Makeshift Bedouin home in a camp east of Jerusalem on the way to Jericho. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Naifa Youssef and 50 other members of her Bedouin community live a precarious life, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence alongside the main road which links Jerusalem with the Dead Sea and the ancient city of Jericho.

Home for this community, east of Jerusalem, comprises a collection of shanty structures and hovels as well as tents erected on the rugged and rocky hills which line the road.

These makeshift homes are not connected to the electricity grid or to water and waste infrastructure. In winter the bitter cold rain and howling winds creep into the structures while mud and sewerage build up in pools around the tents.“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent” – Naifa Youssef, a Palestinian Bedouin

Water has to be purchased and brought in by hand from the nearest village of Anata, a 15-minute and 5-km taxi journey away costing about two dollars per person.

Youssef’s community lives below the poverty line as the men folk struggle to make ends meet from casual day labour and herding their goats and sheep, with the area they can graze on limited by Israeli settlements.

The community has lived there for 50 years following their expulsion from the Negev Desert in 1948 when the Israeli state was established. The majority of the West Bank’s Bedouin communities were expelled from the Negev Desert during the same year.

Over the next few years, Israel plans to forcibly expel and relocate approximately 27,000 Palestinian Bedouins from Area C of the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements.

This followed an announcement by the Israeli government in August that it planned to confiscate over 1,000 acres of West Bank land – the biggest land grab by the Jewish state in three decades.

The West Bank is divided into Area A, under nominal Palestinian control, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C (which comprises approximately 60 percent of the territory) under full Israeli control, although overall control of the entire West Bank ultimately falls under Israeli control.

The Israelis argue that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Area C does not belong to the Palestinians and that most of the structures built there were constructed without permits.

However, obtaining the requisite Israeli building permits for Palestinians is notoriously difficult in East Jerusalem and most parts of the West Bank, and almost impossible in Area C. Critics argue that this is a deliberate policy by the Israeli authorities to keep the occupied territory part of Israel.

The Israeli authorities have warned the Youssefs and their neighbours that they have less than two months to evacuate and that if they refuse to leave they will be forcibly expelled by Israeli security forces.

“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent,” Youssef said.

Youssef’s problems have been experienced by thousands of other Bedouins and will be experienced by thousands more once again as Israel moves to keep most of the West Bank free of Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers and settlements.

In preparation for what some have labelled an accelerated wave of ethnic cleansing, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration, which administers the West Bank, have been demolishing Palestinian infrastructure in Area C including shacks, tents, animal shelters and homes and other structures deemed to have been built “illegally”.

As part of the forced relocation, more than 12,000 Bedouins will be relocated to a new settlement near the West Bank city of Jericho where they will be surrounded by a firing zone, settlements and an Israeli checkpoint which will limit their ability to graze their herds, the main source of income for these nomadic pastoralists.

Several Bedouin communities were forcibly relocated in the 1990s by the Civil Administration from near East Jerusalem to an area of land near a garbage dump in Abu Dis which falls in Area B.

The expulsion of the Bedouins in the 1990s was primarily to make way for enlarging the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, one of the largest in the West Bank.

Further to enlarging Maale Adumim, part of Israel’s plan has been to keep an area known as the E1 corridor, which links the settlement with East Jerusalem, contiguous and under Israeli control by building more settlements, effectively dividing the West Bank in two.

The move also further isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. East Jerusalem is of great importance to Palestinians due to cultural, educational, family, business, and religious ties. Palestinians also hope to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The Civil Administration’s plan blatantly contravenes international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forced transfer of protected persons, such as these Bedouin communities, unless the move is temporary or is necessary for their safety or to meet a military need,” says Israeli rights group B’tselem.

“The Civil Administration’s expulsion plan meets none of these conditions. Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated to act for the benefit and welfare of residents of the occupied territory. Expansion of the settlements does not comport with this requirement.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Ultra-Orthodox worshipper Jenny Menashe argues with Rabbi Nahum Weiss. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Jun 12 2013 (IPS)

The struggle for gender equality and Jewish pluralism took a highly symbolic turn on Sunday at the Western Wall, Judaism’s most revered site and emblem of unity, as a group of women known as “Women of the Wall” prayed legally and in a way they saw fit.

For 24 years, the Women of the Wall, a Jewish feminist group, have demanded the right to carry and read aloud the Holy Book of Judaism at the Western Wall (“Kotel”, in Hebrew) while wrapping themselves in prayer shawls, donning phylacteries and wearing skullcaps.

According to the Jewish Orthodox Law, only men may don the Tallith, the Tefilin and the Kippa and read the Torah aloud while praying during religious ceremonies. As such, the women’s demand is anathema to Jewish Orthodoxy, Israel’s prevailing stream of Judaism.

The conservatives, reformist, progressive and liberal movements with which the Women of the Wall are affiliated, though prominent in the United States, are a minority in Israel.

The Kotel’s esplanade on Sunday resembled a fortified battlefield, with two opposing camps deeply divided on religious duties and gender rights readying themselves for yet another showdown."It's a shame we're relegated to pray like lepers."
-- Ya'ara Nissan

Approximately 300 women, who intended to mark the first day of the Jewish month of Tamuz in full regalia, fought their way through a crowd of similar size of infuriated ultra-Orthodox men.

