When Jordan unleashed its barrage on Jerusalem, against Israeli suburbs, during the Six Day War, the Israeli response was immediate and overwhelming.
Within two days Israel had expelled the Jordanians and united Jerusalem under Israeli control.
The international legal implications of this development were spelled out by Stephen Schwebel, subsequently America's judge on the International Court of Justice, in an article entitled, "What Weight to Conquest," that appeared in the American Journal of International Law in 1970. He wrote: "Having regard to the consideration that ... Israel ... [acted] defensively in 1948 and 1967 ... and her Arab neighbors ... [acted] aggressively in 1948 and 1967 ... Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan or Egypt."
It should be remembered that neither President Johnson's Five Points nor Security Council Resolution 242 mentioned Palestinians. When the legal status of Jerusalem was determined in 1967 in the wake of the Six Day War the Palestinians were not a legal factor. Israel contends that nothing has occurred in the interval to disturb Israel's sovereign right in all of Jerusalem. This status was confirmed in 1980 by the Knesset when it adopted a law declaring: "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel."
Nor did the 1993 Oslo Accords modify matters, even with Jerusalem being designated as the first item listed for the final status talks. Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared in 1995: "Undivided Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people and the capital of the state of Israel. Undivided Jerusalem is ours." Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, in a 1994 interview, said: "We have told the Palestinians this - we are very adamant about our position. Jerusalem will not be redivided.
It will not be a Berlin... One cannot have two capitals in one city because that would mean a division of Jerusalem. It is the historical capital of Israel and Israel's capital today.
... In summation, I would say that in the political sense, the issue of Jerusalem is closed and it will remain the united capital of Israel."
For these two men, discussion of Jerusalem in the final status talks would relate only to matters of religious and social interests, not to the political status of the city. Thus, in legal terms, Israel's position, as outlined by Prime Minister Netanyahu in his recent Washington appearances, accurately reflected the longstanding bipartisan position of the Israeli consensus.
It is this status of Jerusalem that President Obama apparently seeks to modify. He cannot challenge Israel's title directly. By confirming the '67 line he seeks to posit that Israel lacks title in east Jerusalem. However, both the facts and the law regarding Israel's claim are clear and decisive. Prime Minister Netanyahu was therefore fully justified, and even compelled, to adhere to the pattern of his predecessors in declaring categorically that the '67 lines are not the starting point for any negotiations. Those lines were armistice lines, and no more.
Netanyahu was unable to allow the United States to conceive, even for a moment, that Israel could accept a dictat about the status of Jerusalem. It is Israel's contention that anything proposing the redivision of Jerusalem is destructive of the search for peace.
Acceptance of Obama's reference to the June '67 lines means acceptance of a scheme to divest Israel of its title to Jerusalem "complete and united."
This, in Israel's view, is not compatible with the search for peace. Anyone suggesting that Israel accept Obama's proposals for negotiations should first ponder the implications of those proposals for Israel's capital, Jerusalem.
