Ken Berwitz
East Jerusalem, longthe emotional heart of Palestinian life,is now the fiery soul of its discontent. Youactually think this “fiery discontent in Jerusalem just started? Great start, jodi. Terrific credibility builder.
It is not just thatmost of the young people suspected in this month\’s spate of stabbing attackscame from within the city borders, like the 18-year-old college student whoseresidency is being revoked by Israel afterthe police said she stabbed a Jewish man in the back. Oooohhh, she\’s being punished for stabbing a Jew in theback? How dare those Israeli bastards.
It is that herneighborhood of 18,000, Sur Baher, is also home to people like Fuad Abu Hamed,a successful businessman who condemns the wave of violence but shares thefrustration and alienation underlying this new uprising.
Mr. Abu Hamed, 44, isa lecturer at Hebrew University who runs two clinics in Israel\’s health system,and lives in a comfortable home among Sur Baher\’s tangle of crowded hills. Theview from his balcony is of sprawling Jewish enclaves that he said were”built on our lands,” and the ugly barrier Israel erected that splitsSur Baher from the occupied West Bank. Forthe millionth time, this land was never ruled by Palestinian Arabs. Never, ever. Not even for one day. Israel won Gaza from Egyptand Judea and Samaria (aka the west bank) from Jordan. Not from”Palestinian Arabs” Before Egypt and Jordan, the British ruled it. Before the British, it was the Ottoman Empire – which brings us back to the middle ages. But no mention that Palestinian Arab “history” was invented here. No, no, no. Not from rudoren.
These days, he canalso see the Israeli soldiers who have blocked two of the neighborhood\’s exitsand set up a checkpoint to search cars at the third, making the city\’s psychicdivision all the more concrete. And why did thishappen jodi? you don\’t mention, but I will. It is because when apopulation starts attacking another population wholesale, that other populationis going to do something about it.
For Israeli Jews, the outbreak of seemingly random attacks byPalestinians is both a vexing challenge to contain and a reminder of theinherent conundrum in their vision of a united Jerusalem.
For many of the320,000 Arab residents, the violence is a consequence of years of feeling likethe neglected stepchildren of both City Hall and the Palestinian Authority,which is headquartered in the West Bank and is barred from operating inJerusalem. They do not feel wanted here, or part of what is happening there. Uh…these are the same Palestinian Arabs whose”moderate” leader, abu abbas, signed a unity agreement with hamas, with its charter that specifically calls for the obliteration of Israel and death ofall Jews – not just in Israel but everywhere on earth. Ever think thatmight marginalize them to Israelis, jodi? As far as them feelingneglected by the Palestinian Authority, are they stabbing members of the PA inthe back too? Oh, they aren\’t, not one of them? Then maybe yourclaim of equvalency is a load of BS.
Civic and cultural institutionsdecamped years ago for the West Bank city of Ramallah. In Arab East Jerusalem,there are too few classrooms, and too many dropouts. It is difficult to get apermit to expand a home; 98 illegal structures were demolished last year.Three-quarters of the population lives below Israel\’s poverty line. When your reason for being is to incite, tohate and to kill Jews, then maybe that has a little something to do with thepoverty problems. Just suggesting….
The uptick in aggression did not begin with the two dozen attacks thathave killed seven Israeli Jews, five of them in Jerusalem, since Oct. 1. (Atleast 16 suspected assailants have been shot dead by Israelis, including fourSaturday, along with more than 20 other Palestinians in clashes with securityforces). East Jerusalem has been a hotbed sinceJuly 2014, when Jewish extremists kidnapped and murdered MuhammadAbu Khdeir, a 16-year-old from the Shuafat neighborhood. Gotthat? East Jerusalem has been a hotbed only for the past 15 months…notfrom the day Israel was created, not to mention time immemorial. And thereason? Why it was those JEWS, that\’s why. If those extremists hadnot kidnapped and murdered one 16 year old, none of this would ever havehappened. I mean, it\’s not like Palestinian Arabs were kidnapping andkilling Jews until then, is it? Not like this was almost certainly retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by Palestinian Arabs the month before…which was celebrated by these nice folks whose plight you are championing.