“These women want to tear Judaism apart. Secular Jews wouldn’t dare falsifying the word of God, but these women, they change Judaism from within,” warned Nahum Weiss, rebbe of a Talmudic school.

Hundreds of police officers – at least two per woman – were deployed between the two camps to prevent the violence that characterised the previous monthly prayer, when Yeshiva boys and seminary girls hurled garbage, diapers and eggs at the Women of the Wall.

This time, men let loose a flood of abusive invectives against the women: “Go pray with the Muslims!”; “Go home to America!”; and “You don’t belong here!”

Jenny Menashe, from the group Women for the Wall, the Women of the Wall’s Orthodox alter ego and whose motto is “preserving the sanctity of the wall”, called on fellow male coreligionists to “allow women to handle these women”.

Placards read, “You make up a new religion, built a new wall!” The group Women of the Wall responded with an Orthodox Hassidic hymn, “The whole world is a narrow bridge; above all, don’t be afraid.”

Policewomen escorted the women to the Kotel’s female section, where they were kept behind barriers to avoid further conflict with Orthodox worshippers. A prayer-like lamentation arouse from the male section to cover the women’s prayers. To practice their faith at the Kotel, men have at their disposal a space twice as large as the women’s.

“It’s a shame we’re relegated to pray like lepers,” deplored Ya’ara Nissan, “It shows what happen to women when they get out of the kitchen.”

A turning point

Two months ago, as if abiding by Orthodox edicts, the police would arrest women for praying at the Kotel in their own way. But on Apr. 25, the Women of the Wall won a historic victory in the long struggle for recognition of their practises and against the Orthodox authorities in charge of prayer rules at the holy site.

Judging that their unorthodox behaviour does not disturb the peace and that, on the contrary, ultra-Orthodox Jews are those who cause disorder, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Women of the Wall could pray at the wall.

Judge Moshe Sobel, an Orthodox Jew himself, wrote in his decision that the Women of the Wall’s practices constitute neither a violation of “local custom” nor a provocation.

The court also ruled out police interpretations of a previous Supreme Court ruling from 2003, stating that women are neither forbidden from holding their own prayer services at the Kotel nor required instead to congregate at the nearby Robinson’s Arch.

“Today the Women of the Wall liberated the Western Wall for the entire Jewish people,” clamoured Anat Hoffman, the organisation’s chairwoman.

In response to the court ruling, Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz protested, “I implore the authorities as well as the silent majority who care deeply for the Kotel to prevent extremists from turning it into a site of antagonism between brothers.”

On Sunday, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis called for married and seasoned men to demonstrate their opposition to the Women of the Wall, instructing the hot-tempered single pupils to remain in their Talmudic schools, so as not to turn the protest into yet another unmannerly and disgraceful brawl.

But instead of the thousands expected, only hundreds answered the call.

By and large, the prayer service was peaceful. A few eggs landed at the feet of the Women of the Wall’s male supporters. “They planned a demonstration of force and demonstrated their weakness,” noted one.

“They’re getting used to us,” Hoffman observed cautiously. “The Kotel is a place for all communities and streams of Judaism,” declared spokeswoman Shira Preuce, adding, “The Orthodox Rabbinate fears women empowerment, fears changes.”

A shifting political balance

Indeed, Orthodox Judaism is gradually losing power in Israel.

The political landscape is now such that the Orthodox lobby at the Knesset is unusually weak, and ultra-Orthodox legislators sit in the opposition with liberal, progressive and Arab parties. The relationship between state and synagogue is now shifting in favour of more progressive Jewish currents.

A draft conscription law could break the ultra-orthodox Jews’ longstanding exemption from serving in the Israeli army, while non-Orthodox rabbis now receive state salaries and Jewish Israelis are allowed to marry under any rabbinical council within Israel.

Majda el-Batsch on her rooftop with the Dome of the Rock in the background. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM, Jun 5 2013 (IPS)

Majda el-Batsch was eight years old in June 1967 when she heard about the war that year. “I didn’t know what war meant,” she recalled. More than four decades later, the Palestinian reporter is still grappling with the meaning of what is known as the Six-Day War.

Yaki Chetz is 68 now, but in a way he remains a 21-year-old Israel paratrooper locked in a war whose outcome remains unresolved. From an old Jordanian bunker, he demonstrates a close combat situation accompanied by a battle cry: “You’re the enemy!”

Yaki Chetz, in a former Jordanian trench on Ammunition Hill, remembers the 1967 war well. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

Chetz and el-Batsch don’t know each other – Chetz fought in the war, while el-Batsch lived through it – but both offer clear examples of how people still hark back to a war that left an indelible mark on Israelis, Palestinians and the region around them.

On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive war against Arab armies amassed on its border. Within six days it had captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip (from which it withdrew unilaterally in 2005), the Sinai desert (which it returned to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty signed in 1979), and Syria’s Golan Heights.

