Greetings,

A couple nights ago, I sat in my friend Ibrahim's house while we watched a poet from Ramallah recite his work at a contest in the United Arab Emirates.  Through Ibrahim's translation, I learned the poem was about Jerusalem and mentioned all the types of people who have passed through Jerusalem in its history, all the types of people who pass through it today and the one type of people prohibited from entering- the Palestinians.


Palestinians, whether residents of the West Bank, Gaza, or Israel are subjected to a number of measures from which Jewish Israelis are exempt.  In a recent article published in "The Nation", Nadim Rouhana points out that there are over 20 laws in Israel that explicitly favor the Jewish population.  In effect, this means that the other 20% of Israeli citizens, the Muslims and Christians, almost all of them Palestinian, are treated as second-class citizens.  As Rouhana attempts to prove, Israel's blatant discrimination against Palestinians would be akin to laws in the United States that made Mexican-Americans constantly subject to security checks, kept them out of certain areas at certain times, and built a large wall across the northern part of Mexico, declaring it United States territory.  A state (Israel included) cannot be simultaneously democratic and legally favor people with certain religious affiliations.  On Israeli and Palestinian identification cards issued before 2005, the religion of the cardholder was listed.  Today, one can identify the cardholder as Jewish or non-Jewish by checking whether or not the date of birth is listed twice (once according to the Jewish calendar, and once according to the Christian calendar).  Therefore, a non-Jewish resident of Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza is easily identified upon checking his or her identification document.

One of the most ridiculous and stifling measures taken by the occupation forces against Palestinians are the restrictions on their freedom of movement within Jerusalem, and particularly within the Old City.  Forget residents of the West Bank and Gaza who are almost never, under any circumstances, allowed to enter any part of Jerusalem (or any part of Israel).  Even Palestinians who are citizens of Israel are restricted in their movements within Jerusalem.  The Al-Aqsa mosque, located within the Old City Walls is an extremely holy site for Muslims; many of them visit the mosque daily, or at least mid-day on Friday, to pray.  Until 1967, the area was under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (which took authority of the West Bank after the 1948 war) and since 1967, Israel has controlled the area, and unilaterally declared Jerusalem as its capital.  No country in the world, including the United States, recognizes this move, leaving the status of Jerusalem as something to be decided in future negotiations.

Last Friday I was in Jerusalem on my way to Gaza to protest the continued siege.  Things seemed normal until I tried to enter the Old City by way of the Damascus gate and was stopped by about 50 policemen who had set up barricades and were checking the documents of every person trying to enter at designated openings in the metal barriers.  I asked one of them what he was doing and he explained to me that any Palestinian or Muslim (read non-Jew and non-tourist) under 40 years of age would not be allowed to enter the Old City at all that day.  I asked him, "Isn't that fascist?"  To which he responded, "No, it's not fascist, it's security."  To Israel, keeping people from one of their holiest sites is "security".  To Israel, blatantly privileging members of a certain religion over members of another is "security".  To Israel, prohibiting Muslims from praying on their holy day, at a holy site, is "security".  To Israel, keeping 20% of the population in a de facto open air jail is "security".  I was shocked and watched later on that day while Israeli police officers and soldiers yelled at young men trying to enter the Old City, shoving many of them aside.

At noon, I went to the balcony of my hostel and observed a crowd of about 250 people who had gathered across the street from the Damascus gate to pray on the sidewalk.  Using cardboard boxes as prayer rugs, these 250 people faced the line of soldiers across the street fingering their AK-47s, some on horseback, some in Hummers, some in Jeeps, and some on foot, and they prayed.  When I arrived back home in Faquaa the next day, and while Ibrahim translated this poem, I remembered the time he said to me "When you go to Jerusalem you see people from all over the world ya?  So why can you go when we cannot?  Why can any man from Russia, from France, from Britain, why can anyone go to Jerusalem except me?  Why can't Palestinians go to Al-Quds [the holy]?  Sometimes I hate myself because I am Palestinian."  I can only stammer.

Andrew Pappone



The House of Fair Trade Newsletter is a weekly email newsletter sent from the offices of the Palestine Fair Trade Association in Jenin, Palestine with stories and experiences from the ground in Palestine.  You are receiving this email because you or someone you know asked me to put you on the list.  If you do not wish to receive these updates, please let me know.
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