The road from Ben-Gurion airport up to
Jerusalem is always striking: whizzing upward along the gullies in the looming
mountains, past Jewish villages, a few distant Palestinian villages topped by
minarets, and by the road-side, occasional ruined Palestinian houses covered in
vines...
This time,
somewhere near the mournful ruins of Deir Yassin, the driver of our ÔsherutÕ
share-taxi swept off the main road, taking one of the many new roads with which
the Israelis are consolidating their hold on East Jerusalem and the rest of the
West Bank. Our first stop: the settlement of Givat ZeÕev, nestled proudly into
the West Bank just northwest of the city. A lower middle-class couple got
out, in front of a pretty apartment block, and were greeted by their three
sleepy children while the driver cracked jokes with them in Hebrew. Then, back
into the city, past the ramparts of Ramot Alon -- a settlement with nearly 8,000 Jews-only housing units built
inside the cityÕs expanded boundaries. A couple more drop-offs, then the driver
asked where I was going. "National Palace Hotel," I said in English,
naming a place near Salah Eddin street in the heart of Palestinian Jerusalem.
The driver turned. "Much trouble there," he
said. I shrugged. His words sounded like standard Jewish-Israeli alarmism: I never had any trouble in the Salah
Eddin area. But I noted his attitude toward going into Palestinian
Jerusalem with interest. It seemed clear that for him -- as for nearly all the
other Jewish Jerusalemites whom I met during my stay in the city -- the actual city they lived in was far from the ideal,
"unified" urban center described by former mayor Teddy Kollek and
present mayor Ehud Olmert to their admiring supporters in the west.
One of the most extreme attitudes I discovered amongst Jewish residents
of the city would have been almost farcical if it had not also been
potentially tragic. A taxi-driver I picked up at the Hebrew University refused
point-blank to take me to the National Palace. "I canÕt go there!" he
protested when I told him that that was my destination. "Why not?" I
asked, interested to hear his response. ÒOh, donÕt worry for me or
yourself," he replied. "IÕve got my gun right here beside me. But I
donÕt want to have to kill anyone. And if they throw stones at me I will
definitely have to shoot them." Reluctantly, he agreed to take me to the
(Israeli) District Court, just down Salah Eddin from the hotel. No sooner had I
closed the car door than he turned the car and swiftly roared awayÉ
Even among convinced members of the Jewish-Israeli left, the attitude
toward JerusalemÕs remaining Palestinian-populated enclaves was frequently the
same. "How do you get to National Palace Hotel exactly?" asked my
friend, the historian Benny Morris. "I havenÕt been to that area for
years. I donÕt know my way around there. How about if I just drop you off at
the Saint Georges Hotel instead?Ó
"East Jerusalem?"
the pro-peace educator Hadara Keich asked, shaking her head slowly. "No, I
havenÕt been there for years.Ó
For Palestinians, of course,
the division between the cityÕs Jewish and Palestinian zones has always been
stark and real. There might have been a time, a decade ago, when some of the
more adventurous Palestinian intellectuals would venture over to West JerusalemÕs
ÔCinemathequeÕ cafe for a coffee or a beer with Jewish friends. But that
stopped happening, once the intifada hit East Jerusalem with full force in
early 1988. Now, the Palestinians know exactly where the dividing lines between
them and the cityÕs Jewish residents lie --- and this is not just because of
the glaring disparities in the municipal services accorded to the two
communities. And, unless they have pressing business on the other side, all
Jerusalemites, Palestinian and Israeli, stick well inside their own side of the
line.
"If I walk in West Jerusalem and see a policeman, I feel
reassured," says Faisal Husseini. "If I see a policeman in East Jerusalem, I feel threatened."
Husseini should know. I met him in his besieged headquarters in Orient House,
where the sense of threat from the Israeli police and settlers ringing the
building was ever-present. The day before, two of his employees had been
arrested and taken to the cityÕs ÔMoscobiyyaÕ jail on trumped-up charges. But
more of all that laterÉ
The intifada succeeded in
shattering the myth of the "unity" of the city for all of its
residents, Palestinian and Israeli.
But it has
also become quite clear that the Israeli governmentÕs accelerated campaign of
building Jews--only housing fortresses and a whole network of connecting roads
has left the Holy CityÕs remaining Palestinian enclaves like strangled
ghettoes.
Even more amazing: this building program has
continued unabated since the diplomatic ÔbreakthroughsÕ of Madrid and Oslo, and
is now going ahead at fever pitch in the Israeli governmentÕs desperate race to
plant additional ÔfactsÕ in the ground before the Ôfinal statusÕ negotiations
on Jerusalem are supposed to start next May.
It was sometime between Madrid and Oslo that
the number of Jewish residents of the settlements of occupied East Jerusalem
climbed ahead of the officially-counted number of Palestinians there. West
Jerusalem has virtually no Palestinian residents at all --- the 30,000 who
lived there before 1948 were all Ôethnically cleansedÕ from it that year. And
now, in the expanded tract of land that in 1967 the Israeli government
(illegally and unilaterally) declared to be part of the city, and annexed,
roughly 28 percent of the counted residents are Palestinian, 72 percent Jews.
Later in my stay, Ibrahim Matar (whose family
was expelled from West Jerusalem in Ô48) took me on a tour of the latest
government construct~ion projects in the city. We drove all around the
expanding sprawl of Pisgat ZeÕev (named for ZeÕev Jabotinsky) in northern
Jerusalem, where attempts of previous decades to build with a certain amount of
grace, using arches and intimate connecting areas, had now been
abandoned in the race to put more raw facts on the land. Harsh, unbroken lines
of tall apartment blocks (evocative only of Stalinist town--planning in central
Europe) cut stark lines across the lovely hills between Hizma and Tel al-Full.
The only thing that arched here were the tall, crane-like necks of mobile
cement--delivery pipes as ceaselessly they poured their contents into new
foundations, walls and floors for the settlement. A constant stream of
construction trucks rumbled back and forth along the hillside.
On the hills west of ShuÕafat,
the picture was the same. In this area, once cynically declared a Ôgreen zoneÕ
in order to prevent the landÕs Palestinian owners from building anything for
themselves, a whole new settlement for 2,165 Jewish families was racing toward
completion: Ramat ShuÕafat. A number of different contractors were working
simultaneously on different parts of the settlement. The workers seemed a mix
of Romanians and destitute Palestinians. As the trucks growled by and
cement-mixers whined, an ultra-Orthodox contractor dressed in severe black
stumbled up some steps to check on final details. The few trees that remained
near the settlement as a cynical reminder of its former designation as ÔgreenÕ,
stood coated thickly white from the heavy construction dust.
We took one of the new
inter--settlement roads to drive south, to Gilo, still in the city borders. New
fingers were being built for this ÔolderÕ settlement, whose construction
started in the 1970s. East of Gilo, we looked across to the wooded slopes expropriated from Um Touba, Beit Safafa, and
Beit Sahour, where preliminary road-building was already underway, in
preparation for the whole new settlement of Har Homa.
Everywhere, our senses were assaulted by the
scale of Israeli Ôfacts on the groundÕ in Jerusalem-- past,
present, and future.
* * *
The South African writer Rian Malan has written of his
own white-Boer ancestors, that "They spoke of themselves as bearers of the
light, but in truth they were dark of heart, and they knew it, and willed it
so." This wilfull but honest attitude toward their own acts is one that
is, to say the least, not shared by most Jewish Israelis. There have been, it
is true, some Jewish Israelis who have criticized government actions like the
invasion of Lebanon in 1982, or excesses of repression in the occupied
territories. But small indeed is the number among them who are prepared even to
give a hearing to criticism of such essentials of the Zionist project as the
establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 -- or the Ôestablished factÕ of the ÔunificationÕ of Jerusalem in
1967.
Edward Said has been one of the first in the
west to point to the astonishing success the Israeli leadership has enjoyed in
portraying its ÔachievementÕ in East Jerusalem as being, in itself, a beacon of
liberal, enlightened policy...
I had come to
Jerusalem, in July of 1995, to explore some of the dimensions of this
conundrum. How do those many
Jewish Israelis who consider themselves as democratic, and
even, "liberal", reconcile these values with the
facts of their governmentÕs massive assault against JerusalemÕs 150,000
Palestinians? On the other side of the coin, why have Palestinian responses to
Israeli aggressions in the holy city over the past 28 years been so fragmentary
and unsuccessful? And also, yes, are there any ways left that people in
Jerusalem can think of, to bring about a solution for the cityÕs status that is
both attainable and sustainable?
It was a journey that would plunge me deep
into the moral- psychological labyrinth inhabited by the Jewish-Israeli
left, and into the agony of the PalestiniansÕ chronic disorganization and
weakness...
* * *
Here, in my room at the National Palace, I
sift through some of my papers. Here is ÔMr. PeaceÕ himself, Shimon Peres, when
as Finance Minister in 1989 he wrote a memo to the Supreme Court to support the
governmentÕs expropriation of yet more Palestinian land to build ÔHar HomaÕ.
The expropriation, Peres wrote, had, "a dual national mission of fortifying Jerusalem
and absorbing mass immigration." It was necessary, Peres explained, in
order "to close a gap in the urban space in the cityÕs southeast." Of
course,
in 1989, it was only Jews who were coming into Israel through immigration. And
there was no ÔgapÕ in the urban space in southeast Jerusalem -- only a gap in
the Jewish--inhabited urban space. But to Peres, perhaps only the Jews
counted, in Jerusalem, as human?
And here, a statement that
the present Labor--led government released, in connection with the ÔfestivitiesÕ
planned for 1996 - - planned deliberately for 1996 -- to celebrate the 3,000th anniversary
of King DavidÕs arrival in Jerusalem. (ÒMy God, what a disaster that will
be!" was the comment of one of the
Israeli peace activists I talked to.) Anyway, the government statement: "The events will establish JerusalemÕs place as the heart of the Jewish
nation in the collective consciousness of Israel and the world ... Israeli rule
over the united city has brought unprecedented prosperity and progress, and
despite the tensions between the various communities within it -- the city has
not enjoyed such a position of import since its heyday as a kingdomÉ"
And many, many statements from the
two Jewish-Israeli rulers of annexed Jerusalem -- Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert
-- about how wonderful, how ÔnormalÕ, how liberal and enlightened their city isÉ
I hear a clop-clopping
under the window. What, still some old horses or mules in East Jerusalem? Given
the terribly run- down, de-developed state of the place, I would not be
surprised. I go to the window. A posse of five well--armed Israeli riot policemen is patrolling slowly on horseback
along the street, flak-jackets slung over their mounts behind them. I peer
along the street and see three ÔBorder PoliceÕ standing in a tight knot, the
long muzzles of their rifles at the ready as they keep a wary watch over Salah
Eddin street. One of the Border Policemen has the coffee-colored skin and fine
features of an Ethiopian. Does his dark-colored presence among the cossacks
perhaps satisfy their desire for ÔliberalismÕ?
ItÕs time to take a walk.
I turn right
onto Salah Eddin, then quickly left, past the saint Georges Hotel, and up to
Nablus Road. Clogged with fuming buses as usual. And then, the heart-rending
scenes outside the Interior Ministry building where two or three hundred
Jerusalem Palestinians spill hopelessly out of the wire pen constructed to
protect the entrance, and wait in a tight but heaving mass in the blazing sun
of the street for their numbers to come up. It is here that they have to come
to renew their all-important identity cards as city residents. How is it that a
liberal west that revolted at the pass-book system in South Africa has kept so
silent over the same pervasive and inhuman form of control right here? It is
here that Jerusalem Palestinians have to line up for ÔpermissionÕ to use
Ben-Gurion airport, and here that (a disquieting but open secret among the
Palestinians) an increasing number of them have come over the past year to
apply for Israeli citizenship ...
Old men, grandmothers, the middle-aged, the
young, men, pregnant women, all jostled together in the sun without regard for age,
health, or basic humanity. JerusalemÕs rulers seem determined, above all, never
to lose their capacity to dominate, humiliate, and control.
Walking on, I skirt the Old
City. (I will, of course, come back to it later.) I trek across the eight lanes
of traffic on the new ÔRoute OneÕ, that sweeps Pisgat ZeÕevÕs people into the
heart of the city without having to set eyes on a single Palestinian face. Up
the hill by Notre Dame, and a right turn along the Jaffa Road. I am well into
pre--Õ67 (West) Jerusalem now. And this is where Mayor Olmert is now reaping
the benefit of a grand urban project initiated by Kollek: Safra Square, the new municipal
center.