“We listened to the radio. Men painted windows in dark blue; women made bread,” el-Batsch recalled of the war. From her rooftop of her family’s house in the Muslim quarter of the walled Old City, one can scope out the lay of the land – Israeli flags; Al-Aqsa mosque, holy to Muslims; the Dome of the Rock holy to both Jews and Muslims; and the Western Wall revered by Jews.

El-Batsch can escape neither history nor her memories, such as her recollection of a heartening rumour that circulated among and gripped Palestinians trapped in the Old City at the beginning of the war. “‘The Iraqi army has come to save us,'” el-Batsch recalled people saying."No power that dominates other peoples lasts forever."
-- Majda el-Batsch

For Chetz, Jerusalem evoked a different sentiment. “Religious people nurtured feelings towards Jerusalem, but for us, soldiers, Jerusalem was just a border town,” he said.

Wanting Jerusalem

Following Israel’s war of independence in 1948, East Jerusalem – including the Old City – was conquered and annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The nascent Jewish state instated the city’s western sector as its capital, a situation that prevailed for two decades.

But on June 6, 1967, a battalion of Israeli paratroopers was assigned the mission to take over a strategic hillock dominating the no man’s land dividing Jerusalem. “The mission was Ammunition Hill – not Jerusalem, not the Old City,” Chetz emphasised.

After five hours of hand-to-hand combat, 105 Jordanians and 35 Israelis had died on the hill, 18 of them from Chetz’s platoon.

“I was so fearful,” Chetz remembered. “The Jordanians were waiting to kill us. I thought, ‘I’ve got only five metres to live.’ It was sheer survival. So many soldiers, friends killed. I felt desperate. I didn’t think about Jerusalem.”

As one of the last survivors of his platoon, Chetz became an accidental hero of the quasi-battle that sealed Jerusalem’s fate. By the time Israeli paratroopers entered the Old City, Jordanian defences of East Jerusalem had already been broken following the battle for Ammunition Hill, and so little fighting took place. “We entered the Old City without firing a shot,” Chetz recalled.

For the Palestinians, so great had been their confidence in victory that the shock of defeat was even greater.

“I remember my older sister telling us she’d seen an Israeli soldier, and the neighbours calling her a liar,” el-Batsch remembered. “[Palestinians] had heard the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, preparing them for triumph. They couldn’t accept being defeated twice – the catastrophe of 1948 and in 1967.”

So deep was the Israelis’ certainty of their annihilation, on the other hand, that the surprise of their military triumph aroused national elation, except amongst those to whom Israel owed its victory.

“We prayed at the Western Wall but, really, I felt terrible,” Chetz related.

It’s a sentiment echoed by el-Batsch. “People were in shock,” she noted, adding, “The Israelis were drunk with victory, exhibiting their tanks and warplanes.”

Two generations later, Israeli seventh graders sing a patriotic hymn that glorifies Chetz and his comrades’ self-abnegation, while the old battlefield has become a shrine that schoolchildren and conscripts visit to pledge their growing commitment to Jerusalem, according to Chetz.

He hailed a group of visiting soldiers, asking “What is Jerusalem for you?” The soldiers responded in unison, “Praise you, O Jerusalem, Israel’s capital for eternity! We honour thee, people of Israel!”

“They’ll fight for Jerusalem,” Chetz concluded.

Hoping for peace

Chetz and el-Batsch live parallel lives with opposing expectations that do not intersect and probably never well.

“Jews can celebrate their traditions, but we, Christians, Muslims, must have a permit to reach our places of prayer,” protested el-Batsch. “That’s the logic of the occupation.”

Both Chetz and el-Batsch are secular, and both would probably agree that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over Jerusalem is essentially nationalistic. Both wish for a two-state solution that will end the conflict. Both want peace.

Yet religion and historical sentiment are never far off. As he faced the Western Wall, Chetz noted that “3,000 years of history” connected him with the site, while el-Batsch adopted a different stance. “I don’t care about history or mythology. It’s not a matter of proving to me or me proving to you who lived here beforehand, but whether I can live with my rights in my own sovereign state,” she argued.

Both want East Jerusalem.

“Today, Jerusalem is united and annexed, and that’s a steady reality,” Chetz claimed, even as el-Batsch pointed out, “Israelis should learn from history. No power that dominates other peoples lasts forever.”

“We want freedom. You can’t come just because you’re a Jew and take our land,” she added.

No immediate prospects exist to reconcile Israel’s hold and Palestinians’ claim over East Jerusalem, even as both peoples believe Jerusalem is the cradle of their religion and their nation and that East Jerusalem belongs exclusively to them.

“I’m optimistic,” said Chetz. “I believe in peace – but not now. Meanwhile, Jews and Arabs will continue to live together. Jerusalem will be the same as today, with no borders again.”

“If you’re wise, compromise with me in peace, give me control of myself,” implored el-Batsch. “Stay on your side of town; I’ll stay on mine. Otherwise, there will be bloodshed again.”

Israel's separation barrier as seen from Al Ram, once a thriving East Jerusalem community that now sits on the West Bank side of the barrier and has been severely economically affected. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM, May 26 2013 (IPS)

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”"It feels like they're coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police."
-- Abed Ajloni

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

Children on the rooftop of the Shuruf family home. Credit: P. Klochendler/IPS.

