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September 15, 2000/15 Elul 5760, Vol. 52, No.53
Divine rightEditorialPresident Clinton emerged from a New York deli last week with a thumbs-up for reporters. Most likely he was indicating the quality of the corned beef or pastrami. He certainly didn't mean the status of Mideast peace.Despite a last-ditch attempt at ironing out an agreement in meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, it appears unlikely that Mideast peace will be part of the Clinton legacy when he leaves office in January. Some pundits snicker that the president's obvious hunger to seal an agreement has inspired Arafat and his compatriots to dig in their heels even deeper. Take, for instance, Arafat's recent ploy regarding the status of Jerusalem, broached to the president during a 90-minute tte--tte in a New York hotel suite. Don't hand off the sovereignty of Jerusalem's holy sites to the Palestinians, Arafat reportedly told Clinton. Instead, he said, grant oversight of the Temple Mount to a consortium of 56 Arab states. In fact, two of the states in Arafat's proposed consortium, Iran and Iraq, oppose the very fact of the peace talks. This is no way to deal with Jerusalem or any of the other vexing issues on the negotiating table. At the same time that Arafat has been floating his chutzpahdik proposal for Jerusalem, Israel has been quietly circulating its own creative solution for dealing with this sacred piece of real estate. Why not assert the dominion of a higher authority, acknowledging that the Temple Mount is holy for both Jews and Muslims and consign it to a purview outside of ordinary political rule? Passing off the charged issue to a higher power would diminish its political currency and defuse some of the intense emotion. Day-to-day supervision by Muslim clergy and Arab security could remain the same, as would public access. But the issue of authority would be, well, divine. It's an appealingly simplistic solution, considering the intense religious significance of the city and its holy sites. Take the issue out of this world and assign it to the next. Who can argue with the divine? |
