Saturday, October 4, 2008
East Jerusalem's last refuge — Islam
JERUSALEM | A recent string of shootings and vehicle rampages in Israel's capital has focused attention on Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, long regarded as politically moderate and cosmopolitan.
Three incidents involving motor vehicles and a shooting at a Jewish religious school by young East Jerusalemites have prompted Israelis to ask whether the Palestinian residents of the city - who can travel freely throughout the country - pose a greater threat than their brethren in the West Bank.
Israelis fear a new wave of terrorism within their capital, while local Arabs call the evidence circumstantial.
Both sides acknowledge that Islam is on the rise in East Jerusalem. An increasing number of children are studying in religious schools, mosque attendance is up and more women are wearing head scarves.
The 270,000 Arabs living in parts of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 war are considered permanent residents of Israel and have access to the social welfare system. But living at the nexus of the West Bank and Israel has left them in a political vacuum. Israel has given short shrift to education, roads and development in the eastern part of the city while the Palestinian Authority is banned from operating there.
"People are searching for an identity, and in the absence of a political identity, the religious identity is there," said Mohammed Dajani, a professor at Al Quds University and the founder of a Wassatiya, a liberal Islamic political party that supports the Arab-Israeli peace process.
"The problem is that the religious identity being taught in the mosques and the schools is very radical," he said. "What you are being taught is that Islam is the religion of God, and the other ones have strayed."
A drive around the narrow alleys of Sur Baher, a village in the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, recently revealed Islamic graffiti such as "Remember our prophet Muhammad."
A banner draped from one of the Islamic schools in the neighborhood featured a red traffic sign: "Stop! What have you done to prepare yourself for Ramadan?"
At a convenience store across the street from the school, Alia Hammoudeh read a Koran with elaborate calligraphy while her 19-year-old sister, Hanin, explained how the move from a secular school overseen by the Israeli-run municipality to an Islamic high school prompted her to change her dress.
"Now I pray five times a day. I am more disciplined. I am more organized." she said. "Religion has become the sole relief from the Israeli occupation."
While political Islam is on the rise throughout much of the Middle East, Mr. Dajani cited Israel's construction of a separation barrier through the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem as one of the local triggers for the rising religiosity. Other residents mentioned the growing number of Jewish neighborhoods ringing Arab neighborhoods as reason for growing alienation.
In Arab neighborhoods, it is almost impossible to obtain construction permits, road and water infrastructure is inadequate, and there's a shortfall in classroom space.
Some pin the growth in religious expression to the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000. As punishment for the Palestinian Authority's inability to control terrorist attacks, Israel shut down Palestinian government institutions that had been quietly operating in East Jerusalem since the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
However, the Israeli crackdown ignored the mosques and charity groups where Islamist groups have thrived. Today, there are at least 70 organizations in East Jerusalem linked with local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Israeli Islamic Movement inside Israel, said Arnon Regular, a political consultant who specializes in the Palestinian territories.
Most are registered with the Israeli authorities, he said.
"The paradox is that the status of Jerusalem is always becoming more important in the region, but the connection of the Palestinian nationalist movement has decreased," he said. "Amid this void, the Islamist movement has been able to promote themselves in an unprecedented way."
East Jerusalemites have for the most part stayed away from the violence and demonstrations that engulfed the West Bank during two Palestinian uprisings. Some link that quiescence to their status as Israeli residents, while others note that the city's cosmopolitan character made residents less inclined to follow revolutionary ideology.
But the violence over the past nine months is changing perceptions. Israeli police have stepped up patrols in East Jerusalem and the separation barrier has severed some neighborhoods.
Arabs in Jerusalem see the accusations as an excuse to encourage them to relocate out of the city.
"[The Israelis] want to chew the Arab-Israeli conflict like chewing gum, but there's no taste," said Mohammad Jadallah, a community leader in Sur Baher who fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
"We expected to be treated as citizens, in a correct way. People in this community have given up on Israel a long time ago. They are peaceful people who have hope from one source - God."