Dividing Jerusalem / Right-wing opposition to split is waning - Haaretz

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Fri., January 11, 2008 Shvat 4, 5768

Israel Time: 02:32 (EST+7)

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Dividing Jerusalem / Right-wing opposition to split is waning

By Nadav Shragai

The appeals of right-wing groups working to prevent the division of Jerusalem suggest that the prospect of a successful protest campaign against the move seems quite slim at the moment. Low protester turnout isn't helping matters.

Only 2,000 participants showed up to Monday's protest rally at Har Homa in the south-eastern part of the capital. The protesters seemed aware of their meager numbers.

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Instead of making optimistic projections and warning of an electoral backlash, the organizers opted for a more pensive approach, urging the devoted few not to lose hope by quoting from the will of that great redeemer of land, Yehoshua Hankin, who died 63 years ago. Then the settlers drove several trucks laden with construction materials to nine outposts in the West Bank.

"I have always believed in the power of the individual to lay new paths before the crowds," the organizers read. "[Like] the battle between David and Goliath ... Where now there is only one man, dozens will follow tomorrow, and hundreds of thousands the day after."

MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud) drew on ancient history as well, when he spoke at the New York yeshiva, Beit Orot. Rivlin focused on the internal dispute within the Zionist Movement on the plan to establish the National Jewish home in Uganda.

Rivlin drew parallels between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's willingness to discuss giving up parts of the capital to the Palestinians, with the plan to set up shop in the East African nation, then a colony of the British Empire. Although he stopped short of explicitly calling the discussion on the possibility of concession immoral, Rivlin did speak words to that effect.

"Herzl shelved the Uganda plan when he realized it wasn't up to Zionism to decide on whether to set up a national home there," Rivlin said. "He realized that putting this option on the Zionist political agenda was practically and morally wrong. Olmert, by contrast, insists on bringing the people of the State of Israel to areas on which they had never before been called to decide."

There was another event. The human chain of demonstrators who arrived at the Old City on Monday to hold hands around the old wall may have been photogenic, but it comprised no more than 5,000 demonstrators. Compare that with the mass rally against the city's division in 2000 - which drew a crowd of over 300,000 people - and you realize something has changed.

The activists say the public will awaken when the division is imminent. Maybe they are right. Meanwhile, the main activity is behind the scenes, where religious leaders are pressuring the Shas movement to leave Olmert's coalition.

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