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What's happening on the Mount of Olives ?
What’s happening on the Mount of Olives ?
November 11, 2014
Upon coming back the House of Peace, on the Mount of Olives, I was met with tear gas and trash burning, rocks flying, for the first time since I established my shelter there, during the Second Intifada (October 2000 – January 2005). The anti-riot police were posted by the cafés on the plaza of Newell Gardens, firing grenades at masked kids running up and down Suleiman Al-Farsi Street, a good, narrow, winding street to ambush the police, if any. I had to step over the dying flames of a fire barrage to reach my destination. When I pushed the door open, the man who takes care of the house exclaimed I was reeking of smoke. Tear-gas, I objected. No, smoke, he said, from a fire.
A few nights later, the same rioting kids, joined by some others from the neighbourhood, set fire to a large tree, sending heavy billows of smoke into the night, and they rioted again, not far from the Russian Church, whose square tower dominates the Mount of Olives from a distance.
Many of the kids were in their early teens, unmasked, led by a few masked elders. In a shop I saw one of the elders (in his late teens) hand out bank notes to one who did not seem enthusiastic about the deal. Is this enough to testify that some of the young rioters get involved for profit ?
When I asked around (in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem) what was going on, was this organized, and by whom? I got the same vague, ambiguous answers all over : there is not one group behind, it is all the outcome of frustrations and angers accumulated since June. The burning alive of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, at the age of 16, in the Jerusalem Forest (a few hundred yards from the Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem), triggered it all, they say, less than a day after the funerals of Israeli teens Gilad Shaar, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach, who were kidnapped on June 12, half way between Bethlehem and Hebron, less than 20 km from Jerusalem.
On the night I left the Mount of Olives, there was more micro-rioting, and my driver, Abu Ahmad, felt unusually tense and nervous. On the way he had to take a couple to Shuafat, the Northern tip of the Eastern crescent of suburbs on the East side of the Cedron Valley, going down South to Isawiya, A-Tur (Mount of Olives), Silwan, and Abu Tor.
Around Shuafat, which was totally in the dark, a dead city at midnight, there were concrete blocks to prevent access to some streets. Abu Ahmad suddenly pointed to a house on the left side of the avenue with a large banner on it, bearing the portrait of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. “That was his home,” he said in a grisly voice, adding, “the people are angry, very angry, they haven’t forgotten.” A few hundred yards from the Abu Khdeir home a lone police car was on guard. Not a soul was to be seen.
Uncoincidentally, the way from Shuafat to the meeting-point with the Nesher taxi taking me to the airport was through Sheikh Jarakh, along the Northern tracks of the light rail train (the “Red Line”), on Road 1. As we drove past the Ammuniton Hill station, and Abu Ahmad was keeping silent, I had to break the silence. “This is where the attack happened, last week, that left a 3-month baby and a young woman dead, wounding a number of others…” I started. “Yes… I don’t like it,” he admitted, “he was a man from Silwan, but maybe it was an accident.” I objected, “I saw the film, he drove across the divide, straight into the group of people on the platform.” “I also saw the film,” concurred Abu Ahmad, “he was either deranged, or something went wrong with his car.”
Strange powers of denial, when it comes to group belonging. As if “we” could never do that, none of “us” could ever. Only others could. The killers who slaughtered the Fogel family in the night, at Itamar, South of Nablus, in 2011, had to be Thai workers, before they were identified. They could not be Palestinians. Later on, they were indeed identified and affiliated to a secular Palestinian party, the PFLP. It is noteworthy that the same party has claimed the horrendous gun and meat-cleaver attack on the Har Nof Synagogue, on November 18, and praised the attackers as “heroes”.
Two weeks after the Ammunition Hill accident/attack, on November 5 another vehicle, driven by a Palestinian from that same Shuafat, drove into a group of train passengers at the Shimon HaTzadik station, killing one (a Druze border police officer), wounding a dozen. The driver then left his van and attacked people around the scene with a metal crowbar, until he was shot down by a policeman. A 17-year old boy riding his bike, hit by the van, later died from his wounds. At the driver’s funerals, thousands attended, calling him a “hero” and a “martyr”, asking for the deaths of more police and soldiers.
Is Jerusalem burning ? The flames on Mount of Olives, the night of my leaving, did not last long.
For those of us who were in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, during the Second Intifada, this is nowhere near what was experienced in 2001, 2002, 2003. Yet, depression and angst are running high on both sides, differently, and so similarly, from a human stand-point. Nothing resembles a depressed Jew’s eyes more than a depressed Palestinian’s eyes.
Take it back a few years, to 2006. Same Mount of Olives. April 12-13. I had reached the House of Peace, Ibrahim Abu el-Hawa’s home, in the night, from Jaffa Gate and what they call “The Last Walk” across the Cedron Valley. It was unusually dark and quiet. Before I closed my eyes, I heard unrest rising from somewhere in the distance, not too far : hens and roosters waking up, disturbed in their sleep.
In the morning of April 13th, we learnt that Ibrahim’s nephew, Muhammad, had been kidnapped and shot dead, his body burned in his torched car, abandoned on the road to Jericho. Seven bullets : the price of treason. He was buried in a “makeshift graveyard”, the Jerusalem mufti having forbidden access to a Muslim cemetery for Palestinians who sell land to Jews. Muhammad, 42, was the father of eight. Part of his story was published in the Jerusalem Post, by a chronicler who upholds what she calls “war for the maintenance of survival of the Jewish state against its domestic foes” : “Why is Muhammad Abu al-Hawa dead?” (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-World-Why-is-Muhammad-Abu-al-Hawa-dead)
When you look up, from the Cedron Valley, or from the Southern rampart of the Old City, you see this huge Israeli flag in a powerful show of light, on top of the Mount of Olives (known as A-Tur by its residents), an area that has always been known as Palestinian, predominantly Muslim. The flag is the result of one such sale, if not the sale that put an end to Muhammad abu el-Hawa’s life. A defying symbol of “survival of the Jewish state against its domestic foes”.
This is not about just a handful of “religious Jews” who would accidentally choose the wrong location to buy a house – why should you go and settle anywhere anyway if you only intend to ignore neighbours perceived as foes and impose yourself arrogantly upon them ? It rather reminds us of the way the Levinger family came to the heart of Hebron in 1968, in the wake of the 1967 war, rented rooms in a hotel there, and then refused to leave, before starting the settlement of Kyriat Arba – with the consequences that we know, to this day. How many people have lost their lives, or remained maimed, in and around Hebron, from this chain of events ?
“Dangerous provocation in Jerusalem”
Under this title, Major-General Giora Eiland just posted his views on the matter of “Jews' attempts to live in the heart of Arab neighborhoods”. “We are not talking about an open area where a new Jewish neighborhood is established with thousands of families (like Har Homa), but about a piece of land densely populated by Arabs, within which a tiny Jewish neighborhood is established with building permits that would not have been granted to Arab landlords in the area under any circumstances. It's like giving the Arabs the finger.” (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4585132,00.html)
Take it back to Ibrahim Abu el-Hawa’s ordeal. Not long after he had lost his beloved nephew in such horrendous manner, he received a court order. Due to the inflow of foreign visitors and travellers he was sheltering in his family home (which then came to be known as House of Peace – not to be confused with the House of Peace/House of Contention in Hebron), in 2005 he had to move with his wife and her blind and deaf sisters to a smaller place, down the hill, where he had to build a floor without a permit. For which he was fined heavily, and asked to destroy the rooms built. Ibrahim could not pay the fine demanded : he never asked money from his visitors, always fed them abundantly, sometimes even gave them money if they were in need, from his pension. Thus following his grandfather’s tradition, who had
the late Rabbi Menachem Froman with Ibrahim
always kept their family home open to pilgrims and saunterers [derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer — a holy-lander” according to Henry Thoreau]. Articles have been published about Ibrahim and his family’s tradition, going back to National Geographic in April 1959, The Jerusalem Post (again) in July 2011 : “The Beduin host on the Mount of Olives”, and in April 2012 : “Shattered dreams ? House demolition threatens a Mount of Olives family unable to pay a court fine.” (http://www.jpost.com/In-Jerusalem/Features/Shattered-dreams) Even the French daily Le Monde published a story in August 2011, “Le singulier bédouin du Mont des Oliviers” (http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2011/08/13/le-singulier-bedouin-du-mont-des-oliviers_1559272_3218.html).
In April 2012 (“Shattered dreams?”) it was reported that 2,000 houses had been thus demolished in East Jerusalem since 1967.
When asked about a permit to build, Ibrahim protests that such a permit could never be obtained, not in a dozen years or fifty, whereas Jewish citizens get all the allowances they need to come as they please and settle, in no time. Double standards all the way, he exclaims.
