Word: jerusalem
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...Israeli author and Jerusalem expert Schmuel Berkowitz suspects that it may already be too late. There are currently about 200,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem, but the government doesn't regard them as settlers, as Netanyahu emphasized in Washington this week. It is doubtful whether any Israeli government could muster either the electoral mandate, or the manpower, to remove them, because there's a broad consensus among Israelis that at least the Old City should remain in their hands. And there are Israelis now so deeply settled in the middle of Arab neighborhoods, sometimes sharing the same building, that...
...standoff between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama Administration concerns whether Israel can build in those parts of the city it captured in the war of 1967 - the Jewish state's claims to East Jerusalem are not internationally recognized, and building there is considered settlement activity by the U.S. and the rest of the international community. In order to restart peace talks, the Obama Administration has demanded that Israel freeze all settlement construction, in line with its obligation to do so under President Bush's 2002 peace road map. Netanyahu demurred, offering instead a temporary slowdown in West Bank...
...Even Israelis working for a two-state solution warn that time is running out for separating the two sides in Jerusalem. The Israeli government and the city's municipality - in conjunction with radical nationalist-religious groups - are planning a ring of new settlements and exclusively Jewish religious theme parks and archaeological sites around the historic core of the walled Old City in East Jerusalem, which would both solidify Israeli control and Jewish historical claims to the holiest parts of the city, as well as permanently change its demographic balance in Israel's favor. Though those plans to extend Israel...
...Meanwhile, extremists on all sides are using the deadlock between Israel and the U.S. to fan the flames in Jerusalem and turn the political conflict into a religious one. Israeli police are having increasing difficulty maintaining the delicate status quo that governs the Old City, whereby each religious group has control of and the exclusive right to pray at their respective holy sites. At moments of political tension, and on religious holidays, radical Israeli groups have been calling for Jews to go and pray on the Temple Mount - which Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif, and is under their control...
...that could spark new rounds of violence. To do so, the police block access to prayers at the Muslim holy sites for men under the age of 50, which further inflames Palestinian passions, as does the heavy police presence required to keep order. It's a vicious cycle, says Jerusalem Police Chief Aharon Franco. "No one knows if there is going to be another intifada, but if there is, it will start in Jerusalem." Just like the last one did, in 2000, after the failure of a previous round of U.S.-led peace negotiations. With reporting by Aaron J. Klein...