The cognoscenti and celebrities of Jerusalem have been extremely busy in anticipation of "Jerusalem Day," which falls next week. Producers, journalists, researchers, demogogues, rabbis and those who predict the messiah will come are all preparing for their great moment, the day on which the conquest of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war is marked.
Once upon a time, when the idea was conceived to add this day to the calendar, already overloaded with patriotic memorial days, it was known as "Jerusalem Liberation Day." But it soon became clear that this name was false and cynical; the liberation meant subordination of the Arab population and the day became a day of mourning for one-third of the city's residents.
Then they began calling it "Jerusalem Unification Day," until the intifada arrived and tore asunder the illusion of "unity." By default, the present banal name, "Jerusalem Day," remained, but the event itself is not as neutral as its name: it is an expression of antagonism and xenophobia, a chance to hold arcane ceremonies of allegiance and to nurture nationalistic and religious myths.
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It appears that the task of the cognoscenti and celebrities is becoming more and more difficult: as it grows more routine, the day is in danger of drowning in a deep yawn of boredom; and indeed, what innovations can one make after almost 40 years? Perhaps it is no coincidence that the only secular group that celebrates in the streets of Jerusalem - in addition to the parades by religious zealots - are the "pioneers" of the kibbutzim and moshavim. An organization that lives on its past glory and present-day trading in real estate salutes a city that is locked in the dream of its past grandeur and present misery. Even its sacred anthem is derived from a Basque folk tune. Only a city where boredom, apathy and insensibility reign supreme could tolerate the nonfunctioning of its mayor who, since he was elected two years ago, has evaporated into thin air.
But why seek comparisons from the field of psychology when the statistical data clearly speak for the extent of disappointment and weariness from the "Jerusalem syndrome:" the number of people leaving the city - young, secular and professional people - is continually growing. The civic leaders chase after those disenchanted Jerusalemites and attempt to hold them back by extending the municipal borders of the city to include all the satellite suburbs that the escapees have set up.
Political constraints make it imperative to employ only selective annexation steps: in the west of the city, within Israel's sovereign boundaries, municipal areas are annexed by administrative means, and in the east, in the West Bank, "settlement blocs" are expanded by expropriating lands. At the same time, a terrifying separation wall is being set up, tearing the urban fabric of the Palestinian city and warping the joint metropolitan layout.
Fast train lines to Tel Aviv and Modi'in, "ring roads" with tunnels and bridges, giant construction initiatives, haphazard Palestinian building aimed at saving lands earmarked for expropriation, will turn a giant area stretching from Modi'in and Beit Shemesh to the outskirts of Jericho, and from Ramallah to the outskirts of Hebron, into a gargantuan metropolis. In this huge urban space, chaotic planning, an irreconcilable national struggle for hegemony over the physical space and chronic violence will prevail.
In this grotesque expansion of Jerusalem lies the dynamic of collapse from within the "eternal city," for the absurdity of spreading Jerusalem's holy spirit over hundreds of kilometers and more than one million people will become apparent even to the most zealous Jew or the most extreme Muslim. The city administration will not be capable of running the strife-torn area and numerous Israelis will ask why they need to deal with hundreds of thousands of people who do not want to be ruled by them and to pay for expensive services for them.
These questions are already being raised, even among Likud supporters, and they spur people to distance themselves from the old myths. It is possible to foresee a slow process of shedding the myths of the past about the eternal city. It will not be long before the phrase, in Hebrew and Arabic, "Jerusalem, the holy city," will once again be applied to the original site - the Old City and what is known as "the Holy Basin." This area will turn into a museum-like "heritage site," a center for pilgrims and tourists that will be administered jointly by representatives of the communities involved.
Attempts to use the name of Jerusalem to fan religious and nationalistic sedition will not succeed because the residents will no longer believe in the heroic illusions associated with this name. The remainder of the metropolitan area, which will gradually peel off from the city's core, will be conflict-ridden and difficult to govern but those responsible for it will, at least, be free of the need to cope with the heavy burden of the tragic past connected with the name of Jerusalem, which paints every temporal problem with a hallowed tint.
Perhaps here we can find an important lesson: Jerusalem's name must not be taken in vain; the distinctive problems of the holy city must be isolated from the temporal problems that exist also in other cities, and woe unto those who try to turn a faulty traffic light in Jerusalem into a cosmic problem. The weariness from Jerusalem can only strengthen this insight
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