds of millions of Muslims all over the world, but at the government meeting when the decision was made, he was in the minority. Christian sensitivities to the site were raised by Defense minister Moshe Dayan, who cynically wondered why we needed ‘all this Vatican’, but he didn’t make an issue of his opinion.

However all this is spilt milk. The situation now is that no Israeli Jew is willing to cede control of the holy sites, and no Palestinian is willing to give up the claim over the same sites. As if this were not enough, the Kings of both Jordan and Saudi Arabia consider themselves the sites’ protector.

At Camp David in 2000, President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a noble attempt to put a creative proposal on the table, recommending that Israelis and Palestinians to share control over the holy sites. However it was flatly rejected by Yaser Arafat. Today, with the rise of Hamas, a strictly religious movement, the chances of a settlement are non-existent.

So what should the solution be for the holy sites? I certainly don’t pretend to have the answer. I have read all the proposals aired during the years, and my feeling is that eventually, ownership must be left to God. What I mean by this is that the sites should be taken out of the context of the political conflict, and placed in the trust of a joint body, which will include Israelis, the Palestinians, the UN, the Vatican and others. Please don't rush to tell me that it will never work: it must, because the alternative is protracted religious war — war of the very worst kind.

In the meantime, the wise Israeli policy of freedom of religion must be retained. Resolving the problem of the holy sites must wait until a political settlement among the parties has built sufficient mutual trust for the mightier task of tackling the religious issue to be attempted. One thing’s for sure: if a reasonable solution to the issue of the holy sites is reached, it will have far-reaching and positive implications for the relations between Arabs and Jews, in Israel and elsewhere.

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Now, let's take a closer look at the city itself to give ourselves a better understanding of the risks and challenges facing Israeli society as a whole.

Over the last four decades, the Jerusalem Foundation has raised over one billion dollars for Jerusalem. In its recent annual report, the Foundation expressed its vision for our capital: ‘to support the growth of a vibrant, modern, flourishing city, rich with culture, economic vitality and strong and caring communities for all its citizens’.

Yet the recent Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem, edited by Dr. Maya Choshen of The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, shows how much work is still to be done in pursuit those goals. Here are some highlights:

•     The Jewish majority is declining. In 1967, there were some 200,000 Jews and 68,000 Arabs living in the city — 74% versus 26%. In 2005, the numbers were 475,000 Jews and 245,000 Arabs — 66% versus 34%. Since the Arab birth rate is higher than the Jewish one (between the ages of 0 and 14, there are more Arabs than Jews in the city), it is predicted that by 2020, the ratio will be 61:39.

     •     Within the Jewish majority, the number of ultra-orthodox Jews is rising. Neighbourhoods which were once ‘secular’ or ‘mixed’ have been taken over by the ultra-orthodox. If, in the past, the line dividing the ultra-orthodox neighbourhoods from the ‘secular’ ones was Hanevi'im Street, it has now moved south, to Jaffa Street.

A look at the education system gives a clear idea of what the future holds for the city: while there are 120,000 pupils in the regular education system and 85,000 in the ultra-orthodox one, there are only 33,000 children in regular kindergartens and elementary schools, as compared to 59,000 in the ultra-orthodox ones.

•     Jerusalem, which is already the poorest city in Israel, is becoming even poorer. The average monthly income in Jerusalem in 2004 amounted to 8,800 shekels, as compared to the national average of 11,500 shekels, or 15,000 shekels in Tel Aviv. The reason is obvious: the two growing communities, the Arabs and the ultra-orthodox, are not participating in the labour-force in the same way as the others. This is especially so of their women, and explains why the Israeli labour force is 60% men, 49% women, but in Jerusalem the figures are 51% and 38% respectively. In other words, as the aforementioned demographic trends continue, there will be fewer people to work, pay taxes and carry the burden of this difficult city on their shoulders.

No wonder, then, that with so many people not working, Jerusalemites are the poorest in the country. One out of every three families in Jerusalem (Jews and Arabs combined) lives under the poverty line. When it comes to children, the situation is much worse: 56% of the kids in our city are considered poor. If this isn’t bad enough, then in the Arab sector of Jerusalem, the situation is even more alarming: 62% of the Arab families live under the poverty line as compared with 23% of Jewish families; and 76% of Arab kids are poor, compared to ‘only’ 44% of Jewish kids.

Dr. Tovi Fenster, a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography at Tel Aviv University, and one of the founders of Bimkom, Planners for Planning rights in Israel, makes an interesting analogy between Jerusalem and London. Let me quote – at some length – from her book, The Global City and the Holy City (Pearson, Harlow, 2004):

‘Like many other cities in the world London and Jerusalem are economically and nationally divided – a very basic spatial expression of economic and social division and power. In London it is the East-West economic/class division; the former known as the poor, immigrant-base area, the latter is perceived as the affluent globalised area. London also has its North-South division: the North indicates the upper-middle-class, white English residential areas, and the South indicates the lower-middle-class, mostly immigrant residential areas. In Jerusalem, the most distinctive, physical and clear-cut division is the East Palestinian-West Jewish national division, but the North-South division also has economic and ethnic meaning: the North is the residential area of the ultra-orthodox Jews and the South is populated by lower middle class Jewish residents’.

