“This is a land of choices, but we can’t choose our neighbors. They live here with us and among us, and we will have to live with them for good or, God forbid, for bad, in peace or, God forbid, at war. We must build our lives with them.” This statement is taken from a speech Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave on May 19, 1993, the 26th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification. It was a brief speech, delivered at the official ceremony to mark the occasion traditionally held on Ammunition Hill. At the time, the Oslo Accord was being cobbled together behind the scenes. When it was made public just a few months later, it tore the nation apart.
Rabin was born in Jerusalem in 1922. In the 1948 War of Independence, he commanded the Harel Brigade, which broke through to the city, and as chief of staff in the 1967 Six-Day War, he was responsible for its reunification. His comments were intended to deliver a message of hope after the long first intifada, which broke out in 1987. His commitment to preserving Jerusalem as a unified city was a relatively minor part of his remarks. After all, it was so obvious to him.
June 5 marked the 49th anniversary of Jerusalem’s liberation, as celebrated on the Hebrew calendar. It is just a year away from the jubilee celebrations, after a second intifada (2000-2005) more brutal than the first and a wave of terrorism that still threatens to raise its head. That made it impossible to ignore the arrogant, cultish, belligerent rhetoric of the country’s leaders. Not one of them, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, referred in any significant way to almost 50 years of domination over another people. Yet this reality could yet overturn the city’s demographic balance and turn its Jewish residents into a minority.
As usual (these recent months at least), the only beacon of light came from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. He devoted a large part of his speech at the ceremony on Ammunition Hill to the government’s commitment to invest in the education of Arab children and youths, who share the city with its Jewish residents.
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