AxisMundi Jerusalem

Jerusalem Power

To spend the past few days in the crowded, narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, among the multilingual throngs marking Passover or Easter, was to get an unforgettable sense of the power this place has over the minds of millions. It also gives an insight into some of the ways Jerusalem, and control of access to its holy sites, plays into global power politics.

For the majority of Palestinians who are Muslim, as well as for the Islamic world beyond, the Jewish state of Israel’s hold on the city since its capture from Jordan in the 1967 war is a deep grievance. Sporadic violence around the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque has flared again this year.

But with the confluence this year of the Easter calendars of both Western and Eastern churches, as well as the Jewish Passover celebrations, it was the issue of Christian access and the competing claims of different Christian denominations to the holy sites of Jerusalem, that was particularly in focus this past week. And if it was American-accented English that dominated among the visiting Jewish families crowding towards prayers at the Western Wall and which served as a reminder of the powerful alliance Israel enjoys, despite current turbulence, with the United States, it was the Russian spoken by many of the Christian pilgrims which indicated one of the main trends changing the balance of power within that fractured religious community.

The Israeli state insists on its commitment to free access to the Old City for all religion. Complaints over Easter from the Palestinian Christian minority have been met by Israeli assurances that permission to enter Jerusalem is granted where possible and by pleas for understanding of security concerns in a city blighted by violence. There are also concerns about crowd control. Some Israelis also point out that, under Jordanian control from 1948 to 1967, Jews had virtually no access. Local Christians in the, predominantly Greek Orthodox, Christian Quarter and in the Armenian Quarter now complain however, like their neighbours in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, of encroachment on territory by Jewish groups seeking property. Israel says its laws are fair to all. Some among the Old City’s Christian minority, notably clergy, complain of intimidation by Jewish radicals, including spitting on them in the street.

The treatment of minority Christians by Jerusalem’s rulers has long been an issue in diplomacy. In the 19th century, it was the Muslim Turks who found themselves on the receiving end of pressure from the Christian powers of Europe. Even today, codes regulating relations among the Christian denominations are the product of Ottoman attempts to appease international pressure or to keep the peace among the different churches competing for a slice of hallowed ground around the traditional tomb of Jesus.

Standing amid the rumbustious and noisy sectarian jostling at the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday, as the Eastern churches took part in the millennium-old ritual of the Holy Fire, it was this competition among the Christians that was most visible, and also the subject of plenty of conversation in the hours of waiting before the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, followed by a senior Armenian cleric, emerged from the tomb at the heart of the church bearing flaming torches symbolic of the resurrection. Essentially, local Armenians and Greek Orthodox worshipers were asking “Will the Russians take over?”

During the centuries of Ottoman control, as subjects of the sultan, the Greeks had favoured access to Jerusalem while Western churches were left out in the cold. Armenians, too, had insiders’ rights within the Ottoman empire. But as the sultans’ grip weakened, Roman Catholics and Protestants, backed by the rising European imperial powers, staked their claims in the city in the second half of the 19th century. Russia, repeatedly at war with the Turks during that time, was a relative latecomer, however.

“Big Brother” bumbles into West Bank

It’s a reality television show whose contestants are isolated from the outside world, but “Big Brother” in Israel has managed to set off yet another controversy over Palestine policies.

Cameras at the studio-cum-commune outside Jerusalem caught Edna Canetti, a 54-year-old liberal activist, telling fellow residents over the weekend she wanted to see a peaceful popular campaign against Israel’s West Bank occupation.

“It bothers me that you’re silent. What’s needed is a revolt,” she declared after refusing to play along with a challenge in which contestants were divided into two groups — “rich” versus “poor” — with a plexiglass barrier between them.

Shifting to Middle East politics, Canetti said Palestinians should similarly tell Israel: “Shove your laws … We’re not going through that checkpoint and we’re not showing you IDs … This is our land.”

The remarks were in themselves unremarkable for Big Brother, an international franchise whose dramatic formula is based on the premise that very different people, cooped up together for weeks, will grow fractious. Yet while Canetti’s assertions met with bored or exasperated shrugs inside the Big Brother house, they found a far angrier audience on the Israeli far-right.

