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Prayers, Taunts and Weary Resignation in Jerusalem
Published on Saturday, September 24, 2011 by the Independent/UK
by Robert Fisk
So there I was, on the Via Dolorosa of course, chatting to a
middle-aged guy in a red T-shirt and just a wisp of a beard with a
prayer rug under his left arm.
And I asked him, of course, what he thought about Barack Obama's
speech. He grinned at me like he knew I had already guessed what he
was going to say. "What did you expect?" he asked. Correct guess.
After all, Haaretz had already referred this week to "President Barack
Netanyahu" while the racist Israeli foreign minister said he would
sign the speech with both hands. Maybe, I reflected in Jerusalem
yesterday, Obama really is seeking election - to the Israeli Knesset.
But what was so striking about the streets of Jerusalem yesterday was
the sense of resignation, of weary acceptance. The Israeli papers had
warned of mass violence, but the crowds who turned up for morning
prayers at Al-Aqsa simply laid out their prayer rugs on the highway
outside the Damascus Gate or in the laneways behind the mosque and
showed scarcely any interest in talking about Obama. Maybe America's
UN veto will rouse them to passion, but I have my doubts.
It's a bit like the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib torture pictures, when
the Americans restricted the number of photos to be released because
they feared the pictures would enrage Iraqis. But I was in Baghdad
that day and no one expressed any particular rage. What did I expect?
After all, the Iraqis knew all about Abu Ghraib already - they were
the ones who had been tortured there. So, too, Jerusalem yesterday.
The Palestinians have watched America's uncritical acceptance of
Israeli occupation - the longest in the world - for 44 years. They
knew all about it. It is only we Westerners who are horrified by
torture pictures and by Obama's hypocrisy.
The Palestinians even accepted the Israeli rule on morning prayers. No
one under the age of 50 would be allowed to worship on the Al-Aqsa
esplanade. Which is why those who could not enter simply spread their
rugs on the tarmac and flagstones outside - in effect enlarging the
forbidden holy esplanade over the traffic islands and pavements. Even
the Israeli border guards and cops treated the thing as routine. There
was, shall we say, a normality about it, a bit of shouting from a
young man at the barricade on the main highway, a lot of shrugging by
the Israelis. There were even some nicely groomed police horses which
watched the proceedings with big, tired eyes.
On the iron barrier, the police captain didn't even bother to ask for
my press pass; he just flicked his head and pulled the barrier aside.
The television crews dutifully filmed the Israelis holding their
assault rifles and truncheons. And - since I am a believer in the
Department of Home Truths - I have to add that in other Middle East
nations right now, I doubt if armed policemen would be quite so
indifferent to the cameras. Needless to say, the more aggressive of
Israel's colonizers in the West Bank are not so keen to be filmed.
Hence the scarves over their faces when they attack Palestinians. And
daubing "Mohamed is a pig" in Hebrew on the wall of the mosque at
Qusra, 30 miles from Nablus, wasn't going to improve Arab-Israeli
relations. The Palestinians have painted out "is a pig", but naturally
left the name of the Prophet untouched. You can see the same stuff on
the walls of the Jewish colony at Hebron.
But again, it's acquired its own normality, like the massive Israeli
wall that scrapes across the landscape above Jerusalem, a terrible,
hateful scar on the politics of this place which should blight the eye
of every Palestinian or Israeli who sees it. Oddly, we Westerners seem
to have stopped talking about it; maybe that's why we like calling it
a "security barrier" rather than a wall, something that is a problem
to be solved - to quote Obama - "by the parties themselves." And there
was one little incident yesterday which illustrated this rather well.
Prayers had ended at the Al-Aqsa mosque and the police were ready to
go home and the shopkeepers were reopening their stalls when an old
Palestinian woman in black came hobbling down some steps with two
large, empty cardboard boxes. They were the "legs" to a table upon
which she started arranging a set of tawdry children's clothes and
plastic shoes decorated with stars.
But a soldier told her to move the boxes three feet further down the
street. There was no reason to - he was bored, I suppose, and in the
mood for a bit of fun - but the old lady started shouting in Arabic
that "It's all over". I think she meant that it was "all over" for the
Palestinians - or maybe for the Israelis. But the soldier laughed and
repeated her words in Arabic. "Yes, it's all over," he said, and maybe
he was talking about the morning prayers.
And as he went on taunting the old woman and kicking the cardboard
boxes, a trail of tourists came winding their way up the laneway from
the Via Dolorosa. The woman was shrieking away and the tourists,
light-colored hair, blue eyes, speaking German, were all too aware of
what was happening.
Their eyes flicked to the side of the road where the woman was
shouting and the soldier was still kicking the boxes, but their heads
didn't move. They still faced forward, as if the whole wretched scene
was a normal part of Jerusalem life. They wouldn't directly look at
the woman or the soldier. They certainly wouldn't intervene. And so
they passed by on the other side.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Published on Saturday, September 24, 2011 by the Independent/UK
by Robert Fisk
So there I was, on the Via Dolorosa of course, chatting to a
middle-aged guy in a red T-shirt and just a wisp of a beard with a
prayer rug under his left arm.
