Chaim Ramon is a former senior Labor Party minister and official may now be seeking a return to the public arena with his Unilateral Jerusalem Disengagement Plan. He and supporters claim their plan is the only way to save Jerusalem from being demographically overrun.

Under the banner of the Save Jerusalem Movement, Ramon and other notables including retired Jerusalem Police Chief Aryeh Amit and Alik Ron are suggesting unilateral Israeli withdrawals from predominately Arab areas of the capital.

According to Ramon and his colleagues, these areas were “annexed” to the capital following the IDF victory in the June 1967 War. They feel that decision was “erroneous” and today, the international community does not view them as part of Jerusalem but rather as “Israeli occupied” along with all of Yehuda, Shomron, the Jordan Valley, Golan Heights and many areas of predominately Jewish Jerusalem.

Ramon’s plan calls for constructing a security fence around the Arab areas of the capital that will be abandoned by Israel and these areas would be considered part of the “West Bank”. The plan stresses that the Jewish Jerusalem areas built since 1967 would remain as they are, unchanged. This they feel will have many security and demographic advantages as 200,000 Arabs will no longer reside in the Jerusalem Municipality and then 81% of the capital’s residents will be Jews and less than 20% Palestinian, which is half of the number today as Palestinians comprise about 40% of the capital’s population.

Ramon explains there are also significant monetary advantages since moving 200,000 Arabs from Jerusalem to the “West Bank” will save the municipality some NIS 2-to-3 billion annually.

Ramon insists their plan is the correct one, a plan that guarantees the future of the overwhelmingly Jewish majority in the city.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)