Michael Ben-Ari, a lawmaker from the National Union party who has himself been the subject of public censure after urging Israeli military conscripts to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from the West Bank, accused Canetti of sedition.

“Mrs. Canetti is, in effect, encouraging Arabs to rise up against the State of Israel, the violation of Israel Defence Force (IDF) troops’ orders, and even open insurrection,” Ben-Ari wrote in a complaint that his spokesman said had been mailed to the Justice Ministry along with a demand for a criminal investigation.

Predicting a Third Intifada

Last week: Sunday – clashes in the Old City of Jerusalem which to some resemble the events that led to the outbreak of the Second Intifada nine years ago; Tuesday – shooting by Palestinians wounds an Israeli motorist in the West Bank; Wednesday – an Israeli Army jeep hitting and killing a 17-year-old Palestinian. (Read more about the September 27th, 2009 clashes here.)

This week: Sunday again – hundreds of Arabs clash again with police in the Old City of Jerusalem. Police briefly block all access to the  al-Aqsa mosque compound.

At the rate things have been going, expecting another act of violence to follow might be the next logical step.

But, looking largely at last week’s Jerusalem clashes, a commentary in the Jerusalem Post, posed an interesting question: Do recent acts of violence portend worse violence? The Jerusalem Post answered No.

Our analysis of the recent violence also shows that talk of a Third Intifada seems premature to most Palestinians. But don’t be too optimistic though, says Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University, as there exists Palestinian discontent with the new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and policies that include settlement growth.

Do you think worse violence is possible in Israel and the Palestinian territories?

Read our FACTBOX on five risks to watch out for in the Middle East.

Meanwhile in the West Bank…

While Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. leaders debated the status of settlement expansion in New York, Palestinian workers carried on building the fenced-off red-roofed suburban enclaves in the West Bank.

With the settlement issue continuing to heat up the discussions, we sent our correspondents to a settlement construction site to see it for ourselves.

Beitar Illit is one of the newer settlements located south of Jerusalem. It was named after the ancient city of Beitar, the last standing Jewish fortress in the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans in the 2nd century.

Do the workers believe a settlement freeze is possible?

“The Jews will never leave the settlements,” one Palestinian labourer told Reuters. “This is a false dream. What was taken by force will only be won back by force.”

Click below to see our visit to Beitar Illit on September 23, 2009, the day after the trilateral summit:

Operation Goldstone?

Israeli media reacted strongly to the report issued by the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza  Conflict, which criticised both the Israeli military and Palestinian militants for actions that could be considered war crimes during the December-January Gaza War. A “declaration of war” and “classic anti-Semitism” against Israel were some of the descriptions used by the Israeli media . (Read more about the report here.)

The media reports noted that Justice Richard Goldstone, a South African, is Jewish.

Media coverage in Israel generally addressed the question of the report’s factual accuracy. Commentators also cited fears in Israel that on the basis of the report, its military officers and politicians could face foreign prosecution, during overseas trips, for alleged crimes against humanity.  All agreed the Goldstone report would cause further damage to Israel’s international image.

“Hundreds of millions throughout the world were exposed to [the report], and they do not read the details (in this case, the negative details), but only buy the headlines.  In their eyes, we are war criminals, contemptible people, killers of small children,” wrote Eitan Haber in a commentary which ran under the headline “This is a declaration of war” in the leading Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “This, at the moment, is the image that is being created for us throughout the world as villains, evil, cruel, murderers.”

An opinion piece in the Israel Hayom daily called the 575-report for the United Nations as “classic anti-Semitism in liberal thinking patterns”. The newspaper described as “a hypocrisy” the appointment of Judge Goldstone, who is Jewish, to head the committee.

Goldstone’s daughter Nicole Goldstone, who once lived in Israel,  said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio that her father is a Zionist.

Ultra-Orthodox protest

Click on the window bellow to watch a multimedia “essay” on Ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting the opening of a parking lot in Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabath.

Fatah’s “Palestinian Hebrew” Councilman

The elections for Fatah’s sixth conference, which just ended in Bethlehem, had an unusual first: their first Jewish Israeli member elected to the 120-member Revolutionary Council. Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen living in the West Bank, has been a member of Fatah for 25 years.