The Square is an extensive
conglomeration of new and old architectural forms -- all faced in stone and
grouped around a broad, majestic plaza. I look around. Over to the right, there
are some interesting older buildings in the complex, one, a lovely long
building whose gracefully arched windows have been slashed through, visually,
by a thick rectilinear walkway whose heavy, checkerboarded second story seems
to have zero functional purpose. I am about to walk on, shaking my head in
esthetic horror, when I see a blue and gold plaque attached to the building.
Writing in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. I approach. Under a cutely trilingual
heading, "Jerusalem, the Built Heritage", it reads, ÒThe building
apparently dates from the late 19th century, when it contained shops and
residential unitsÉ" Nothing about who it belonged to then, who
built it, whose architectural genius it embodies... I look around. Blue plaques
on all the buildings around here, presumably as part of the gussying-up of the
city for the visitors expected for ÔJerusalem- 3,000Õ.
Another thought strikes me. The old Russian
compound is near here. I hurry past numerous other blue plaques: "A
luxurious residence typical of late-l9th century JerusalemÉ" "Former
site of the southern gate of the Russian compound, now moved fifty meters
further north ... " And now I am on Heleni Ha-Malka Street. Gentrification
is intensively underway here. Most of the street is torn up, its buildings a
mass of rehabilitation. I go past the Tuhavot Israel Mortgage Company,
wondering how many government-subsidized mortgages theyÕve given out to Israeli
settlers so far today. And then, the ÔSergei BuildingÕ, still part of the ÔRussianÕ
complex, where I have a slightly pointless conversation with a young
English-speaking woman in the bookstore of the ÔSociety for the Preservation of
Nature in IsraelÕ. (She probably still believes that government--designated ÔgreenÕ
areas are of benefit to all.) I come out of the Sergei Building, and there,
across Heleni Ha-Malka to the south, is what I came to look for: JerusalemÕs
infamous ÔMoscobiyyaÕ prison.
The
prison is separated from the street by a ramshackle but sturdy stone wall,
topped by a wire fence whose rusty barbed-wire topping stands fifteen feet
above the pedestrians making their way quite normally along the street. A
glimpse inside the large gate shows a courtyard crammed with police cars and
vans, and surrounded by two- and three-story buildings with small windows, set
far apart. No blue plaque by that gateway. But perhaps further round to the
east? As I walk slowly along beside the prison wall, I see a series of four or
five windows in the building nearest to me that have been completely cemented
up. In the upper righthand corner of each of the former openings, a metal box
about fifteen inches by thirty has been inserted, all its sides solid except
for a scattering of small ventilation holes in its downward-sloping lid.
I have read
plenty of the affidavits from Palestinian political prisoners who, like Faisal
HusseiniÕs young helper, have been held in the Moscobiyya over the years. They,
along with Palestinians held with or without charges in IsraelÕs numerous other
jails, have been subjected to isolation, the extreme sensory deprivation of
having stinking bags tied tight over their heads, white noise, extremes of heat
and cold, prolonged holding in extreme positions, and worse.
What is going
on behind those metal boxes as I look?
Nobody else
in Heleni Ha-Malka Street today, and that includes young Miss Tamar Zamir in
the Society for the Preservation of Nature (whom I had asked specifically about
this matter), shows any concern at all at this question.
I come around
the corner. There is a gracious, pediment topped entrance in the center of
the wall along this eastern side of the prison, framing a heavy,
ominously--locked, red metal door. And beside the entrance—yes!—the
same distinctive blue-and-gold plaque.
ÒElizabeth Hostel for Men," it tells us.
"A courtyard structure built in 1864 as a hostel able to accommodate about
300 pilgrims. Above the
neo-classical main entrance are inscribed ÔElizabethÕs CourtyardÕ and the
emblem of the ÔImperial Russian Orthodox Palestine SocietyÕ. Architect: Martin Eppinger.Ó
ThatÕs all. Nothing about the buildingÕs
present usesÉ
Millions of people have come to Jerusalem
throughout the centuries, searching for a metaphor for their lives.
But here, at the door of a political prison tucked into the heart
of ÔnormalityÕ, ÔunificationÕ, and even Ôurban estheticsÕ,
I found my most potent metaphor for the state of the city
itself.
--end of part one