18/6/95

No Hate in Beit Safafa

By: SAM ORBAUM

    Beit Safafa was the wrong place to be in the news for the wrong reasons.
    The little Arab village in Jerusalem deserved better than to be threatened recently with land expropriation, as it is nothing less than a model for peace.
    Its 5,000 residents are tranquil, hospitable, genteel Moslems; they speak of coexistence, yet they've suffered from Jewish development more than perhaps anyone else: The town's recent history has been one of plunder and segmentation.
    Between 1948 and 1967, Beit Safafa was cut in two: half was in Israel, half in Jordan. Almost as soon as it was reunited, it was divided again. Today it is in four detached parts.
    On land expropriated from Beit Safafa, a Jewish neighborhood, Patt, juts into its northern flank, cutting off family from kin. Another sector of 150 souls is isolated by a noisy six-lane highway that connects the massive Gilo suburb to the rest of Jewish Jerusalem - a highway built on more land taken from them.
    It is a pastoral, picturesque spot jolted by our insensitive development - yet the Beit Safafans cannot say they hate us.
    There are a handful of Jewish families living in their midst who, the Arabs insist, do not belong there, claiming they are squatting in Arab homes.
    One could excuse the villagers if they tried to harass them out of there; yet they are proud to say they leave the "intruders" in complete peace, and politely bid "Shalom" whenever they meet.
    When a few Gilo Jews complained that the muezzin's early-morning call to prayer disturbed them, these Arabs graciously consented to tone down and cut short.
    They have accepted the radical, negative changes to their environment, saying time and again that the most important thing is peaceful relations with the Jews.
    Beit Safafa's renowned family grocery store, Faradis, is a popular spot where Jews and Arabs mingle, buying each other's produce, and the Beit Safafans are proud of that. They are also proud that they suppressed efforts to launch intifada activity in the town.
Hamas had tried to "make trouble," as they call it, and was chased out. When one or two local kids took to throwing stones on the road to Gilo, the townsmen took swift action, punishing them and apologizing to Jews.
    (I live in Gilo, close to the valley village. The first time my girls heard a slur against Arabs, and asked me why Arabs are bad, I took them to Faradis and explained that these people were Arabs. They now understand that there are very nice Arabs, and very bad ones too.)

BEIT SAFAFA has earned the right to be treated with dignity and respect, to get the same services as any Jerusalem neighborhood. Yet their attempts to get the most basic consideration have been frustrated.
    They're turned down time and again in their efforts to have a small playground built -- there isn't a single one in the town.
    According to Mustafa Es'hak, a town official and co-owner of Faradis, Beit Safafa is lacking 8,000 meters of sewerage; 70 percent of the townspeople are without. (We have no such problems in Gilo; in fact, our sewage flows out under their land.) Es'hak told me he pays NIS 1,800 in municipal taxes, yet has to pay someone another NIS 100 every month to cart away his sewage. The stench stays.
    The townspeople begged for a safe crossing to link the parts of Beit Safafa riven by the Gilo road - a serious hazard even for able-bodied adults. They didn't get it.
    It took them five years of begging to get a simple bus stop; they have been trying for several years more to have it sheltered. Es'hak says they were told there was "no budget" for it.
    There is a major housing shortage in Beit Safafa. One family requested a permit to add a third storey, and was turned down because "homes of more than two storeys in this district are forbidden." Yet right across the street are two towering (Jewish) apartment blocks 10 storeys high.
    Now, the government wanted to take more of their land, to build more housing for Jews, to impose on these Arabs even more. As one resident said, "Everything from here to Beit Shemesh is absolutely empty; why do they have to build on top of our heads yet again?"
    What exactly are these people supposed to understand from all this? That it is not worthwhile to make peace with the Jews; that they are doomed to second-class status; and perhaps, ultimately, that the only way for Arabs to get anything done around here is through violence.
    This is not a political or racial issue; it is strictly an ethical one. While I firmly believe Jerusalem must stay a united city under Israeli sovereignty, this cannot mean ignoring our next-door neighbors' cries for social justice.
    Since 1967 the Jews have had the opportunity to show that Arabs could flourish in Zionism's enlightenment. But through arrogance and condescension, through 28 years of humiliation and disrespect and callous disregard for the Arabs' social and cultural differentness, we have encouraged them to hate us.
    We have engendered no hope in them that our vision of the future in any way includes them. As such, the Jews may have helped bring upon themselves the intifada and the looming threat of a Palestinian state.
    The soft-spoken Es'hak described an incident near Bethlehem last year, where a Border Police patrol came upon him and his children in their parked car, shouted menacingly as if they were captured terrorists - then flipped a tear-gas cannister into the car before racing off.
    Ever since, he has been working to convince his children - all under the age of eight - that not all Jews are bad.
    Could anyone blame the frustrated people of Beit Safafa if they gave up on us as a humanitarian society? And yet, amazingly, they still believe in us.