The view from Bethelehem

Christian Century, March 19, 1997 by James M. Wall

On the February afternoon that Israel approved the construction of a new Jewish settlement located on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, I drove with Dr. Saleem al-Anati to the Sho'afat refugee camp, where he has lived since he came there as a four-year-old in 1964. We talked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that Israel would build a settlement, called Har Homa, on a forest-covered mountain known as Jabal Abu Ghneim. Israel claims that it has annexed that area as part of greater Jerusalem. No other nation acknowledges this move as legal, but the settlement will become one more of Israel's "facts on the ground."

The Palestinians argue that Har Homa violates the Oslo accords, which forbid any changes in the status of Jerusalem until the Palestinians and Israel agree on the final status of the city. That argument is not likely to change Israel's policy of encircling East Jerusalem with settlements. The Western democracies have offered only mild protests as Israel has moved steadily toward its goal of taking over Jerusalem and most of the West Bank. Its policy since 1967 has been to redesign Jerusalem's borders and reduce its Palestinian population to a minority status.

On my previous visit in 1994 I noticed that Israel's plan to build a solid wall of housing around the eastern side of the expanded borders of the city was almost accomplished. Only a few gaps remained. Har Homa will just about complete the project.

One can stand in Manger Square in Bethlehem and see the mountain where Har Homa will be constructed. Despite the objections of President Clinton, the United Nations and most of the free world, the bulldozers are likely to start their work in a few weeks.

Israel's strategy for taking over all of Jerusalem as its "undivided and united capital" has been brilliant. It has proceeded settlement by settlement. The new Palestinian authority, which has now been allowed--and that is the proper term--to govern eight large population centers in the West Bank and Gaza, still dreams of creating a Palestinian state in the small patches of space the Palestinians gained in the Oslo accords. But those agreements were governed by an Israeli strategy to reduce any future Palestine state to a collection of isolated cantons, connected only by highways controlled by the Israeli army.

The Oslo accords say that the "final status" of Jerusalem will be determined at a later date, but the claim is an empty one, since it tacitly accepts the decades-old Israeli policy of confiscating land, constructing bypass roads for use by Jewish citizens only, and building housing developments throughout the West Bank. These actions have already determined the final status of the city. All that remains are the formalities and the occasional protest.

At Dr. Anati's third-floor walk-up flat in the refugee camp, we found his three younger children watching a television drama. It was too cold to play outside in the cluttered alleyways. Elsewhere in the building, the adult members of his extended family watched news reports on the Har Homa project. Netanyahu promised that he would build 3,000 new Arab homes along with the 6,400 units for Jews in Har Homa, but Dr. Anati's mother, who was expertly assembling a large number of cakes, declared that Israel would do nothing for the Palestinians.

She apparently agrees with Connie Bruck, who wrote in the New Yorker (October 14, 1996) that Netanyahu, after living many years in the U.S., has become "adept at sound bites and sloganeering." Netanyahu's sound bite played well in the U.S., which is the only other public outside of Israel that matters to Netanyahu. But no Israelis or Palestinians expect him to keep his promise.

Netanyahu's linking of Arab and Jewish housing does indeed register as hollow when one drives through Sho'afat, a wretched collection of garbage-filled alleyways and block buildings which house 15,000 Palestinians. The camp is now completely surrounded by shining new Israeli settlements. Immediately north of the camp is a Jewish settlement still under construction, and a few hundred yards further north is the village of Hizmeh, where on the previous night three Israeli soldiers in civilian clothes, reportedly on a training mission, opened fire on villagers, killing one man and wounding 14.

Dr. Anati, who was trained as a medical doctor in Romania, works mornings in a Mother and Child Care Center run by the Greek Catholic Society. He also voluntarily operates a medical clinic in his home. His office is a closet-sized corner of one of two rooms in the family living quarters.

The Anatis and their five children live on the third floor, above the original room into which Anati's parents moved when they were evicted from Jerusalem's Old City in 1964. His extended family now occupies all three floors.

In addition to serving as camp physician--he buys the medicine and medical equipment himself--Anati chairs a camp committee which directs a community Center for Rehabilitation. Anati has a strong bond with United Methodists in the U.S., who have promised him $10,000 for the center later this year. United Methodists from the U.S. work as summer volunteers at the center (students from Duke University came last year).