Here are some excerpts from Reuters correspondent Ali Sawafta’s article on new council member Uri Davis for Reuters Arabic-language service:

Uri Davis, who calls himself a “Palestinian Hebrew”, joined the Fatah movement in 1984, and told Reuters he plans to work in the Council’s committee for foreign relations.

“I am of Jewish descent, and was born in Jerusalem in 1943 before the establishment of the racist State of Israel. I oppose Zionism.”

Davis hopes to work towards restoring Fatah’s relations with foreign volunteers who worked with Fatah over the years to fight Israeli occupation.

“I spoke at the sixth conference and said there are hundreds of non-Palestinians who served Fatah and there are thousands who volunteered in all parts of the resistance and the International Solidarity Movement. They worked to defend the rights of the Palestinians, educationally and socially, politically and even militarily. But these reserves have returned to their countries. In the past years Fatah has neglected to connect with them.”

Davis, who lives in Ramallah with his Palestinian wife, is currently a lecturer at Al-Quds University, and was a friend of the late Yasser Arafat, and used to frequent the Palestinian leader’s headquarters.

Davis is one of the 81 members just elected to the Revolutionary Council (the rest will be appointed by the president.) The election results were considered promising for reformists, as 70 of those elected were new faces, including 11 women.

Many believe that members of Fatah movement, which has the support of the West, will be in a better position to seek reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and to restore of a degree of unity among Palestinians.

“The movement will come out of this conference more powerful and united,” said Davis. “Some believed that the conference would lead to a split in the movement, but Abu Mazen (PA and Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas) succeeded in choosing the right time and place. It was a brave decision.”

In an interview with Reuters, Davis said that there may be more Jewish Israelis who would participate in Fatah in the future. It used to be illegal, he says, but since the mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the Oslo Accords, it is now permissible. He hopes to be the first of a more substantial presence in future Fatah conferences,, which could be similar to “the small minority of white members in the ANC when South Africa was an apartheid state” .

Check out the clips from our interview with Davis above, where he discusses his personal background and his political stance on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

You can learn more about Uri Davis and his political and academic work at his website.

Jewish Custom in the Time of Swine Flu

In Israel, the death count for the H1N1, or swine flu, outbreak reached 7 yesterday, and for some citizens, fighting the virus has taken on some religious dimensions.

Israel’s leading paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote an article about health concerns raised by Israel’s Ultra Orthodox media: kissing mezuzahs. A mezuzah is a tiny encasement holding a piece of parchment with a Jewish prayer enscribed on it. Mezuzahs are nailed to most doorways inside a Jewish home, and traditionally, Jews will touch the mezuzah and kiss their fingers when entering a house.  An ultra-orthodox journalist decided to ask seven doctors their opinion on whether this tradition could be dangerous in the Swine flu era.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, “The doctors unanimously agreed that bacteria leave high levels of residue on such objects, but six of them refused to comment on mezuzot in particular, ‘so as not to get in trouble with the rabbis’.”

Only one doctor in the article affirmed that their could be a direct link between kissing a mezuzah and contracting the virus.

The results lead some rabbis to make suggestions for how to preserve the practice in light of potential health hazards. Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said, “If a specific order is given in the matter, the mezuzah must be kissed from the air, to ensure that the custom is not forgotten.”

It’s not the first problem there’s been concerning the disease and local beliefs. When it arrived in Israel earlier this year, the Ultra-Orthodox deputy health minister insisted on respect for the kosher dietary traditions that ban the eating of pork: he banned references to the illness as “swine” flu…

Earlier this week, we wrote about the ”flying rabbis” trying to combat the flu: “Dozens of rabbis and Kabbalah mystics armed with ceremonial trumpets have taken to the skies over Israel to battle the H1N1 flu virus.”

The Many Sides of Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade

Although thousands of Israelis participated in Jerusalem’s 8th annual gay pride parade, which went off without a hitch, some signs of tension were visible. The parade ended with a small concert organized at a city centre park, which had been surrounded with high fences covered in black mesh.

Despite the cheerful singing and colourful banners, many participants who attend both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s gay pride parades, say the Israeli parade in Jerusalem, a holy city for the religious, is markedly different from a similar parade in the secular coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, held a couple of weeks ago.