And I asked him, of course, what he thought about Barack Obama's
speech. He grinned at me like he knew I had already guessed what he
was going to say. "What did you expect?" he asked. Correct guess.
After all, Haaretz had already referred this week to "President Barack
Netanyahu" while the racist Israeli foreign minister said he would
sign the speech with both hands. Maybe, I reflected in Jerusalem
yesterday, Obama really is seeking election - to the Israeli Knesset.
But what was so striking about the streets of Jerusalem yesterday was
the sense of resignation, of weary acceptance. The Israeli papers had
warned of mass violence, but the crowds who turned up for morning
prayers at Al-Aqsa simply laid out their prayer rugs on the highway
outside the Damascus Gate or in the laneways behind the mosque and
showed scarcely any interest in talking about Obama. Maybe America's
UN veto will rouse them to passion, but I have my doubts.
It's a bit like the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib torture pictures, when
the Americans restricted the number of photos to be released because
they feared the pictures would enrage Iraqis. But I was in Baghdad
that day and no one expressed any particular rage. What did I expect?
After all, the Iraqis knew all about Abu Ghraib already - they were
the ones who had been tortured there. So, too, Jerusalem yesterday.
The Palestinians have watched America's uncritical acceptance of
Israeli occupation - the longest in the world - for 44 years. They
knew all about it. It is only we Westerners who are horrified by
torture pictures and by Obama's hypocrisy.
The Palestinians even accepted the Israeli rule on morning prayers. No
one under the age of 50 would be allowed to worship on the Al-Aqsa
esplanade. Which is why those who could not enter simply spread their
rugs on the tarmac and flagstones outside - in effect enlarging the
forbidden holy esplanade over the traffic islands and pavements. Even
the Israeli border guards and cops treated the thing as routine. There
was, shall we say, a normality about it, a bit of shouting from a
young man at the barricade on the main highway, a lot of shrugging by
the Israelis. There were even some nicely groomed police horses which
watched the proceedings with big, tired eyes.
On the iron barrier, the police captain didn't even bother to ask for
my press pass; he just flicked his head and pulled the barrier aside.
The television crews dutifully filmed the Israelis holding their
assault rifles and truncheons. And - since I am a believer in the
Department of Home Truths - I have to add that in other Middle East
nations right now, I doubt if armed policemen would be quite so
indifferent to the cameras. Needless to say, the more aggressive of
Israel's colonizers in the West Bank are not so keen to be filmed.
Hence the scarves over their faces when they attack Palestinians. And
daubing "Mohamed is a pig" in Hebrew on the wall of the mosque at
Qusra, 30 miles from Nablus, wasn't going to improve Arab-Israeli
relations. The Palestinians have painted out "is a pig", but naturally
left the name of the Prophet untouched. You can see the same stuff on
the walls of the Jewish colony at Hebron.
But again, it's acquired its own normality, like the massive Israeli
wall that scrapes across the landscape above Jerusalem, a terrible,
hateful scar on the politics of this place which should blight the eye
of every Palestinian or Israeli who sees it. Oddly, we Westerners seem
to have stopped talking about it; maybe that's why we like calling it
a "security barrier" rather than a wall, something that is a problem
to be solved - to quote Obama - "by the parties themselves." And there
was one little incident yesterday which illustrated this rather well.
Prayers had ended at the Al-Aqsa mosque and the police were ready to
go home and the shopkeepers were reopening their stalls when an old
Palestinian woman in black came hobbling down some steps with two
large, empty cardboard boxes. They were the "legs" to a table upon
which she started arranging a set of tawdry children's clothes and
plastic shoes decorated with stars.
But a soldier told her to move the boxes three feet further down the
street. There was no reason to - he was bored, I suppose, and in the
mood for a bit of fun - but the old lady started shouting in Arabic
that "It's all over". I think she meant that it was "all over" for the
Palestinians - or maybe for the Israelis. But the soldier laughed and
repeated her words in Arabic. "Yes, it's all over," he said, and maybe
he was talking about the morning prayers.
And as he went on taunting the old woman and kicking the cardboard
boxes, a trail of tourists came winding their way up the laneway from
the Via Dolorosa. The woman was shrieking away and the tourists,
light-colored hair, blue eyes, speaking German, were all too aware of
what was happening.
Their eyes flicked to the side of the road where the woman was
shouting and the soldier was still kicking the boxes, but their heads
didn't move. They still faced forward, as if the whole wretched scene
was a normal part of Jerusalem life. They wouldn't directly look at
the woman or the soldier. They certainly wouldn't intervene. And so
they passed by on the other side.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress