This article which appeared in the newspaper Herut in 1949 deals with the comments of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin) on the status of Jerusalem. Rabbi Bar-Ilan explained that after the UN Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, he had concurred with the UN decision that Jerusalem should be under international rule with control ceded to neither the Israelis nor the Arab countries. However, in this article, he detailed his change of mind and current belief that Jerusalem should be under Israeli control. His reasons for this were two-fold: first, while the original agreement had been for an international peace force to control Jerusalem, nothing had been done to defend the Jews of the city; and second, certain Western leaders were now disregarding the agreement and encouraging not international but Arab control of Jerusalem.
Bar-Ilan stressed that Israel is part of Jerusalem and not the reverse and that its holiness dictates its centrality to the State of Israel. He also stated that Israel is best placed to safeguard the holy places and to give full equality to the Arab residents of Jerusalem.
Following the ceasefire in 1949, the Lausanne Conference attempted to once again establish Jerusalem as an international city. Israel rejected this, preferring an Arab and Jewish division between East and West Jerusalem.
Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan was one of the foremost religious Zionist leaders at the time, after whom Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan is named. This article was published in the Herut newspaper which was owned by the major right-wing Herut party.