By Walter García and Pierre Klochendler
AR-RAM, Occupied East Jerusalem, Oct 15 2012 (IPS)

Ali Shuruf turns on the lights, that shine into a gaudy living room. Beyond the window, the dominant colour is uniformly grey: the house stands literally against a wall. Not just any wall – the infamous eight-metre cement wall separates Palestinians from Israelis.

“From the salon, see – the wall; from the kitchen, from the terrace – always the wall. The wall encircles us east, west, and south,” says Ali Shuruf, a successful Palestinian building contractor, appropriately pointing at a budgie hopping in a cage. “We’re like birds in a cage.” His is a golden cage.

“Freedom stops here,” he notes. From the rooftop of the three-story mansion which he built with his brothers (each family has its own floor), Shuruf points at the shimmering lights beyond the eastern side of the wall: “Here, separation between Arabs and Jews.”

Neve Ya’akov, the adjacent Jewish neighbourhood, is, like Ar-Ram, located within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. Whereas Neve Ya’akov lies within the intramural perimeter, Ar-Ram’s on the outer side of the wall.

After Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, urban planning involved the building of community, commercial, medical and sports centres, as well as schools, playgrounds and synagogues – for large-scale housing projects that were intended for the Jewish population.

As suburbs like Neve Ya’akov are rooted in the occupied part of town, what’s also required is a protective wall.

“We played soccer together. Now, we’re disconnected from each other,” says Fadhi Hijazi, a friend of one of Shuruf’s sons.

The separation wall was erected in the wake of the Palestinian Intifadah uprising (2000-2005), as protection against potential suicide bombers.

Ten years on, a 142-kilometre long barrier surrounds much of East Jerusalem, with only four kilometres of its completed length running along the pre-1967 ceasefire line. Israeli soldiers operate checkpoints to the city on both sides of the wall – none on that ceasefire line.

The new concrete ‘border’ not only separates Jewish neighbourhoods from West Bank towns and villages; it also cut through Palestinian neighbourhoods located within the city’s limits, leaving many residents who, like Shuruf, hold Israeli blue residency cards, on the other side of the wall, without access to Jerusalem.

“To visit my next-door neighbour, it takes an hour,” says Shuruf.

From this side, the wall isn’t just about security; it doesn’t only impede freedom of movement – it’s a policy, aimed at maintaining a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.

“The wall’s a racist thing that encourages hatred,” chimes in Muhammad Turman, Shuruf’s brother-in-law. “The problem isn’t the Israelis per se – we could live together in peace. No, the problem is who controls the city.”

The battle over Jerusalem is one for demographic control. While East Jerusalem is nowadays home to roughly 200,000 Israelis, it’s home for 300,000 Palestinians. But whole Arab neighbourhoods have de facto been excluded from the city by the wall.

Located on the route to Ramallah in the West Bank, Ar-Ram, with its 10,000 inhabitants, is such a neighbourhood. To reach the Shurufs by car from the intramural part of town is an exhausting haul.

One must either bypass the Jewish suburb Pisgat Ze’ev through the Hizme checkpoint, or drive along the wall for some ten kilometres towards the Kalandia gateway to Ramallah, and then make a U-turn and drive back along the wall’s other side.

“We don’t enjoy municipal services due to us – in healthcare, in education.” Shuruf explains that he had to enrol his children “in a local, poorer, school because of the wall.” “What do you tell your children?” asks Hijazi. “Al-Yahud, the Jews…” Shuruf awkwardly giggles.

Palestinian neighbourhoods suffer from chronic neglect, but the wall has exacerbated the grim socio-economic reality. According to the Association for Civil rights in Israel, 78 percent of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem – including 84 percent of children – are poor. About 40 percent of the men, as well as 85 percent of the women, are listed as unemployed.

When two years ago Shuruf suffered a major stroke, “the Israeli ambulance didn’t accept to come because of security reasons; neither did the Red Crescent ambulance, because it’s Israeli-controlled area,” recalls Hijazi. Eventually, as last resort, Shuruf relied on his family to be taken to the nearest Israeli hospital.

During the 1990s, the Oslo peace agreement divided the West Bank into three zones: Area A (under the Palestinian Authority); Area B (under Israeli security control and the Palestinian municipal authority); and Area C (under full Israeli rule).

De facto annexed by Israel, East Jerusalem was excluded from the Oslo division.

Palestinians who are walled in suburbs such as Ar-Ram have been left in limbo – in “Area B13”, as graffiti scribbled around the neighbourhood by local youth scornfully notes the undefined situation.

The wall further severs vital connections between East Jerusalem and West Bank Palestinian economic centres such as Bethlehem to the south and Ramallah to the north.

Traditionally a hub servicing the West Bank, East Jerusalem is now inaccessible for Palestinians without an Israeli permit. “Our life was in Jerusalem – not in the Palestinian part,” says Hijazi.

If disconnecting Palestinians from Jerusalem was a goal in putting up the wall, it’s actually bringing the opposite effect – pushing them back towards Israel. They don’t want to wait in queues at checkpoints. They want to work, to benefit from municipal services, to shop in the Israeli part of town.

