March 19th & 20th – Shiekh Jarrah and Bethlehem
On the recommendation of the activists I stayed with in Tel Aviv, I made my way to Jerusalem in time to attend a demonstration outside the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. I was going to attend one of the demonstrations that has been happening at the wall by the West Bank village of Bi’lin every Friday for the past five years, but there was not room for me in the carpool from Tel Aviv. Later that day I read in the Jerusalem post that Israel would not longer be allowing Israelis and internationals into Bi’lin and Ni’lin (another West Bank demonstration sight) on Fridays between 8am and 8pm, essentially precluding future non-Palestinian presence at these famous demonstrations (in the past five years the Bi’lin demonstrations have attracted such big hitters as Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and Desmond Tutu, among others).
Despite not being able to attend the demonstration in Bi’lin, the demonstration outside the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah was a huge eye opener. The situation in Shiekh Jarrah (offensively titled the Hebrew name on the map I got at my hostel) is unique, even for east Jerusalem.
Some context: Sheikh Jarrah lies in the overwhelmingly Palestinian-Arab populated east Jerusalem. Between 1949 (following Israel’s war of Independence, referred to by Palestinians as “Nakba,” or the tragedy) and 1967 (The Six Day War), all of the West Bank including the eastern side of Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. Israel took control of this territory following the Six Day War, and made an important distinction between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank: all of Jerusalem was to be annexed for Israel, while the rest of the West Bank has since 1967 has found itself in a more complicated and ambiguous situation. Since the West Bank was acquired by Israel during wartime, international law and the UN make no distinction between east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, both are considered to be under illegal occupation. Besides the ill timing coinciding with Biden’s visit to Israel, these issues of international law are at the center of the recent controversy over Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1600 more settlements in East Jerusalem.
An Jewish Israeli woman holds a sign that reads: "Stop the settler violence"
In 1956, while east Jerusalem was under Jordanian sovereignty, Jordan resettled 28 families of 1948 Jaffa refugees to the neighborhood that we now know as Sheikh Jarrah. Since 1967 these Palestinian families have found themselves under Israeli sovereignty.
Over the last decade, Israel has been battling in the courts with inhabitants of Sheikh Jarrah, trying to have them evicted from their homes so that Jewish families can move in. After ten years of legal battles, Israel evicted the first three Palestinian families – 53 people – from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah last August. So far 8 Jewish Israeli families comprising slightly fewer individuals have moved in and replaced the evicted families. Weekly demonstrations have been held in and around the neighborhood since.
What makes the situation in Sheikh Jarrah so unique is the basis for these evictions. Israel claims that Jews had pre-1948 claims to the land, and thus the land should be put back in the hands of Jews. The sad irony is that the Palestinians living there are 1948 refugees from Jaffa. So Israel is on one hand saying that Jews’ claims to pre-1948 land in east Jerusalem are valid, while on the other hand not recognizing Palestinian claims to pre-1948 lands in Jaffa, Haifa, and many other places. It is an absolute double stand
ard.At the demonstration I spoke with a man named Mohammed who has lived in Sheikh Jarrah since 1956 and whose parents were among those who fled Jaffa in ’48 and were originally resettled in Sheikh Jarrah by Jordan. His family is one that Israel is currently trying to evict, though Mohammed has been challenging these attempts in the Israeli courts and says that he has a better prepared defense than the three families that were evicted in August.
I also spoke with Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights. Rabbi Ascherman was kind enough to give me some background history of the neighborhood and the current tensions.
One young woman I met at the protest said that although she can understand how Israel can justify many things in the name of security – even home demolitions sometimes (!), she cannot find any justification for the events unfolding in Sheikh Jarrah.
I finished the day by exploring some parts of the old city we didn’t see on birthright, the market in the Muslim quarter and the Christian quarter. Visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was an intense and incredible experience. Similarly to visiting the Western Wall, I floated between the chanting and robed ranks of the acutely religious and the starry-eyed camera-donning tourists from many nations. With no English, a Greek Orthodox keeper of the Church illustrated with his hands how Jesus was taken from the cross, laid down on the stone that many people were kissing, and then laid down in the tomb ten meters away. Christians of yesteryear certainly did love their relics, but a later conversation with a Christian pilgrim in my hostel instilled some doubt in me that the tomb was actually Jesus’ final resting place.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
I slept soundly in a clean and inexpensive hostel right outside the Damascus gate in east Jerusalem.
Around noon on the following day I connected with KPFA’s Flashpoints‘ correspondent Nora Barrows-Friedman. Nora & Flashpoints take a more radical approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict than Tikkun. Some notable differences include supporting a one state solution (one person, one vote), calling for divestment from Israel, and their use of “apartheid” to describe the situation in the occupied territories.
I still do not know where I stand on one state or two states (or a EU-like confederation of multiple autonomous states). While it seems that, given the situation on the ground, a one state solution would be the most just solution, a two-state solution (that provides real statehood, not the partial autonomy hinted at by Israel in the past) seems much more politically feasible and may be worthwhile to restore some semblance of justice in the foreseeable future. It is a hard question.
Given that Israel has essentially total control over the West Bank (the Palestinian Authority’s actual autonomy is up for debate), and given that the matrix of walls, settler roads, checkpoints, and settlements encroaches far past the green line, I personally agree with that Flashpoints’ apartheid analogy is more apt than not . . . clearly there are strong comparisons that can be made.
