(March 19) - It is a sunny winter's day on the road that climbs up to Jerusalem. Driving along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, we pass the memorial to Israel's Armored Corps near Latrun. Whenever I pass this spot, I am reminded that what is today a place for family hikes and visits was, 50 years ago, the site of bitter and bloody battles in our efforts to open up the road to Jerusalem - which had been under siege and military attack by Arab forces for several months.
As one who participated and was wounded in those battles,I find one thing hard to believe: I find it hard to believe that 50 years after those bitter battles for the liberation of Jerusalem, we still have to fight for Jerusalem, to repel the ongoing attacks seeking to undermine our right to this city - a city that has been the capital of the Jewish people for the past 3,000 years and Israel's capital for the past 51, and, indeed, for all time.
The denial, the refusal to recognize Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, has been going on for over half a century. In UN General Assembly Resolution No. 181 of November 1947, it was proposed that the city of Jerusalem be internationalized. The Arab nations rejected the resolution and promptly launched a war against the small Jewish community in the Land of Israel. Our people made a heroic stand against the onslaught of seven Arab armies that invaded Israel. Thousands of our young people died in this struggle, and tens of thousands were wounded. But we won.
That UN resolution, therefore, calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem is null and void; it no longer exists.
About a month ago, the Palestinian Authority invited the members of the diplomatic corps in Israel to a "political briefing" in the Orient House. In response to this invitation, we sent a letter to the ambassadors in which we made it unequivocally clear that the holding of a meeting of foreign diplomats by invitation of Faisal Husseini would not only contradict the clearly stated and often reiterated policy of the Israeli government, but it would also be a flagrant violation of the Declaration of Principles signed with the Palestinians in 1993.
The determined stand we took in this matter - in contrast to the reaction of the previous government in similar situations - this time resulted in the cancellation of the planned meeting.
The opposition, which attacks this government indiscriminately on every issue, claims that it was the action of the government that has placed the issue of Jerusalem once again on the national agenda. I would like to remind the opposition that the issue of Jerusalem has never been taken off the national agenda of the Jewish people during the past 3,000 years.
Here are some historical facts and figures concerning Jerusalem that all of us need to keep in mind:
* Again and again, down the centuries, Jews have opted to settle in Jerusalem. Since 1840, the Jews have comprised the largest ethnic community in the city. From the 1860s to this day, the Jews have constituted the majority of the city's population. In 1948, during the War of Independence, the Jordanians, after heavy battles, captured the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and demolished it, together with scores of synagogues and Jewish institutions, some of them centuries old. Thus was Jerusalem divided.
* Jerusalem has always been the national capital of the Jewish people, and of no other.
* There is wide national agreement, in Israel and in the Diaspora, that united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty is and will remain the eternal capital of Israel.
* Israel's sovereignty over Jeru-salem as the eternal capital of Israel and as the seat of its governmental institutions, as well as the city's boundaries, are also defined in the Basic Law: Jerusalem - Capital of Israel, adopted by the Knesset in 1980. This law also ensures the protection and inviolability of the holy places and free access to these places for the members of all religions, as well as the development of the city for the benefit of all its inhabitants.
Unfortunately, in the ill-founded Oslo Agreements, the Labor government created a dangerous situation in which certain Palestinian institutions in eastern Jerusalem are accorded recognition as "communal institutions." Under cover of this definition, 11 official Palestinian security personnel in that part of the city carried out repeated acts of violence - kidnappings, torture and even the assassination of persons who refused to cooperate with them - all this in blatant violation of agreements the Palestinians themselves had signed.
In the same context, we must also recall that the previous government granted permission, through so-called "unofficial" visits, to more than 80 foreign ministers and prime ministers to conduct meetings with members of the Palestinian Authority in Orient House.
It was this "creeping erosion" of the national interest by that government that resulted in the undermining and deterioration of Israel's status in Jerusalem. Binyamin Netanyahu's government decided to act decisively to curb this erosive tendency, and contained these actions in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
Despite all this, Israel and its government are fully committed to the pursuit and advancement of the peace process. Personally, I am convinced that it is possible to move forward in the negotiations and to arrive at a settlement with the Palestinians. At the same time, we must make the following absolutely clear, here and now, to the Palestinians as well as to friends and rivals alike, in Europe and throughout the world.
Full Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, the united and eternal capital of the Jewish people, is not and will never be a subject for negotiation with any foreign entity. The Netanyahu government will continue to insist on this, and I am confident that with will and determination, our effort will be successful.
(The writer is leader of the Likud Party.)
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