Professor Shlomo Hason, a geographer at Hebrew University and The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, looked at the North-South Jewish divide in Jerusalem and three potential future scenarios:

•     Ultra-orthodox hegemony: this, to some degree, is the case today, as the Mayor, Uri Lupuliansky, is ultra-orthodox. In this scenario, Hason predicts that the non-orthodox Jews will become angry, feeling that they alone pay taxes. This will encourage more of the middle class to leave the city.

•     Non-orthodox hegemony: the ‘secular’ and national-religious Jews will join forces, and actually vote on election day (something they hardly ever do, while the politically savvy ultra-orthodox flock to the ballots in full force). Since they are still a majority among the Jews in Jerusalem, and since the Arabs (in the meantime) cannot vote, they can regain control of the city and reverse some of the negative trends, like the exodus of the middle class and the young. However, Hason warns that this scenario, if realistic at all, will only be short-lived, because of the solid demographic trends in the opposite direction.

•     Division of power: the north and the south will be divided into two separate municipal authorities (the same system, says Hason, might be used for the west-east problem), with some mixed neighborhoods in the middle. It seems that even in Jewish Jerusalem, the city is hardly united. This system would allow the poor ultra-orthodox Jews in the north of the city to run their affairs to the best of their ability, while in the South, lower-middle-class Jews will take care of their own business.

But wait a minute. Where is the upper middle-class? That’s precisely the problem: it’s diminishing, it’s leaving. In each of the last 12 years, 10,000 people have moved to Jerusalem, with 16,000 leaving. Many of them I know personally; people who grew up in Jerusalem, but who are following their kids to Tel Aviv. Those who want to remain close to Jerusalem, but who feel that the city is closing in around them have moved to Mevaseret Zion — a lovely, middle-class township ten minutes west of Jerusalem. These are the powerful elements now desperately missing in Jerusalem. It is people like myself still hanging on to their beloved city, even though many of my friends are leaving. Beit Hakerem, my neighbourhood, has become one of the few remaining enclaves for those who want to live in an open, modern neighbourhood - a last resort for those who still wish to live in Jerusalem.

Prof. Avi Ben Basat, an economist from the Hebrew University and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, is deeply worried by this mass departure. ‘It is not only the actual difficult situation,’ he explains, ‘but the perception of the situation that accelerates the leaving of the city’. He was one of the leaders of the coalition that fought the plan of urban architect Moshe Safdi to build 20,000 houses in west Jerusalem. ‘The city centre needs to be strengthened’, he said. ‘We shouldn’t repeat the mistakes that destroyed some of the other big cities in the world’. However the plan was killed last year by City Council, for environmental reasons.

Ben Basat has some suggestions how to save Jerusalem: develop the tourism industry, strengthen the system of higher education, give students incentives to stay in the city once they graduate, encourage the ultra-orthodox to join the labour force, and more. It was the Israeli government, who, in 1980, enacted the aforementioned Basic Law, which declared that ‘the Government will enhance the development and the prosperity of Jerusalem and its residents, by allocating special funds’, and promised that ‘Jerusalem will be given special priorities within the State's activities, with regards to economic and other affairs’. Alas, the government looked elsewhere, and Jerusalem was left to its own devices.

In the meantime, the ‘haredization’ (increasingly ultra-orthodox population) of Jerusalem has significant cultural implications for the future of the city. The ultra-orthodox education system shuns pupils from open, Western cultures. The children spend their days learning Torah, without any hint of English, maths and history. In neighborhoods like Sanhedria and Mea She'arim, you can hardly see television antennae; instead, you see big posters on billboards, warning people from the danger of the ‘perverse internet’. If things remain unchecked, fewer and fewer Jerusalemites will go to the theatre, support the arts and read modern literature. Last year, the old Edison cinema — one of the bastions of open and liberal society in Jerusalem — was pulled down to allow the building of another ultra-orthodox compound.

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Jerusalem, then, is key to Israel's major challenges. It is complex, it is elusive, it is sometimes beyond our human capacity to grasp. If things are settled between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, everything else will fall into place. And if the socio-economic situation in Jerusalem takes a positive turn, it will have significant benefits for Israeli society in general. The trends I have described can be slowed down, maybe even reversed — everything remains in our hands. Although I have only outlined the problems and not necessarily the solutions, I believe that a frank analysis of the facts can lead us in the right direction.

In order for this to happen, though, we don't need the rhetoric of ‘united Jerusalem’. What we really need is to face reality and start giving serious answers to serious questions.