I also agree that a targeted divestment would be useful – one that punishes Israeli companies based out of the occupied territories, companies that support the occupation (Caterpillar builds a modified bulldozer for Israel, for the purpose of demolishing Palestinian homes), and, most of all, cuts off military aid (not other kinds) from the USA. This is somewhat of a pipe dream, but it would send the message that the international community (and most importantly the USA) supports Israel, but does not support the occupation, which I believe is the best message to send to Israel for paving a lasting peace. Rabbi Michael Lerner makes the point that a total divestment would kinder the flames of fear, isolation, and alienation in many Jews (further entrenching the victim narrative), and would legitimize the claim made by many Israelis that the world is still against the Jews (indeed there are other countries that are just as deserving of divestment or other punishment for violations of human rights but receive much less attention. At the same time, this conflict is over 60 years old). It is unclear to me at this time where Tikkun stands on a targeted divestment, but my sense is that it is not Tikkun’s most desirable path, but one that could possibly send the right message if done correctly.
A settlement in the distance from Bethlehem
After a quick ride and interesting conversation, Nora dropped me at a nice lunch place in central Bethlehem. My eyes bigger than my stomach, I mistakenly ordered the large Greek salad and ate more Feta cheese than I had eaten in the past six months. The first thing I noticed about Bethlehem was the sheer beauty of the landscape. I’ve been reading about the conflict and about the occupied West Bank for some five years now, and I’ve never heard the beauty mentioned or described in detail – with the one exception being Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks.
Bethlehem sits on and between a series of lush (this time of year anyway) hills, not steep enough to preclude walking far distances but steep enough to require and build a solid strength and resilience in the legs of its inhabitants. Almost every hillside not built up with
homes, shops, and churches is covered in beautiful centuries-old stone terraces supporting rows of olive trees and grape vines. The terraces and orchards have the beauty of that ancient form of organization seen in old city alleyways and stone-laden roads, organizing the landscape without dominating it. They are orderly with purpose, but not mechanically uniform like the ultra-efficient agriculture operations of today.The second thing I noticed about Bethlehem, or Palestine, is that most of the Taxis are Mercedes-Benzes. Not even that old, maybe from the mid nineties. They’re all yellow, and many have roof racks. Some of them are even longer than regular sedans, have six doors, and seat eight people – making them some type of Palestinian taxi / limousine hybrid.
You don’t expect to find luxury cars as taxis when you’re in an occupied country stricken with a 60% unemployment rate (much higher in Gaza). In a later conversation with a young Palestinian activist named Antwan Saca of the Applied Research Institute, it was explained to me that, in Palestine, if a car is not German, it’s really only considered a half a car. This was said with a smile of course, but Antwan went on to tell anecdotes of how Palestinians sometimes pushed their vehicles to the absolute max, driving through orchards, off road, and up and down hills to av0id settler roads and checkpoints. They had pushed their vehicles hard, and the decided that German built meant built to last. Still though, Mercedes cabs in Palestine!
Two towers: Prestigious Intercontinental Hotel in foreground, Wall in background
The third thing I noticed in those initial moments in Bethlehem was the wall. Far in the distance at first, I walked to it after finishing my lunch. I walked around the wall for awhile, taking pictures of some of inspiring, saddening, and sometimes humorous works of art. It was huge and imposing – about nine meters high. I followed its curves and shortly found a small apartment complex enclosed by the wall on three sides. I later found out that this was not the separation wall (which itself often encroaches beyond the green line), but a wall enclosing Rachel’s tomb, the burying place of the matriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
I found my way to the Alternative Information Center in Biet Sahour, a neighborhood on the periphery of Bethlehem, close to the Church of Nativity. The AIC is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization serving as a resource center and producing up-to-date literature about the occupation. They have film screenings, lectures, and other gatherings multiple times a week.
The night carried on in wonderful friendly excitement. I met a wonderful group of Internationals living in Bethlehem, most doing some sort of language teaching – English and German mostly. I met some French girls who were translating different Israeli and Palestinian publications for their French readership – one translating a Palestinian non-profit’s literature, the other translating the Jerusalem Post, a conservative Israeli newspaper. Very few of them were directly involved in resisting the occupation. At first this confused me, but then I learned that it was very difficult to for internationals to conspicuously work in solidarity with Palestinian resistance and also live in Bethlehem for any extended period of time (getting visas renewed). A few of the internationals I met were pretending to live in Israel, elaborately constructing false lives when it came time to fill in details for visa renewals. I heard stories of internationals who had not been so clever nor covert that had their visas arbitrarily denied, and they were unable to return and continue their humanitarian work in the West Bank.
There was a screening of the film “Salt of this Sea” (a story about a Palestinian woman from Brooklyn returning to the land of her parents for the first time) at the AIC, and afterwards I went home with one of the internationals. Because one of her housemates was out for the night, I got to sleep in a comfortable bed and have my own room – a luxury for a couchsurfer. My first day in the West Bank was exciting and new. The wall was present in the distance, encroaching beyond the Green Line and extending to encircle Rachel’s Tomb – a shared religious site for Christians, Muslims, and Jews – but it did not dominate or intrude too far into the experience of that first day. The next day I went to a demonstration in the outskirts of Bethlehem and then into Hebron, and in hindsight I’m glad that I had that first day and was eased into my experience of occupied Palestine.
I know Mike personally and it is a pleasure to read his “dissertation” on his experiences in Israel. He is meticulous in his descriptions and extremely insightful in his assessment of what he has heard and seen on his travels and conversations with people he has met. I very much look forward to his return to California and hearing first hand of his experiences on his trip.