Comment & Debate
Nadav Shragai. “Envisioning a divided Jerusalem”. Haaretz. – Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold – “The moment that we re-divide Jerusalem and divide up the Old City of Jerusalem, we’re going to create chaos. Look what’s happening in Iraq where mosques are getting blown up and churches are being attacked. Do we really want to put that in the heart of Jerusalem, with Hamas and a Palestinian version of the Taliban? This is a colossal error, and I don’t understand why the Bush administration is behind this.”
Chris Mitchell. “Tears for a Divided Jerusalem?”. CBN News Jerusalem Bureau. 4 Jan. 2008 – A Matter of Security
With layers of neighborhoods so close, security remains one of the most serious issues. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed this issue during a recent press conference from the Mount of Olives.
“We’ve seen what happens when we leave. It’s not an Arab majority. It’s Hamas. Let’s be very clear. It’s an Iranian base,” he said. “If we leave here, Hamas comes here. They start rocketing. They don’t have to rocket. They can use small arms fire right into every one of these neighborhoods. Look how intertwined it is.”
Finally he said, “It’s hard for me to see how people cannot see that instead of being the end of conflict, it would be the beginning of a conflict we cannot even imagine.”