Shuruf may pay municipal and other Israeli taxes, but he protectively rents another house inside Jerusalem proper just for keeping his Jerusalem ID, and thus enjoying medical healthcare – now a privilege – to which he was entitled as Jerusalem resident before the wall’s intrusion into his life.

“For us, it isn’t about wanting to be absorbed inside Israel which is at stake, but survival – holding on under Israeli occupation,” says Shuruf.

The Democratic National Convention erupted in controversy this week over the removal of a clause in the party platform stating that Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital and only grew worse when the wording was hastily re-inserted.

Though party platforms are routinely ignored by presidents and members of Congress, the politically sensitive issue of Israel, which has been particularly prominent in a U.S. presidential election where foreign policy has been downplayed by both sides, has caused ripples far beyond Washington.

The Democratic Party platform had initially intended to remove the wording from 2008 which had affirmed the party’s stance on Jerusalem in order to bring it in line with long-standing United States policy, upheld by presidents of both parties, which holds that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Both Republicans and Democrats, however, have routinely voiced support for Jerusalem being Israel’s “undivided capital” in their party platforms in order to gather support from wealthy pro-Israel donors and secure votes in swing states where Jewish voters are believed to be decisive.

Barack Obama, in a 2008 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the major pro-Israel lobbying group, said that Jerusalem must remain undivided, but quickly backtracked and has since held to a policy of keeping Jerusalem as a final status issue.

Although the George W. Bush administration repeatedly stated its intent to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, it never acted to do so, the embassy remains in Tel Aviv, and the United States still has not formally recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Numerous media outlets reported that the Democratic platform had been vetted by AIPAC, which had voiced its approval. But after the controversy erupted, and Republican nominee Mitt Romney referred to the omission of the Jerusalem statement as “shameful”, President Obama was reported to have personally intervened to have the language re-inserted.

The amendment needed approval by a two-thirds majority in a voice vote on the conference floor. The controversy deepened when three calls for a vote came back without a clear majority in favour, much less the required two-thirds. But conference chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, declared that he had heard the required majority. Video recordings of the vote cast strong doubts on that assertion.

“The handling of the Jerusalem amendment in the Democratic party platform was ham-fisted to say the least,” Saqib Ali, a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and a Democratic Party activist, told IPS.

“By ramming through the amendment on a dubious procedural move, Mayor Villagarosa and party leaders insulted those who believe Palestinians deserve equal human rights to everyone else in the world.

“The Democratic Party platform on this issue contradicts the position of the Obama administration. The divergence between the Democratic platform and the Obama administration policy just doesn’t make any sense,” Ali added.

Palestinians noted the controversy as well. Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said that while the entire episode might just be “election propaganda”, a failure to recognise the Palestinian claim to east Jerusalem will “destroy the peace process” and lead to “endless war”.

The Democrats’ official stance also seems to lack support from the party’s rank and file. In a recent poll by the Arab American Institute, while nearly 60 percent of Democrats said they were not sure what they thought the ultimate disposition of Jerusalem should be, those who voiced an opinion favoured dividing the city over it being controlled by Israel alone by a nearly two-to-one margin.

“Pushing through the amendment was in part a reaction to Republican criticisms that the Obama administration – despite providing record amounts of taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel’s rightist government and blocking the United Nations from challenging Israeli violations of international humanitarian law – was somehow not supportive enough of Israel,” Professor Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, wrote in an article for Foreign Policy in Focus.

“It was also a demonstration of just how determined the Democratic Party leadership is to undermine the Middle East peace process and weaken international law, even if it means running roughshod over their members and thereby hurting their chances in November,” Zunes said.

Other observers were much more explicit about the role of the pro-Israel lobby in the incident.

John Mearsheimer, a professor of politics at the University of Chicago and co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, says that this episode reflected how out of touch U.S. leaders are with public opinion on Israel and the Palestinians.

“I don’t think the flap over Jerusalem will have any effect on the election, since there is no evidence that Obama was responsible for the problem and he fixed it right away,” Mearsheimer told IPS.

“Nevertheless, what happened yesterday was very important because we saw right before our own eyes that the president and his lieutenants were caving into pressure from Israel and the lobby, but at the same time, there was significant opposition to what Obama was doing among the rank and file in the Democratic Party.

“Actually, this is not surprising if you look at public opinion polls on how the American people think about our special relationship with Israel. The evidence is clear that the public is generally pro-Israel, but not so much as to justify the present relationship, where we give Israel more aid than any other country and give it unconditionally.”

Notably, while Obama visibly intervened to change the party platform, he made no mention of Jerusalem in his convention speech, and barely touched upon Israel at all, confining his remarks to a pro forma statement that “Our commitment to Israel’s security must not waver, and neither must our pursuit of peace.”

Obama also was sparing in his remarks on Iran, which has been dominating U.S. foreign policy for the past year. While this may all reflect a general preference of both candidates to speak to ongoing domestic economic issues in this election, some observers thought there might be some small indication of the beginnings of a shift in pro-Israel influence on U.S. foreign policy.

“Like everyone who saw this appalling misprision of democracy by the Democratic National Convention, I was struck by the blatancy of the political manipulation on view,” former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told IPS.