As far back as November 2008, there was a report drafted by European consuls in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, presented to the EU institutions in early February 2009, specifically about this issue, confirming Ibrahim Abu el-Hawa’s claims. “During the past years, Palestinians have received fewer than 200 building permits per year,” it said. “Based on the population growth, permits for another 1,500 housing units annually would be necessary to cover the housing needs.” Taking the case of Silwan, the EU report noted, it has received only 20 building permits since 1967.
The report concluded that the municipality discriminates against the city's Arab residents with regard to building permits, health services, education, sanitation and other services, devoting only 5 to 10% of its budget to Arab neighbourhoods, whereas Arab residents represent 35% of the population. Both government and municipality, it noted, were working deliberately to alter the city's demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Interestingly, the European consuls’ report ended by proposing measures to set matters straight, including “ensuring EU presence at Israeli court cases on house demolitions or evictions of Palestinian families” and “when there is a risk of demolition or eviction of Palestinian families.” and strengthening the presence of the largest donor in the Occupied Territories by organizing “EU celebrations, commemorations and national or Europe day events to be held in East Jerusalem.”
This November 2008 report has to be somewhere, for all Members of the European Parliament to have access to. Surely, if some of these measures had been enacted we would have heard about it ?
In the meantime, Ibrahim’s ordeal has been ongoing. From bad to worse. In the night of August 18, 2010, Lance Wolf, the American volunteer who was taking care of the House of Peace, a dedicated man of 60, was assaulted in Zion Square by two Israeli youths who beat him to death with a wooden plank. He lay there in his blood for almost an hour before he was finally picked up and taken to a hospital.
When Ibrahim visited him, Lance told him that, unshaven as he was, with a keffieh around his neck, they had taken him for some Arab. He died in hospital on August 30, 2010, twelve days after the attack.
On December 8, 2014, Ibrahim Abu el-Hawa will go back to court, and this could be the last time. Will he have gathered the 288,000 shekels (roughly 60,000 €) to pay the fine ? Will he demolish the second house where they now live, as he has been requested to do ? Will he go to jail for not complying ? Or will he have another stroke, in his 72nd year ?
Unless more rioting on the Mount of Olives (A-Tur), Silwan, Shuafat, takes his case somehow into a new light, on a different, more compelling level ?
Ibrahim Abu el Hawa is just one case, of course, among hundreds, thousands.
It looks like he has no hope of a miracle solution on December 8.
When despair grows, and it seems you have nothing to lose, what good can you expect ?
What’s happening in the West Bank ?
November 22, 2014
From East Jerusalem to Ramallah to Nablus to Bethelehem, the sounds I have heard were the same : no light at the end of the tunnel, nothing constructive happening, no positive change on the ground (whether between the Palestinian sides at odds or between Israel and Palestine), with Gaza in the background slowly sinking into the disaster of winter rains, and the Egyptian army at its Western gates, blowing up houses by the dozens, forcing 10,000 residents out, until Gazans are surrounded by desert and the blockaded sea on all sides. Until now, the inhabitants of Rafah were divided by the border. From now on, no more. The western side of Rafah will be a complete no-man’s land, with only a 20-meter deep, 40-meter wide trench filled with water all along, with barbed wire, cameras and miradors around. Making the Gaza Strip with its 1.8 million inhabitants (64% of them under the age of 24, with a median age of 18; 80% of them living under the poverty line) even more of a high security prison than ever before.
About daily life in Gaza as of November 24, 2014, read :
(http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4595491,00.html)
(http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/siege_tightening).
Which takes us back to Bradley Burston’s column on December 31, 2009, “Israel’s 10 worst errors of the decade” : the Gaza siege, on 10 counts. 1) The stated goal was to undermine Hamas – it only reinforced it (particularly after the last war). 2) It was to prevent more sophisticated weaponry from entering – we have seen rockets reach Jerusalem and the suburbs of Tel Aviv in the summer of 2014. 3) “In the eyes of the world community, the overwhelming collective punishment” has badly damaged Israel’s moral image – incomparably more so after the summer of 2014. 4) It was presented as a means to release Gilad Shalit – the young tank operator was released through negotiations on October 18, 2011, but the siege is still on. 5) The siege did destabilize the régime of President Mubarak, bringing the Muslim Brothers to power through the 2011 elections and then Field Marshall Sisi, after his coup in the summer of 2013 – all good for the sake of democracy in the Middle-East ?
