6/10/97

Abu Ghosh chose survival

    There is something different about these Arabs sipping sweet Turkish coffee round a table at the Abu Ghosh Restaurant. It seems to be the same for all the men in town. Something missing.
    Mustaches.
    Truck driver Moussa Abu Ghosh laughs. "We're the Ashkenazim of the Arabs. We look different, no?"
    "We are different. We're not mainstream," says Jawdat Ibrahim.
    Their village exists today because it dared to be different. The distinction Abu Ghosh enjoys dates back 50 years, to when it declined to join the war against the Zionist drive for statehood.
    "There were 36 Arab villages in the region in 1947. Only one chose to be neutral. Only that one is still here." Mohammed Abu Ghosh, eight years old when the clashes first began, retains shards of memories from that epic era. "We kept our homes thanks to one brilliant man, the mukhtar, Mahmud Rashid Abu Ghosh." Mohammed, a thin, intense man who works in the building trade, speaks the mukhtar's name reverentially, adding the traditional Jewish homage, "zichrono l'bracha."
    "The mukhtar decided we should not fight the Jews, and everyone in the village accepted his wisdom.
    "Baruch Hashem, we've always been on good terms with everyone."
    A minor debate erupts over whether Abu Ghosh actively abetted the Zionist cause, or passively helped by remaining neutral.
    There might not have been a debate had not a lawyer, Mohammed Abu Ghosh, come to join us. "What do you mean, we helped -- did we fight? We didn't fight."
    "By not fighting against the Jews, we helped."
    "What do you know? You weren't even born then."
    "We were called traitors. We were even blamed for the death of Abdul Khader Husseini, over there at Kastel: the Arabs drew an X over Abu Ghosh for that. This was why other Arabs hated us."
    "Some still do."
    "Because we were neutral. There was no neutral then: if you weren't for one side, you were for the other."
    "What we did, we did for Abu Ghosh, for nobody else."
    "Others who lost their land, they hated us then, but now they see we were right. All over the Arab world, many people now see we were right. We were smart."
    "If everyone did what we did, there'd be no refugee problem."
    "And if we were traitors? Look where we are, look where they are."
    "Ask our children. They bless the mukhtar for what he did for them."
    "We chose survival," Jawdat says, and that satisfies everyone.
    The village, located on a series of vitally strategic hilltops approaching Jerusalem, is now a mecca for Jews -- in deference not to its collaboration, but its cuisine. Restaurants like Jawdat's have sprung up along the main drag.
    From barely 1,000 souls in 1948, Abu Ghosh's population has swelled more than sixfold -- but territorially it has shrunk from 7,500 dunam to 2,500. For the priority Arabs place on land, that is mortally painful for the people here.  
    And grimly ironic. They threw in their lot with the Jews "when they needed us most, when Israel was weakest," with one purpose in mind: to ensure Abu Ghosh retained its land.
    Gratitude was not exactly overwhelming: Israel revoked two-thirds of Abu Ghosh, giving some of it to Neveh Ilan and building a new Jewish neighborhood, Telshe Stone on much of the rest of it. In '48, Abu Ghosh's territory extended as far as Latrun.
    The insensitivity was mind-boggling: the authorities of the new state asked the villagers to leave their sacred grounds for relocation to the cities. "But at least they only asked; we declined," says the lawyer.
    Moussa gets a round of laughs recalling that even Meir Kahane accorded Abu Ghosh special status. "He wanted all the Arabs forced out of Israel, but he said that because we were 'good Arabs', we could leave on airplanes."
    Mohammed, the lawyer, estimates they've been here for about 500 years. Almost entirely Moslem, the villagers descended from the Circassians which, says Jawdat, is the reason they're different from other Arabs. Another difference is that they're stalwartly Israeli.
    But in some sad ways, they're the same as other Arabs. They suffer the indignities, the disrespect, the inequality, the discrimination, the bigotry that has embittered their brethren. These people, who proudly fly the Israeli flag, think they deserve better.
