Olmert to American Jewish leaders: I want your voice to be heard on Jerusalem

Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, briefed American Jewish leaders today in a conference call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. According to several participants he was confident and friendly. They were impressed. He also told them that he wants their voices to be heard when it comes to the issue of the future of Jerusalem.

I reported in the past about the harsh terms that were used by Olmert when he made the point of saying that the issue of Jerusalem will be decided by Israel and Israel alone.

Today he said it was all a big misunderstanding. Something in a question he was asked ticked him off, but he still believes that the input of American Jews is important and worthwhile.

Olmert will not delegate the decision to world Jewry - the future of Jerusalem will be something for Israel to decide. However, he wants the voice of Jews around the world, even those who might not agree with his position, to be heard.

1.

As I often do with surveys that draw my attention, I have asked Bnai Brith to provide me with more detailed data from the poll on Israelis and Jerusalem, and they kindly agreed. The headlines right after it was published focused on two things:

1. Israelis oppose concessions in Jerusalem.

2. Israelis want the state of Israel to be the one making the decisions regarding Jerusalem (rather than the Jewish world).

The first conclusion is no surprise to those following polls in Israel closely. "A considerable majority of the Jewish public opposes, even in exchange for a permanent peace agreement, transferring the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians so they can serve as the capital of Palestine" reported the Peace Index not long ago. Some 59% opposed, in this survey, the transferring of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. In the Bnai Brith survey it was 67.7%, but the question was not framed in exactly the same way.

The second conclusion, though, is the one that caught my eye, as the question of who has the right to make decisions regarding the future of Jerusalem is one on which a lot of ink was spent lately. I wrote about it once and twice and dealt with it in dialogues with some of my recent guests.

The conclusion I made in the first item dealing with it is still valid: Should American Jews have a voice in shaping Israel's policies? They will have a voice, no matter what Israelis might think about such involvement.

But what do Israelis really think?

Now we don't have to guess: we have the Bnai Brith survey.

2.

This should come as no surprise, but the more an Israeli is traditional the more he opposes concessions in Jerusalem. The survey showed 51% of secular Jews oppose concessions, as opposed to 80.1% of traditional Jews, 91.1% of observant Jews, and 96% of the ultra-Orthodox.

Still, what about the involvement of the Jewish Diaspora in decisions on the future of Jerusalem?

The trend continues: 31.7% of secular Israelis will ask their US cousins to mind their own business and let the Israeli government negotiate the future of Jerusalem. For the orthodox and the ultra-orthodox the opposite is true: they want the involvement of Jewish Americans - 62.1% for observant (orthodox) and 54.2% for the ultra-orthodox.

What can we learn from this phenomenon?

One of two things:

Either the orthodox care more for the connection between Israel and the Jewish world - or maybe they just know that Diaspora Jews will support their political positions and that's why they want their voice to be heard.

3.

An interesting number: 54.1% of Jerusalemites want to hear what American Jews have to say about the future of their city. In all other areas of Israel there's a majority of uninterested citizens.

By the way, 76.4% of Jerusalemites oppose concessions.

Two things one should remember reading these numbers:

1. it?s a traditional city.

2. It has a fairly large community of American immigrants.

4.

Members of Olmert's own party, Kadima, by and large agree with his position: 69% of them say that Jerusalem is an internal Israeli issue - 13% more than the average for the Israeli Jewish population (55.9%).

And another interesting political nugget from this poll: A majority of Shas voters (51.3%) who tend to be both traditional and right of center do not want American Jews to be involved in the Jerusalem debate. Is it because American Jews are mostly of Ashkenazi origin?