Published on August 1, 2012
In international relations there is sometimes a situation of political make-believe whereby states conduct themselves in a manner that actively and consciously ignores reality.
On some occasions this is warranted in order to avoid a crisis or mitigate conflict. And once relevant self-deception can become ingrained after time, even though its usefulness is debatable at best. Such is the case (or perceived to be) with Israel’s capital city.
Israel’s capital is Jerusalem. The government is located there; so are the Supreme Court and the Bank of Israel. All are located in West Jerusalem, which is seen by the international community as part of Israel’s sovereign territory – and would almost certainly be so following a future peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
East Jerusalem is another matter. The international community objects to Israel’s official position whereby East Jerusalem is considered an integral part of a unified city under Israeli sovereignty. The status of East Jerusalem (and the West Bank), as far as the international community is concerned, ought to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel.
However the international community explicitly accepts that West Jerusalem is part of the sovereign territory of Israel and implicitly understands that the Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city would remain under Israeli rule following a peace agreement.
Given all this, why can’t the world accept West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Why keep pretending that Israel either has no capital or has one in Tel Aviv?
There are some who refer to Jerusalem as ‘Israel’s self-declared capital’. But aren’t all capitals self-declared? Of course, the implied meaning is that Jerusalem is Israel’s self-declared and unrecognised capital.
After all, Jerusalem was not intended to be part of the Jewish State under the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947. So why even recognise parts of Jerusalem as part of Israel’s sovereign territory?
Well, there are other territories that were not supposed to be part of the Jewish State according to the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Whilst the Arab states and the Palestinian leadership failed to endorse the plan, these too became part of the newly created Jewish State.
This was controversial, but nevertheless the international community sees these territories as sovereign Israeli territory. So why not West Jerusalem? If the Armistice Lines of 1949 (the so-called 1967 borders) are regarded as the basis for a future settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, why make a distinction between, say, Acre, Jaffa and West Jerusalem?
If logically no distinction ought to be drawn, what is the problem of recognising, or at least accepting, that West Jerusalem is Israel’s capital? Certainly, the present situation is comfortable to all concerned except Israel – and perhaps the ambassadors who travel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem each time they have to meet with a government official.
By pretending that Jerusalem – or at least its western part – is not Israel’s capital may be avoiding a crisis with the Arab and Muslim world. This line of thought is understandable, though peculiar. After all, most Arab and Muslim States ostensibly call for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. West Jerusalem would remain within Israeli sovereignty. So what is the problem, then, of recognising de jure, or at least accepting de facto, that West Jerusalem is Israel’s capital?
The Author
Dr. Yoav J. Tenembaum is a lecturer at the graduate Diplomacy Program (Political Science Department), Tel Aviv University, Israel.
One of the courses he taught is on Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution in Modern History, which places much emphasis on the development of International Law and its application in the resolution of international conflicts. He also taught on Diplomacy and International Crises, The Shaping of Foreign Policy and Decision-Making, and others.
Dr. Tenembaum has lectured widely on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli dispute, in Israel, South America and Britain. He has been invited on several occasions to lecture on the subject by the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University.
This article was published in a joint blog of the Departments of Politics and International Relations/Studies of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Politics in Spires).