JERUSALEM: Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab neighborhood, is gradually becoming a symbol of the struggle over the character and future of Jerusalem as a city of diverse neighborhoods, religions and communities who strive to live side by side in dignity and peace.
Recently a group of right-wing nationalist Jews effectively exploited legal documents in a bid to start taking over this neighborhood, evict its residents and raise the Israeli flag over its houses.
Their Israeli flag isn’t our Israeli flag – the flag of the Declaration of Independence that extends an open hand to our Arab neighbors. Instead, it is a flag of domination, dispossession and humiliation; not a symbol of identification with the wonderful human mosaic of our unique city – but a symbol of regression and a destructive coercion.
I have been a citizen of this city for 50 years. During this time, Jerusalem has known good times and hard times. Today, the future of this city depends on whether or not we begin to understand that Sheikh Jarrah represents a problem which is, in the words of outgoing Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, “not a legal one . It is, rather, a moral and political problem and has therefore become our responsibility as citizens of the capital and the state. Yes, it is true that the settlers also have an ideal of Jerusalem. But it is not possible to realize their ideal without undermining all the precious assets that make up this city.
The solution depends on how determined we are to prevent the destruction of the unique experience that characterizes Jerusalem – the daily human encounter between Jews, Muslims, Christians and others – an encounter that takes place under the auspices of this glowing city, in the rare beauty of its skies, its buildings and its houses of prayer.
There is nothing that threatens this city more than the weakness of the government and citizens vis-à-vis this group of settlers’ determination to shrink the grand human dimensions of Jerusalem to the narrow confines of their reclusive world, a world which is blind to the Other. We must safeguard Jerusalem as the place where one day the angel of peace will be born and perhaps even the place from where the Messiah – patiently awaited by my grandfathers in their graves on the Mount of Olives – will one day emerge.
A zealous Jerusalem which lacks compassion, an occupied city which banishes everything that is sacred (as one of the slogans in the demonstration read), such a city in which the residents are becoming enemies to one another, will deteriorate before long to bloodshed. And if this is indeed what will happen, if Jerusalem is a lost city which this generation will not succeed to rescue, build and glorify – it will become a another sad layer of ruins for future archaeologists.
I am standing here amongst about 400 demonstrators. The police prevents us from walking to the houses that have been “conquered by the settlers. Across the way, the police, the fist of the state, line up in perfect assembly. This is the fist which is meant to safeguard freedom of expression within the framework of law and order and not order and law at the expense of freedom of expression, something that the judges from the Jerusalem Magistrate’s court no doubt understood when they ruled that the weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah were not unconstitutional as the police has claimed.
Are the soldiers of the police’s special reconnaissance unit aware that we the citizens are the ones who have given them the powers that they now hold? Are they aware that we are not the enemy and that as an arm of the government they are our emissaries? Does the tough looking officer with the stern face who leads them recognize that it is our duty and obligation as citizens to protect the moral and social fabric of our city? That we are the ultimate source of legitimacy for the power that he wields? And beyond this, will the Israeli public begin to understand who is really dividing Jerusalem and tearing it apart?
The demonstrators are lit by the dappled sunlight of a wintery Friday afternoon. Amidst the crowd, Palestinian children walk around carrying trays of coffee cups and biscuits. Perhaps they understand that those congregated here are demanding the chance to make a choice about the kind of city we will live in – all of us, with our children and grandchildren. Next to me are a group of student drummers creating a circle of rising percussion beats in a rhythm which focuses but also purifies the anger.
Jewish and Arab drivers slow down as they pass us so that they can read our signs and listen to the sounds. Are these the first signs of an awakening of the dormant civic conscience or an illusion and another disappointment? Is this a bitter cry or a ray of hope that the few who have congregated here will become many?
Professor Yaron Ezrahi is a political philosopher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
