Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Borders of Jerusalem
Today's post is purely informative; we'll leave any and all narrative to the readers.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Can We Substitute for Jerusalem? Pretty Pretty Please?
It's December 1947. The UN General Assembly has just adopted its resolution about the partitioning of Mandatory Palestine into three parts: a state for the Jews, a state for the Arabs, and Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be internationalized. The good burghers of Herzliya see a golden opportunity for their town, and they send off a proposal to the Jewish Agency, the effective government of the nascent Jewish state. Signed by one B.Z. Michaeli, the head of the local council, it starts off in a solemn but businesslike matter: "With great care and humility, aware of the gravity of the issue, in all due respect, we would like to suggest that our town be the capital of the new Jewish State."
Then there's a hurried retreat: "Of course the capital must be Jerusalem, our eternal capital and the city of our kings and Temple. If I come to speak of the capital, it's only as a temporary measure, specifically temporary, until the day when Jerusalem takes its rightful place..."
But still, the letter continues, look, if it can't be Jerusalem, Herzliya really would be a great alternative. We paraphrase the ensuing points:
1. We're named after Herzl!
2. We're in a quiet area, and even during the events [of 1936-39] there were no significant security issues here.
3. The city: Herzliya is outside the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv, only a 20-minute ride. We're not even far from Jerusalem - 80 minutes - in case some institutions do remain there.
4. We're a progressive place, and various political factions live here with no tension.
5. There are open areas which could serve for future development.
6. A brief history: founded in 1924, four neighborhoods, lots of growth underway, we've got a school, nurserys, two banks, a labor committee, a water company; the town's budget in 1947 was 8,000 Pounds.
We're really serious about this. Did I mention Theodore Herzl?
Signed,
B.Z. Michaeli
Apparently no-one ever paid much attention. The consolation prize, however, seems to be that half a century later Herzliya became, and perhaps remains, the epi-center of Israel's large hi-tech industry. So also a capital of sorts.
Then there's a hurried retreat: "Of course the capital must be Jerusalem, our eternal capital and the city of our kings and Temple. If I come to speak of the capital, it's only as a temporary measure, specifically temporary, until the day when Jerusalem takes its rightful place..."
But still, the letter continues, look, if it can't be Jerusalem, Herzliya really would be a great alternative. We paraphrase the ensuing points:
1. We're named after Herzl!
2. We're in a quiet area, and even during the events [of 1936-39] there were no significant security issues here.
3. The city: Herzliya is outside the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv, only a 20-minute ride. We're not even far from Jerusalem - 80 minutes - in case some institutions do remain there.
4. We're a progressive place, and various political factions live here with no tension.
5. There are open areas which could serve for future development.
6. A brief history: founded in 1924, four neighborhoods, lots of growth underway, we've got a school, nurserys, two banks, a labor committee, a water company; the town's budget in 1947 was 8,000 Pounds.
We're really serious about this. Did I mention Theodore Herzl?
Signed,
B.Z. Michaeli
Apparently no-one ever paid much attention. The consolation prize, however, seems to be that half a century later Herzliya became, and perhaps remains, the epi-center of Israel's large hi-tech industry. So also a capital of sorts.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
29th of November
It's no coincidence the the Palestinian Authority has chosen the 29th of November to launch its bid for recognition at the United Nations. The 29th of November, after all, is the anniversary of the day in 1947 when the UN adopted the plan to replace the British Mandate with a partition of the land between two states, a Jewish one and an Arab one.
The Israel State Archives has an interesting copy of the original scorecard of the General Assembly vote that day. It's a copy on which all the major actors later signed: Harry Truman, Haim Wiezman and many others. See if you can identify any of them, and tell us in the comments.
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