    "I took my son to an air show near Beersheba, about a year and a half ago," Moussa relates, his bright blue eyes electric with anger. "He was 11 years old, he was very excited. So was I. We got to the cashier, and my son spoke to me -- in Arabic, of course. The cashier said, 'Are you Arab or Jew?' I said, 'What does it matter? I'm an Israeli.' He said sorry, no Arabs allowed." Moussa still roils from the pain, and the shame. "I wept. I really did. 
    "You know what I told my boy? I said we couldn't get in because there was no more room. It is the only time I have ever lied to my boy. But a lie was better than telling him a truth that will make him hate. I couldn't tell him that in his country, where he was born, he is not welcome to watch a show."
    Everyone who stops by our table has recollections of being humiliated, but they defiantly turn the other cheek; their Israeli identity is indefatigable. "Too many Jews cannot look at us face to face, as equals," Jawdat says. "The people here, we don't see others as Jewish or Arab, it's not relevant."
    "Reminds me of one time I was driving the truck to Eilat," laughs Moussa, a ruggedly handsome man of 50. "I stopped to help a couple with a flat tire. They'd been waiting a long time, no one else stopped, but I didn't think twice. They were very grateful. The man said to the woman, for my benefit, 'See? There's still some good Jews left.' I smiled. No, I didn't tell him I'm an Arab; it didn't really matter."
    Jawdat offers Abu Ghosh as the best bridge to the Arab world. He is only 32, but has remarkable connections throughout the Middle East. (When I arrived at his restaurant, he was chatting with the son of Jordan's education minister; a few days later he was due to leave on a networking trip to Morocco.)
    He is a serene, confident, intelligent young man who has earned profound respect and honor. Jawdat's story is not to be believed: from a hopelessly poor family, he went to America to work, sending home most of his earnings, subsisting on the rest. Then something happened: he won some money in a lottery.
    "How much, Jawdat?"
    "A lot."
    He won $22.7 million.
    That is not what won him widespread admiration: it's what he has done with the money.
    "That money found the right address," says Mohammed the lawyer.
    Jawdat is immensely charitable, responding anonymously to tales of woe, supporting worthwhile causes, funding scholarships and promoting peace. Recipients are not told where the money came from. It goes without saying that his Abu Ghosh Fund does not inquire as to a recipient's religion. His friends say he's the only Israeli Arab giving charity to Jews.
    Jawdat wears his wealth well. You can't even accuse him of false modesty. He is discreet and humble, even the way he dresses; he responds to questions politely but does not initiate talk about his fortune.
    (On occasion he does let 'er rip, and risks a little ostentation. When he returned home a multimillionaire, he threw a bash for his fellow villagers they'll never forget. Last year, he was married in the company of 2,500 guests, as a way of bringing together common folk and VIPs of all denominations -- if you can imagine haredim and Beduin, Palestinian nationalists and right wing MKs, shoulder to shoulder in a Moslem village's church.)
    Public Enemy Number One in Abu Ghosh is Abdul Wahab Darawshe, the Arab Democratic Party MK who, folks here say, has been a traitor to the needs of Arabs. "Shas is more responsive to our needs than any of the Arabs we put into office," says Moussa.
    No other subject animates the men around this table more than their acrimonious resentment of Darawshe.
    After a good hour of listening to their vehemence, I got the shock of my life when who should join us but ... Darawshe. He turned out to be a local factory owner who's the spitting image of the hated politician; when I pointed out the resemblance, everyone cracked up.
    Folks here are deeply frustrated that Abu Ghosh's needs are largely ignored -- by the politicians they voted for, and by the government at large.
    "We're squeezed in here. We need some of our land back to house the next generation," says the factory owner. "We have no community center, not even a soccer field, and believe me, the kids are angry, they want to know why Abu Ghosh can't have a soccer field.
    "I pay about a million shekels a year in taxes. I have reason to feel cheated."
    The frustration is common in minority communities -- among the Galilee Druse who sacrifice their sons for the defense of the Jewish State, among the Abu Ghosh Moslems who took mortal risks to ensure that state was born.
    If Israel ever gets serious about reconciling with its loyal Arabs as brotherly equals, this is the place to start. The road to peace runs through the heart of Abu Ghosh.
    You can't miss that road. It's called "Hashalom Street."