“Whatever the merits of the issue itself in terms of campaign politics, the Israel Lobby can have done itself no good by exposing its contempt for the opinion of the delegates now gathered in Charlotte in this way.”

Mearsheimer agreed. “What makes the special relationship (between the U.S. and Israel) work is the fact that the lobby is deadly effective at putting pressure on American politicians and policymakers to support Israel no matter what. If the public had a real say in our policy toward Israel, we would have a very different policy than we now have. Wednesday, that point was driven home clearly on our TV screens for all to see. Nothing like that has ever happened before.”

Kosher, in spoken English, might mean ‘proper’, ‘acceptable’, ‘legitimate’. Yet, sourced in the Bible, the Hebrew word incontrovertibly finds its way in Jewish cuisine. Food is kosher when suitable for consumption – that is, according to a set of religious dietary laws or kashrut.

Motti Shushan is a busy man. Upon entering a legendary establishment located in the centre of town, the kosher food supervisor hastily kisses his fingertips and brushes the ‘mezuzah’, a tiny piece of parchment with a blessing encased in a decorative capsule affixed to the doorpost.

Named ‘Kadosh’ – ‘Holy’ in Hebrew – the 45-year-old café, reputed for its cakes, serves dairy meals only. That is because the eatery is kosher. Sifting flour into a large bowl to ensure it doesn’t contain impurities, Shushan explains the most elemental principles of the most elemental activity – eating.

“The Ancient Testament commands us three times, ‘Thou shalt not boil the kid (young goat) into its mother’s milk’,” he states solemnly, quoting a verse from the Books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. “The divine rules relate first to eating; second, to cooking; third, to selling.”

Shushan expounds the ‘food chain’ built in selling proscribed food. “For financial gratification, a Jew sells proscribed food to a non-Jew who re-sells it to a Jew who, unbeknownst to himself, transgresses the rule about eating.”

A less literary reading of the Bible is offered by Israel Kohl, a scholar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “In Genesis Chapter One, the original vision of God is of a vegetarian world. Creatures eat only grass and vegetables.”

That was too much, reckons the Jewish studies professor. “At the End of Days that’ll usher in the Messiah’s Coming, such idealist diet might be imposed.” Following the Flood sent by God, boiled food is sanctioned, with universal restrictions: cruelty, eating blood, is prohibited.

The inspection of the dairy bistro over, Shushan crosses the street to ‘Noya’, which serves only meat dishes. In the gourmet restaurant’s kitchen, the kosher food supervisor watches over another kosher food supervisor as the latter blesses the bread.

“Why is it forbidden by the Almighty to eat impure animals – camels, rabbits, or owls?” Shushan asks rhetorically. “It isn’t good for the soul. A Jew should maintain a healthy mind in a healthy body if only to study the Holy Scriptures.”

So, what are the commandments of Kashrut?

Apart from the prohibition of mixtures of – and the imperative use of separate sinks and utensils for – dairy and meat foods, the consumption of pig is forbidden. “Unclean, infested with parasites, pigs wallow in their own muck,” Shushan murmurs in disgust. “Our sages teach us, pigs aren’t good for the soul, untouchable.”

Out of the dish, then, are carnivores, birds of prey and scavengers; so are animals without cloven hooves. Chewing the meat of an animal chewing the cud, however, is more than acceptable.

Insects, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, even seashells, are non-kosher, thus non-edible, creatures.

“In Leviticus Chapter 11, the Israelites – only the children of Israel – receive special rules,” – what one can, cannot, eat,” Kohl continues. “Initially, ‘Holy’ means ‘to be separated’. So, one should ‘separate’ kosher from non-kosher animals to become ‘holy’. ‘Holiness’ is about ‘separation’.”

Indeed, dietary rules are the great separator between peoples’ identities, behaviours and cultures. But food is also the great unifier, the necessity of everyone’s daily existence.

Then, there is the commandment to slaughter kosher mammals and fowls according to a precisely-defined process. “The slaughter must sever the jugular vein, carotid artery, oesophagus and trachea in a single continuous movement with a non-serrated, sharp knife,” Shushan says, mimicking the action with his forefinger across his own throat.

“The body must have neither been sick nor had any defect such as lung adhesions or fractured bones,” he cautions.

The blood is then removed through salting from the meat deemed suitable. Fruits and vegetables are cleansed. “I check figs for insect and worm infestation,” Shushan explains. “If the figs’ minority is healthy, the convention is, all figs are clean. You can’t just check every single fruit,” he protests.

Last but not least, the prohibition of consuming food cooked by a non-Jew. “A Jew must put the pot on the stove and light it; a non-Jew can then continue the cooking.” A tricky edict as both chef and cook are Muslim – but that doesn’t perturb them.

“Neither Jewish nor Muslim nor Christian – here, we’re family,” proclaims Mahmoud Mahmoud, the cook. Chef Genady Ghazzia has a saying, “Whoever swims the sea can swim the pool. Sure, kosher food’s a challenge but, with us Muslims, it’s similar: what’s permissible (‘Halal’) is permissible; what’s prohibited (‘Haram’) is prohibited.”

Once all conditions are met, the Rabbinate adorns restaurants with a kosher certificate.