(http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-s-10-worst-errors-of-the-decade-1.1020)
There are now up to 16,000 political prisoners in Egypt, 8,000 in Libya, 30,000 in Iraq, and tens of thousands in Syria. By the end of 2007, Israel was in these ranks, with over 9,000 Palestinians detained.
Since the Open the Doors Campaign started in Brussels, with a handful of MEPs, after Nobel laureates had initiated it with Peace Lines, the number of prisoners has gradually declined : from 8,600 in May 2008 to 8,000 at the end of 2009; 5,700 at the end of 2010; 4,300 at the end of 2011; going up again to reach 4,500 at the end of 2012; 4,768 at the end of 2013; and then 5,439 on September 30, 2014 + 1,329 detained for being in Israel illegally.
About the logics behind so many prisoners, Haaretz broke the news with its November 22, 2007 editorial : “An endless pool of prisoners”. (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/an-endless-pool-of-prisoners-1.233767). That was 7 years ago... Other journalists inquired into the matter in 2013 :
You don’t have to read Haaretz or The Economist to understand why Palestinian prisoners count so much in both the West Bank and Gaza. But maybe you do, if you don’t travel to these parts. If only to remember that “few issues stir Palestinian emotions as fiercely as the fate of prisoners. Almost every Palestinian has a relative in jail—or has been there himself. Human-rights groups estimate that 750,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since the West Bank and Gaza were conquered in 1967.” “Whereas Israelis generally dub them terrorists, Palestinians call them asra, or prisoners of war (…) Of those Palestinians in prison, 193 are minors, nearly all brought to court in leg shackles and handcuffs.”
Looking back, the prevailing atmosphere in the West Bank, from October into November, has been one of growing oppression, a heavy mixture of powerlessness and distress : people feel oppressed to the point that they will avoid speaking to foreigners – for fear of landing into jail as a consequence.
Take the case of the famed Jenin commander in 2002, Zakaria Zubeide, known for his farewell to arms, and his conversion to theatre activities with youngsters in the Jenin camp. He has been in jail in Beitunia (Ramallah) for almost two years now. They say it is “because of the Israelis”. He himself has no idea why. He probably spoke too much, at some point. [Read “A Palestinian Intifada Icon Chooses Art over War”, by Eric Westervelt, February 22, 2008; also, “When Palestinian jail hurts more than Israeli incarceration”, by Alex Levac and Gideon Levy, October 12, 2012 : Zakaria was in jail then – as of November 24, 2014, he still is.]
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19239928)
With no Palestinian Parliament convening, no elections in sight, no reconstruction in Gaza yet, with close to 20% of the Members of the Palestinian Parliament arbitrarily detained in Israel, including the President of the Parliament, Dr Aziz Dweik (imagine 150 MEPs and Martin Schulz behind bars!), growing provocations – as aptly described by Major-General Giora Eiland – something has to give, down the line.
Not that the people I have met and seen want another Intifada, far from it.
“Walla, we need peace here!” is the most heartfelt cry I heard before leaving.
But they feel trapped, helpless. They desperately call to the outside, for help.
The United States ? Palestinians have no trust, whatsoever. Europe, then.
Likewise, my Israeli friends also insist that the outside world has to step in.
In the West Bank, they ask for Members of the European Parliament to come and meet them. Not just the usual circuit among the Ramallah élite, but more daring inquiries, into Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron…
They have such a gut feeling of receding into the past.
Take the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
At one point, back in 2006-2007, there was this huge portrait of Gandhi in yellow paint on the concrete wall, distinct with his round glasses, smile and hairless head. Little by little it was covered by various graffiti. Then, the portrait of Marwan Barghouti was painted, next to that of Yasser Arafat, with the motto “Free Palestine”. In 2010, both portraits were quite clear. Since 2013, Arafat’s portrait, nearest to the watch-tower, has been blackened by smoke from burning tires. New blocks of concrete have been added before the tower, to prevent more tire-burning at its foot. Powerful search-lights have been added too.
Again, the message from both sides, in West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, is this pressing call for help, for intervention from outside, from Europeans specifically, be it only to come and see with their own eyes what’s really going on.
For more information, you may check out www.peacelines.org – the Media Must Read section in particular, and the Welcome page.
Feel free to pass this memo along, by all means.
Yacov I. Claudé
Peace Lines Coordinator
peacelines@gmail.com
Newsletter envoyée le Lundi 24 Novembre 2014
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