Photos from left, clockwise: refugee camp and separation wall; Tour guide and participants; new building at Har Homa--outlying Jewish neighborhood; view of security fence and olive orchard cut off from nearby Bethlehem; writing on wall in Abu Dis.
“You will get a headache,” said our guide, as we began our four-hour journey by bus around the “backyard” of Jerusalem to “see the facts on the ground.” The tour, taking us through some of the large Jewish suburban developments ringing the city outside the pre-1967 green line, as well as through several of the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem adjacent to or bisected by the security barrier, is offered in English twice weekly (and in Hebrew the rest of the time), by Ir Amim, an organization dedicated to finding creative, multilateral approaches to seemingly insoluble dilemmas in the status, governance and growth of Jerusalem. For the 3/4 million Israelis and Arabs who live in the neighborhoods that the city now encompasses, the “facts” are not just demarcation lines on a map. They reflect the everyday fabric of their lives---whether their apartments will be shot at; whether the erection of a barrier will provoke more violent retaliation from their neighbors; whether the city will grow in a coherent, governable and sustainable way; whether they will be able to reach their olive groves, businesses, or friends and family on the other side of the separation barrier; whether they will have adequate housing, city services and schooling for their children.
The tour brings these concerns to life in a way that reading about them or simply looking at a two-dimensional map cannot. It also makes very clear why this city is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum and drives home (pun intended) the realization that no progress will be made in the current impasse without some kind of sustainable bi-lateral plan for the city. No wonder one ends the tour with a spinning head. It takes several days to decompress and sort out the conflicting impressions; a repeat trip is probably necessary to incorporate all the information into one’s thinking about the many complex issues. Indeed, our Jerusalemite friend Myriam (Simone Lipman’s niece) told us she has taken the tour three or four times over recent years to keep up with the latest developments, exactly as Ir Amim hopes Israelis will do.
Boarding the bus, we received a color-coded map to help us understand the geopolitical dimensions of the areas we would be viewing—blue for the Israeli neighborhoods, orange for Arab/Palestinian areas, green for the line marking the pre-1967 division of the city between Israel and Jordan, and a red squiggly line representing the existing and proposed sections of the separation barrier. It’s quite easy to see from this map how the build-up of Jewish neighborhoods on the city’s periphery has significantly reduced the relevance of the green line as a meaningful demarcation between Israeli and Palestinian areas of concentrated population. Our guide, a young man in his mid-30’s, explained that when he hikes around the city with his father, even he, a 70 year old man who has lived in Jerusalem almost his entire life, cannot remember the exact location of the green line, so drastically has the growing fabric of the city obliterated it. When the state of Israel was created, Jerusalem--central to Jews, Muslims and Christians--was supposed to become an “international city”, although the details were never spelled out. After the Israeli war of independence that option remained unexplored and the city was split in two with Israel controlling West Jerusalem and Jordan administering East Jerusalem. Jordan did little to develop their portion of the city and most of the educated or prosperous segments of the Palestinian population moved elsewhere. Since 1967 when the entirety of the city came under Israeli authority, planning has been driven by demographic, political and security considerations: maintain secure vantage points, take land, leave out as much of the Arab population as possible. So today, without an effective bilateral approach to future development, the mirage of Jerusalem as “two viable capitols of two states” recedes ever further into the future
Because the tours are not meant to impose a particular “solution”, but rather to empower participants to craft their own viewpoint by putting the facts together for themselves, the guide skillfully gave voice to many different perspectives on difficult issues. For example at one stopping point, a vista from Mt. Scopus looking towards the contested Jewish satellite town of Ma’ale Adumim, he used his hat to enact a dialogue about how much territory to include within the separation barrier surrounding this large suburb: “on the one hand” (hat on)…. “on the other hand” (hat off)….back and forth. There are no easy solutions here: for example should the barrier include enough land for future development with a road for safe access to central Jerusalem for the residents and secure access to the Dead Sea OR should the area not be encircled so as not to further reduce and severe portions of the West Bank from each other-- but leaving the Jewish suburban enclave “hanging out to dry,” making the Gaza pull-out look like a picnic.
Lew took great notes and I recommend his write-up to those who have not already read it.
Here are a few of the strong impressions I came away with:
Standing on a hill at the edge of Gilo (a strategically placed Jewish neighborhood (population 30,000+) overlooking Bethlehem and Beit Jala):
Gilo is one of the post-1967 areas the Israelis built in strategic locations on the hills surrounding the city in order to maintain good security vantage points and sustain a demographic balance of 70% Jews/not more than 30% Arabs within Jerusalem. The government provides subsidies and the rents here less expensive than in the central areas—a plus for the larger religious families seeking more space. Nevertheless this demographic goal is declining due to the failure to retain or encourage immigration to the city by young Jewish families and the higher birthrates among the Arab population.
