Gideon Levy on the Greatest Settler, Teddy Kollek
In 1966, when I first visited Israel for a year between high school and college as part of the Young Judaea Year Course, the group arranged a meeting with Jerusalem’s mayor, Teddy Kollek. For a young Zionist in training, it was a big-enough deal, but I don’t remember much about it other than a big room and smiles. Israel Swings, the ad on the wall between my two roommates reminded me every day. So did Kollek.
Kollek’s death last week drew endless accolades to the mayor who unified Jerusalem after the 1967 war. During that war my group was on a kibbutz further to the west. Just a couple of weeks later we got a triumphant tour through the newly occupied West Bank.
The highlight, of course, was reaching Jerusalem’s Old City, which was unreachable and even unthinkable during our Jerusalem stay a few months earlier. There was a wall in the way, dividing east from west.
As this blog makes clear, my political analysis has shifted a lot since 1967. That’s why I appreciate Gideon Levy’s column about Kollek in Haaretz. Excerpts of The greatest settler:
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This phenomenon reached its peak in Jerusalem, which will celebrate 40 years of its “unification” this year. This act of unification was an act of occupation and the fact that a charming and charismatic figure like Kollek presided over it does not change a thing. Kollek demolished a neighborhood in the Old City and built the new neighborhoods on Palestinian land for Jews only - apartheid at its worst - and this should also be remembered in the balance of his considerable achievements.The Jerusalem mayor Kollek left behind is a divided and wounded city, despite and because of its enormous development, replete with explosives that will yet explode in our faces. In fact, it was never unified. Like any colonialist city, there is a dark backyard for the natives. To this day, most Israelis do not set foot in Palestinian neighborhoods and the Palestinians avoid Jewish neighborhoods. The city remains divided, despite all of the lofty words about its unification for eternity. Regarding equality, there is nothing to say of course. It is sufficient to travel to the Shuafat camp or even to Sheikh Jarrah to note the outrageous disparity between the services in the eastern and western parts of the city.
Societal neglect, piles of garbage, no playgrounds or community centers, no sidewalk and no streetlights. Gaza in Jerusalem, all on the basis of abominable ethnic discrimination. This did not begin with Ehud Olmert nor with Uri Lupolianski. This began with the wily Kollek. A city whose rule in the Palestinian section is conducted through the strength of arms, with surprise checkpoints and hundreds of violent Border Policemen routinely patrolling the streets, and whose residents are subject to prohibitions that violate their fundamental liberties, is not a “unified” city. Teddy is responsible for this.
My visits to Jerusalem over the past couple of months help me understand the sad accuracy of Levy’s description. The wall between the two sides is gone, the old Green Line unmarked, but in the central part of the city the difference is stark. A walk of just a few blocks changes everything — language, signs, moods, sounds. Allegiances, too.
Further north and south a bit, in new Jewish neighborhoods over the Green Line but within Jerusalem’s expanded borders despite the violation of international law, many residents don’t even know they are living on occupied land. This is Jerusalem, too, thanks to Teddy.