Avi Rosenboym, a non-religious restaurateur, is considering upgrading his Argentinean-style cuisine. “The lure of profit – kosher food is in vogue; customers are more punctilious.”

Meanwhile at Noya, preparations for a special reception are in full steam. Fifty hosts have come to celebrate the ‘halaqah’, the traditional first haircut of the three-year old boy of the Master of Ceremony. “Our families are religious, traditionalist and secular,” explains MC Laurent Cohen. “So, to fulfil everyone, we eat here.”

“There’s room for everyone,” emphasises Yitzhak Danieli, one of the restaurant’s owners, “including for those who don’t necessarily respect kashrut.”

Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers have long tried to decipher the divine intentions that lie behind the stringent code of laws. Is eating spiced with a rational explanation? Must food be understood, digested so to speak?

“This is the Almighty’s commandment pure and simple,” says Shushan, matter-of-factly. “There’s neither logic nor reason.”

Still, in the age of organic food, how not succumb to the temptation of justifying kashrut rituals by extolling its health-giving virtues. The purpose of kosher food is the fulfilment of God’s will and wish, Kohl insists. “By putting limitations to mortal desires, for good food, sex, one proclaims that God is above all beings.”

Paramount obedience to God surely doesn’t mean diners can’t revel in earthly, yet kosher (as in ‘legitimate’), delights. The Cohens’ guests seemed to agree.

(END)

A performance of 'Carmen' at the Masada Fortress in the Israeli desert.Pierre Klochendler/IPS.

By Pierre Klochendler
MASADA FORTRESS, Israel, Jun 12 2012 (IPS)

The imposing stronghold is almost transparent, barely noticeable, in the pitch-black desert. On top of the stands, with a thousand kilowatts at his finger’s tip, Avi Yona Bueno turns the night into lights, revealing sets, sites, and sounds. “I’m god,” smiles the lighting designer. “I’m god to my children.”

For five summer nights this week, George Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ is transported from the bull arena of Seville to the lowest point on earth, at the foot of the ancient fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site of majestic beauty that rises from the Judean desert and dominates the Dead Sea.

The popular opera tells the story of the free and fiery Spanish gypsy torn between her love for Don Jose, a dragoon soldier, and for Escamillo the toreador.

Who doesn’t know that “love’s a gypsy’s child that’s never known the law”? Seductive arias and wild flamenco choreography are performed in extravagant costumes in this grandiose celebration of passion and hatred. “It’s like being on a movie set!” exclaims Nancy Fabiola Herera, ‘Carmen’, while putting a final touch of powder on her beaming face in the make-up tent.

On stage, the Venezuelan diva enflames the audience – in turn temptress eating a red apple; temple of seduction cajoling ‘Don Jose’; femme fatale pointing a knife at the dragoon’s crotch; rebellious and liberated, as she frees herself from her gaoler’s infatuation, swirling around him with a rope like a lasso, catching his neck – or is it his heart? “It’s the ultimate job holiday!” marvels Marco Berti, who interprets the mesmerised ‘Don Jose’.

“You’d best beware!” sings ‘Carmen’, to the Cuban dance Habanera – lest you lose your head and heart to the most stunning opera performance ever produced in Israel. Berti is bewildered: “Who thinks of staging an opera in the desert, nobody in the world!”

But not all is wonderful. “Sometimes with the desert wind, it gets very dusty; and with the scorching heat, it’s not easy for us,” complains Herera. “But it makes it very real.” Anna Malavesi, her back-up, fell ill during the rehearsals.

For a night at the opera purists might indeed prefer the enclosed venue of a theatre, where recitalists act less and sing without microphones. “It’s not only about the voices – it’s about the show, the whole thing. It’s more striking. For that, it’s better. For us as singers, it’s a challenge,” acknowledges Herera with a smile.

The challenge by numbers: 750 local and international performers in 3,000 costumes including the soloists, the flamenco dancers, the musicians of the Israeli Opera Symphony Orchestra, the Israeli Opera Choir and the Encore Youth Choir. All in all, 2,500 participate in this lavish production.

Not to mention the horses. “The crowd, the lights, the smoke, the castanets – there’s a lot of pressure on them,” explains Dubby Selman, the animal coordinator. “I’m very loose on the reins when I don’t want anything; and I’m very tight when I want something. I teach them how to swallow their fear,” he demonstrates on the neighing Goldstar.

Fear of losing her voice had Herera perform more like a cabaret singer than an opera recitalist during the dress rehearsal – with occasional mezzo-soprano bursts.

A 66-metre deep by 60-metre wide stage covers a full 4,000 square metres; specially-erected stands with 7,500 aficionados every night – in total, 40,000 are expected to attend this festival of lights and sounds, including 4,000 cultural tourists. “What better way to celebrate our honeymoon than to watch Carmen!” a British visitor says exuberantly during the entr’acte.

It’s taken a whole year of preparations to produce such a sumptuous show. “The reward is huge. First of all, the hotels’ occupancy – the hotels in the area and in Jerusalem are full,” explains Dov Litvinov, head of the Dead Sea Regional Council. “For us, it’s better than a worldwide advertising campaign.”