On the edge of the neighborhood the apartment blocks facing Beit Jala across the valley, were frequent targets for sharpshooters. Not very far away we can see the heavily damaged house in Beit Jala that received the brunt of the retaliation from Israeli defense forces. The guide said he used to enjoy going to the cafes and wandering the charming streets of Beit Jala, a pastime that is no longer possible. Pointing to the red tiled roof of a monastery on the vineyard-covered hill next to Beit Jala, “a little bit of Tuscany,” he said, “there is where a couple of young lovers were murdered.” He then relayed his own personal experience with pre-barrier violence. After completing his army service he decided to go to India, as many youth do, to travel and unwind. At his departure his parents offered to take him to the airport but he said he would take the bus. As a passenger on bus #18, he felt the shock and extreme heat from the explosion of the bus behind them that was blown up by a suicide bomber. When he arrived in India, someone asked if he had heard the news about a suicide bombing. He said he had been there but when he got to a TV he realized from the reporting that there had been yet another incident. He cited statistics that revealed that Jersualem experienced a disproportionate number of violent incidents. With the barrier in place these type of incidents have declined but a new type of violence is occurring—mayhem from tractors driven into central Jerusalem by residents of Arab neighborhoods within the separation walls. A close friend of Myriam (Simone’s niece) was killed in the most serious incident on Jaffa Rd., a very busy street that runs from the central bus station all the way through the center of the city.
From our vantage point in Gilo we see the separation barrier in the valley below adjacent to Bethlehem. In this section it is a barbed wire fence with cleared swathes of land and access roads for the security patrols on either side. The guide explained that even though the concrete wall seen elsewhere is ugly, it actually displaces less land and uproots fewer trees. On the Israeli side of the fence we see an olive grove that belongs to a man in Bethlehem who must now traverse a roundabout route through a checkpoint to get to his land and harvest his olives. His land was going to be appropriated but the process has been halted and for now he retains his tenure. Even more striking, a cluster of very tiny Arab villages whose residents did not apply for Israeli residence status in 1967, and since then have neither asked for nor received municipal services, but who now are basically in limbo, cut off from their friends, relations, and shops within spitting distance in Bethlehem.
Driving from Gilo and Har Homa (another huge complex of apartments on the southern side of the city) through a series of Arab neighborhoods, we are struck by the contrast between the amenities in the Jewish enclaves and the lack of municipal services in the Arab neighborhoods. As we make our way around a traffic circle the bus traverses up a narrow, potholed, garbage strewn road with no gutters or sidewalks, to access the east Jerusalem village of Sar Bahir and the areas on the eastern side of the old city--from the developed world to the Third World in a few hundred feet. The new Jewish suburbs have new apartment blocks, well-lit and well-maintained roads and sidewalks, parks and play areas. The Arab neighborhoods lack all these, an unfair situation that is certainly not made any better by their refusal to participate in municipal elections, thus denying themselves representation in the city council. Nevertheless, although they have residency status rather than citizenship, they do pay taxes and are thus entitled to city services, which they are not receiving. They city has not developed any new housing in these areas, despite the fact that the population has quadrupled. Mortgages are not available and building permits are extremely difficult to come by given the cumbersome bureaucracy, language differences and lack of resources to hire lawyers to expedite the process. Of course, since people need to house their growing families, this leads to illegal building (and demolishing) without proper consideration for safety codes (a tragedy waiting to happen if an earthquake occurs) and environmental impact. The bus pauses for several minutes as we view the tent with a black flag perched on the site of a house demolition which the residents have since abandoned. As we drive on we learn that there are 1300 fewer classrooms than are needed to educate the children in these areas and a disproportionate percentage of the residents are poor. Just down the road, the guide points out a new self-contained development for religious Jews, financed by a wealthy American, and one wonders how they can close their eyes to the conditions next door.
Next we come to a section of the wall that separates the community of Abu Dis near the Mount of Olives. This place is one of the most frequently photographed sections and also the site of many protests due to its particularly sad bisection of a very populous, thriving neighborhood. As we pause here at a small gas station and convenience store for a bathroom and ice cream break, we can see the Dome of the Rock not far away.
Looking at the graffiti written on the wall— “Abu Dis” ghetto/ Warsaw ghetto with arrows, our guide says in a choked voice, “Every time it’s hard to look at this because my father is a Holocaust survivor.” As today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, I am sharing a link to an interesting column by Gideon Levy in HaAretz about the mistake of conflating these two very terrible situations.
Our last stop was perhaps the most shocking of the day. Perched on a hill to the north of Mt.Scopus and the French Hill neighborhood, we looked across a ravine to a run down refugee camp situated between two middle class Arab neighborhoods containing 30,000 residents, all of whom must exit the area through a single checkpoint to access their jobs and other business in central Jerusalem. It would be an understatement to say we were dumbfounded to learn that there is a refugee camp under Israeli authority.
I’ll leave off my narrative here and let you think about what you have read and, if you want to learn more, I encourage you to look at the Ir Amim and Bimkom websites, two organizations which are trying to bring some sane perpectives to this balagan (mess).
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