One Israeli marcher said Jerusalem, as a much more politically divided city, has a very politicized pride parade: “In Tel Aviv, the Gay Pride parade is more of a party. But in Jerusalem, it’s much more political, like a protest.” Several marchers echoed this sentiment. Na’ama, a member of Bat-Kol, an organization for Orthodox Jewish lesbians, agreed, adding: “It’s not like a protest-it is a protest. I don’t want to take it for granted that I can walk here. But we also have to fight for other rights, like the right to marry. And we still have a struggle with the rest of the Orthodox community to get them to accept us.”

Across the street from the park, a small cluster of demonstrators gathered to protest the gay pride parade. Most offered rather extreme interpretations of the gravity of allowing the pride parade. Daisy Stern, holding a sign saying “No Flags of Fags Here”, said she was “protesting and fighting this horrible trend that persists in this city, which is funded and masterminded by our enemies who don’t want to see a Jewish land and this is a way to break our spirits”. One student, who joked he was protesting “to be a hardcore fundamentalist”, added: ” I’m not so much against the gay part , I’m protesting the pride part. The bible says homosexuality is an abomination. Only an abominable person would be proud about their homosexuality.” Some held up copies of the Torah, and signs offering help for homosexuals.

Statements like these may explain why many gay pride marchers said they felt no desire to start a dialogue with those who protest their events. Ori, who came from Tel Aviv for Jerusalem’s parade, said, “The demonstration annoys me but it’s not like we have something in common to talk about, or to make a dialogue. It’s two completely different worlds.” One woman, dressed in a miniskirt and fishnets, had her face covered with a scarf, saying she was protesting how her city was becoming “another Iran … Look at this, we have blacked-out fences to protect others from seeing our event”.

Antagonism ran both ways. A small group of gay pride marchers stood across the corner from anti-parade demonstrators to mock them, dressed up as clowns with devil horns. Some people headed to the parade yelled at anti-parade demonstrators to leave.

The religious dimension to the pride parade isn’t solely one of religion against homosexuality. Reform Jews such as the youth group Netzer participated in the pride parade in large numbers, to show solidarity. One member said, “We want to show that Reform Judaism is open. There’s more than one way to be Jewish. We can’t follow egalitarianism in one sense and not another.”

from FaithWorld:

PAPA DIXIT — Pope’s last day and departure for Rome

On the last day of his Holy Land pilgrimage, Pope Benedict visited the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic partriarchates, prayed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and delivered a farewell address that touched on the main political points of his trip.

Here are some excerpts from his speeches:

AT THE GREEK ORTHODOX PARTRIARCHATE OF JERUSALEM:

ECUMENISM: "I pray that our gathering today will give new impetus to the work of theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, adding to the recent fruits of study documents and other joint initiatives. Of particular joy for our Churches has been the participation of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I, at the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome dedicated to the theme: The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. The warm welcome he received and his moving intervention were sincere expressions of the deep spiritual joy that arises from the extent to which communion is already present between our Churches. Such ecumenical experience bears clear witness to the link between the unity of the Church and her mission."

AT THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE:

HOPE FOR CHRISTIAN MINORITY: "The empty tomb speaks to us of hope, the hope that does not disappoint because it is the gift of the Spirit of life (cf. Rom 5:5). This is the message that I wish to leave with you today, at the conclusion of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. May hope rise up ever anew, by God’s grace, in the hearts of all the people dwelling in these lands! May it take root in your hearts, abide in your families and communities, and inspire in each of you an ever more faithful witness to the Prince of Peace! The Church in the Holy Land, which has so often experienced the dark mystery of Golgotha, must never cease to be an intrepid herald of the luminous message of hope which this empty tomb proclaims. The Gospel reassures us that God can make all things new, that history need not be repeated, that memories can be healed, that the bitter fruits of recrimination and hostility can be overcome, and that a future of justice, peace, prosperity and cooperation can arise for every man and woman, for the whole human family, and in a special way for the people who dwell in this land so dear to the heart of the Saviour."

"This ancient Memorial of the Anástasis bears mute witness both to the burden of our past, with its failings, misunderstandings and conflicts, and to the glorious promise which continues to radiate from Christ’s empty tomb."