Call it a hall of culture or a hall of nature, ‘Carmen’ in Masada adds to the trend of producing major cultural events in archaeological and other biblical sites. This week, the Israeli opera also performs Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ at Zedeqiyah’s Cave, a huge antique grotto located near Nablus Gate, under the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

“We receive – everybody, the audience, the performers – a very special energy. Masada is like a second Jerusalem!” the theatrical Berti emphasises, his tenor voice ringing out at the mirror of the dressing tent.

The “second Jerusalem” is in fact the closing chapter of the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans in the first century CE. The besieged rebels killed themselves to escape slavery. Now 2,000 years on, the last stand of the rebels has become the national symbol of a long struggle for liberation and independence. Masada personifies their people’s resolve to live freely in their own land, say Israelis.

Performing an opera comique about lust, desire and temptation in such tragic decor would seem incongruous. Not for Litvinov. “So many years have passed since the Masada tragedy. Yet, we, the Jews, are still here, staging a mega-production. This is the main thing – we are here – not the kind of opera we bring here.”

Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ and ‘Aida’ were staged here over the last two years. “It shows an unknown cultural facet of Israel to the world,” adds Hanna Munitz, the Israeli Opera director.

Notwithstanding the pride – national and cultural – shared by the organisers, Herera finds common ground between her ‘Carmen’ and Masada. “At the end, there’s redemption, somehow. The Masada people died because they believed in their liberty. Before being captured by the Romans, they decided to die free, and ‘Carmen’ is the same. She prefers death before she compromises herself to anything else that is not her freedom.”

A group of Palestinian Jerusalemites steps down from a crowded bus to let two Israeli soldiers climb aboard to check identity cards, below the aluminum roof of this newly operational checkpoint terminal.

Outside, Israel’s concrete separation wall snakes around the Shuafat refugee camp, an overcrowded and depressed Palestinian neighbourhood that, while within the geographical boundaries of Jerusalem, is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the city.

“It’s a five-star checkpoint,” Fadi Abbasi tells IPS. Abbasi is in charge of projects and fundraising at the Shuafat refugee camp’s only women’s centre, which offers psychosocial, educational and empowerment services to women and children.

More than 20,000 Palestinians live in the Shuafat refugee camp. About half are Jerusalem residents and carry blue ID cards; they must now cross the checkpoint on their way to work and school, and to get services in the rest of Jerusalem.

“The Israelis are looking to make us visitors in Jerusalem, not residents,” Abbasi says. “Without work, without income, without any services from the municipality, they don’t give us a chance to build or do anything.”

More than 30,000 right-wing Israelis marched through Palestinian neighbourhoods on May 20 to mark Jerusalem Day, the 45th anniversary of Israel’s takeover of East Jerusalem in 1967 and the so-called “reunification” of the city. While Israel declared Jerusalem its “eternal and indivisible” capital in 1980, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem remains unrecognised by the international community.

Life in the Shuafat refugee camp contradicts this official Israeli line, which paints Jerusalem as a unified city whose residents benefit equally from municipal investment. In reality, the accessibility of services and overall quality of life remains drastically different on either side of the city.

“The gravity of the situation in East Jerusalem is the product, first and foremost, of Israeli policy making. For decades Israel has pursued a policy that has led to the debilitation of East Jerusalem in every respect,” wrote The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in a report titled ‘Policies of Neglect in East Jerusalem’ released last month.

ACRI estimated that of the over 360,800 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, 78 percent live below the poverty line. Currently, 84 percent of the children in Jerusalem also live in poverty.

“Both Israeli law and international law obligate the State of Israel to meticulously ensure the rights of East Jerusalem residents, and to seek unique solutions particular to their political situation. But over the past 45 years, both municipal and state authorities have instead conducted a policy of neglect and violation of the basic rights of the residents,” the report found.

The separation barrier and checkpoints separating Palestinian neighbourhoods from Jerusalem – which formerly acted as the bustling centre of Palestinian economic, cultural and political life – has now made accessing the city an arduous, if not impossible, task.

It is estimated that 90,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites now find themselves on the other side of the separation barrier, including residents of the Shuafat refugee camp.

“The Shuafat camp is also an area which is very sensitive because the (Palestinian Authority) cannot go in, and the Israeli police also doesn’t want to go in,” explained Ilona Kassissieh, public information officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNRWA provides services to five million registered Palestinian refugees in camps throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. In the Shuafat refugee camp, UNRWA operates three schools and a health clinic, and runs a variety of social programmes.

“Since the people have access to Jerusalem, they try to go and access the labour market in Jerusalem, but of course the opportunities are scarce. So there is a considerably high number of school dropouts and a high rate of unemployment,” said Kassissieh, adding that since most residents of the Shuafat refugee camp are youth, providing educational and social programmes is crucial.

Twenty-five-year-old Bara’a Ghaith has lived in the Shuafat refugee camp her whole life. Now volunteering four days a week at the camp’s women’s centre, she leads health-related workshops for children between the ages of 12-18.

“Many older people don’t accept the way we work with children. But I’m trying to improve the quality of life and give the children more education and help with their confidence,” Ghaith told IPS.

“Most people in the camp are searching for a way to breathe. That’s all they are asking for.”