Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Thousands of police were deployed around Jerusalem on Monday ahead of a massive rally in favor of keeping Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty.
Police District Commander Miki Levy warned that the security services would not tolerate trouble from Jews or Palestinians during the demonstration, which was scheduled for 6:30 PM local time.
"[The police] will not allow any provocation ... or attempt to disrupt order, from the Jewish side as well as from the Palestinian," Levy said in a radio interview.
Organizers are expecting hundreds of thousands of participants to gather at the Jaffa Gate, one of the entrances to Jerusalem's walled Old City. They are predicting that the rally will be the largest the city has ever seen.
Sentiments about Jerusalem and the Old City have been running high, since President Clinton formally proposed dividing the city two weeks ago.
Every Israeli leader, including Ehud Barak, vowed never to divide the city, which was united under Israeli sovereignty in 1967. But Barak has now expressed a willingness to offer control of eastern Jerusalem as well as the Temple Mount - a Jewish as well as Muslim holy site - to PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.
Nevertheless, organizers are insisting that this is not a political rally. No lawmakers will speak, despite the fact that the demonstration was the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, a respected Knesset member and head of Israel B'Aliyah, a political party representing mostly Russian immigrants.
Sharansky, who was one of the most famous political prisoners in the former Soviet Union, holds that Jerusalem is not a party political issue but one that involves all Israelis, as well as Jews all over the world.
"Jerusalem is not about security," Sharansky told reporters at a press conference on Sunday. "It's not about borders, it's not even about peace. It's about [Jewish] identity."
"While our leaders need to make hard decisions and even sacrifices for peace, we cannot cut out our heart in the name of peace," he said in a statement. "If we do, we are likely to lose our soul in the process."
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who will speak at the demonstration, has been chided for taking a political stance regarding the city. Olmert said in response he was speaking out "to oppose the destruction of my city."
A lobby group called One Jerusalem, which organized the rally, has also come under fire for involving American and world Jewry. Jews living abroad, as well as pro-Israel Christians, have been encouraged to participate in the rally.
But Sharansky replied that while American Jews should not be involved in internal Israeli politics, they do have a right to participate in issues that concern the legitimacy of the Jewish people in Israel, and Jewish identity. Jerusalem falls into those categories, he said.
Prior to the rally, thousands are expected to nearly encircle the Old City walls. Police refused to give a permit to organizers to encompass the section of the wall that passes through eastern Jerusalem, for security reasons.
The Palestinians, who have turned Jerusalem and its mosques into a symbol of their cause, have not taken the planned demonstration lightly.
The PA-appointed Islamic cleric in charge of the mosques on the Temple Mount compound issued a fatwa (religious edict) Monday declaring the entire area, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, as belonging to the Islamic religious authority.
Sheikh Ikrima Sabri said the Al Aqsa Mosque, a large radius surrounding it, as well as "seven stories below it and seven stories above" belonged to the authority, called the Waqf.
Clinton recently proposed that the disputed area could be divided between the Palestinians and Israelis, by giving the Muslims the plateau where two mosques stand, while Israel kept control of the archeological remains under the mount where two successive Jewish Temples were built.
Negotiations between Israel and the PA became deadlocked last summer over the issue of Jerusalem, and relations between them have deteriorated since then.
Israel claims the city as its indivisible, eternal capital. The PA wants at least the eastern section of the city, including Christian and Muslim shrines in the Old City, to come under its control, and form the capital of a Palestinian state.