Division, where unification failed

In the summer of 2000, Israel was outraged by the willingness of then-prime minister Ehud Barak to divide Jerusalem. At that time I was the prime minister's advisor on Jerusalem affairs, and I gathered a team of experts to find alternative arrangements for Israel's capital. The team's conclusions were unequivocal: The city needed to be divided. After 33 years of Israeli control over East Jerusalem, Israel had not managed to achieve its goals for the city, which remained split in every way. Another conclusion was that peace could not be achieved with the Palestinians and the Muslim world while the city was united under Israeli sovereignty.

Public opinion polls conducted by the Prime Minister's Office in July 2000 revealed that a large majority of the public (65-70 percent) already viewed Jerusalem as a divided city. A smaller majority (56 percent) was prepared for the city's division as part of a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians. The recognition that uniting Jerusalem had failed had been expressed a year earlier in a poll showing that 50 percent of the public agreed with the statement, "In practice, Jerusalem is already divided into two cities: East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem."

The failure of the united Jerusalem policy, as well as the public opinion poll, significantly influenced Barak. At that time, the prime minister was courting public support for his stance. He knew about my good relationship with former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, and asked me to meet with him and ask him to support dividing the city. Such support was of great symbolic and public importance, as Kollek was widely considered to be the symbol of Jerusalem's unification and a world class statesman.

Monumental mistakes

My first encounter with Kollek was in 1973. As someone who considered himself an expert on Jerusalem, I published an article in Yedioth Ahronoth criticizing the rampant construction in East Jerusalem, warning that these resources should be used to build workplaces, and cautioning against spreading the city eastward unnecessarily, instead of focusing on the city center.

The following day, I was summoned for a meeting with Kollek. Grasped by a feeling of great excitement, I arrived to meet the man known as a modern-day Herod to his fans and a defender of Islam to his enemies.

Kollek sat behind his enormous desk. The wall behind him was adorned with dozens of flags, tokens of appreciation, statuettes and pictures from around the world. After I declined his offer of a Cuban cigar, he lit one for himself and launched into a 15-minute monologue.

"Young man," began Kollek, "I was impressed by the article you wrote, and I agree with you 100 percent. The problem is that the government is running Jerusalem, not I, and unfortunately the government and I are at odds regarding how the city should develop. I think they are making monumental mistakes. There is nothing I can do but rant."

He went on to detail the reasons the government was in error. The more he talked, the more my amazement grew. This was my first lesson in the politics of Jerusalem. The deep differences of opinion between the mayor and the prime minister were evident in the contradictions between Kollek's rational vision and the government's vision of unification.

"Young man," said Kollek, concluding his monologue, "your government is full of drunkards. One day they will sober up, but it will be too late."

Seven years later, we began working together. As head of the National Road Safety Authority, I frequently met with Kollek. In 1989, while I was on the Jerusalem city council, he offered me the municipal engineering and transportation portfolio. We worked together for a total of 12 years, from 1981 to 1993.

We used to argue over the treatment of East Jerusalem's Arabs. As chair of the public committee for equal East Jerusalem services, I contended that the 4 percent of the municipal budget allocated for the Arabs should be raised to 10 percent, as the Arabs constituted some 30 percent of the city's population. Kollek claimed that the government, not City Hall, was responsible for providing the city's Arabs with infrastructure and services.

In 1989, when I suggested that Jerusalem's Arab residents be allowed to establish their own municipal authority, Kollek viewed this as undermining the city council's unity. He sent me a letter dismissing me from the council, but a month later he calmed down and invited me to "clarify" the matter.

"Young man," he said to me, "Jerusalem will never be divided. We have not yet succeeded in uniting the city, but we must not speak of splitting it into two municipalities, as you proposed. We will never divide Jerusalem."

"How many years will have to pass before we realize our historical mistake, or, alternatively, until we finally manage to unite the city?" I replied.

"You, like all politicians," continued Kollek, "have no historical vision. You have no patience, young man, and as for your question, it will take 100 years, yes 100 years, to unify this city!"

Public betrayal

In 1993, before Jerusalem's municipal elections, we became closer than ever. I allowed myself to speak to him directly, to try to convince him he was about to lose to Ehud Olmert. Kollek had difficulty believing that Jerusalem's public would prefer Olmert over him. I explained that this was no longer the same public that had placed its trust in him in the past.

"Jerusalem today is mostly ultra-Orthodox and Arab. The Arabs will not vote, and the ultra-Orthodox will vote for Olmert," I explained.

A few months before the elections, Kollek sent Jerusalem planning consultant Sarah Kaminker and me on a secret mission to Tunis, to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. We tried to convince the PLO Executive Committee to call on Jerusalem's Arabs not to boycott the elections, and to vote for Kollek, but to no avail. When I returned from Tunis, disappointed in my failure, I offered Kollek my advice.

"You're going to lose," I told him. "You are 80 years old. Why don't you retire from the race while you're still on top? Why suffer defeat?"

Kollek's admirers in the Labor Party and at city hall advised him the opposite - to stay the course at all cost. He listened to them, and lost. Embittered and angry, Kollek wondered why the public had betrayed him. It took him many years to recover, but Kollek was a crafty politician who chose not to face off against the government and never considered resigning when he saw the "march of fools" in his city. He always joined the march, in protest, and finally became part of it.

In September 2000, the prime minister sent me to visit Kollek in the old-age home in Jerusalem's Kiryat Yovel neighborhood to ask him to support the division of Jerusalem. Before me sat an old man, tired and bitter. I explained to him how important it was to the prime minister that he declare his opinion publicly. I did not believe I would succeed, but to my amazement, I needed almost no effort.

"Young man," said Kollek, "We failed in the unification of the city. Tell Ehud Barak that I support its division."

The writer is a lecturer on public policy and a former Jerusalem city council member.