Special Feature: Jerusalem's Jewish and Arab Neighbors Struggle for the Reunification of Jerusalem Arab Village

February 19, 2008

Even the stark, formal corridors of Israel’s Supreme Court on a bleak and gray Jerusalem winter morning could not chill the warmth generated as Jewish and Arab neighbors greeted each other.

They had come together to end the division of Jabel Mukaber, an Arab village a few minutes walking distance from the picturesque Haas Promenade in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv (East Talpiot). Under the planned route of the Security Fence, the 1,000 residents of Sheikh Saed, the eastern neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, would be separated from the nearly 2,000 Arabs living in the rest of the village, and isolated in a West Bank enclave surrounded by desert.

The Arab Jewish Center in Jabel Mukaber successfully petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court on the matter, which ruled in 2006 that the Fence must be moved to the east of Sheikh Saed.  The government has appealed the decision to the High Court of Justice, whose three judge panel led by Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch began hearing the case last week.  The Center, an ad-hoc grassroots organization, was set up by Arab residents and their Jewish neighbors with professional support and ongoing involvement from a coalition of NIF grantees. 

Daoud Awisat, an Arab from Sheikh Saed, and his Jewish friend Hillel Bardin, a pensioner from nearby Talpiot, explained that life in Jabel Mukaber has ironically become far worse since the Tel Aviv court ordered the government to move the Fence eastwards.

“The army has set up checkpoints on all the roads leading from Sheikh Saed to the center of Jabel Mukaber,” explained Awisat, 41, a building worker and father of four. “Sometimes for days on end the soldiers do not allow us through the roadblock. This means we cannot work, my children cannot go to school and we are even denied access to hospitals.”

Several key NIF grantees have joined forces to assist in the struggle against the division of the village and the humanitarian hardship this has caused. Among the grantees are Ir Amim, which fights for a stable and equitable Jerusalem, and which has given the residents of Jabel Mukaber advice on orchestrating its campaign, including funds to hire lawyers, assistance with its media campaign and assistance in enlisting the diplomatic community. 

NIF grantee Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights has constructed a three-dimensional model of the village to help the judges understand the topography of the region, which is less easily grasped from maps. The model clearly shows how Sheikh Saed is in effect part of Jerusalem, with just miles of desert to the west. But because the Jerusalem Municipal boundary, drawn up in haste in the days following the Six Day War, runs through the middle of Jabel Mukaber, the Israeli government insists that so should the Fence.

And while much of the legal argument revolved around the human rights abuses caused by dividing the village, Colonel (reserves) Yuval Dvir of new NIF grantee The Council for Peace and Security told the Court that dividing the village also represented a greater security threat than putting the Fence to the east of Sheikh Saed.

With special grants from NIF to fight cases where the route of the Fence wrecks unnecessary havoc with Palestinian lives, Bimkom, the Council for Peace and Security and other organizations have proven a winning team in many Supreme Court hearings. In previous rulings, the Court ordered the government to reroute 30 kilometers of the Fence west of Jerusalem and dismantle 13 kilometers of the Fence near Alfei Menashe.

In the case of Jabel Mukaber, NIF grantee Machsom Watch has also mobilized to monitor the behavior of soldiers in the neighborhood’s checkpoints. “It’s heartbreaking to see people already living in poverty being prevented from going out to earn their living,” says Rachel Weinberg of Machsom Watch.

The Fence has brought dozens of Jewish and Arab neighbors closer together in the struggle to reunite the village.

“We hardly knew each other before the issue of the Fence came up,” recalls Bardin. “We had met at some encounter groups for Jewish and Arab neighbors in Talpiot and Jabel Mukaber. But since we launched our campaign three years ago, we have really become neighbors and friends. We hold joint concerts and cultural events, celebrate each other’s festivals and our children play together.”

Some of the activists with The Arab Jewish Center in Jabel Mukaber like Suzanne Sapir, a high school English teacher, and Mai Abdu, Deputy Principal of the Jabel Mukaber High School, had met before the Fence began to haunt their lives.

“I have known Mai since we did an English teachers refresher course together in Jerusalem some years ago,” said Sapir. “Now the Fence has brought us closer together. But while I have visited her school in Jabel Mukaber, the army will not let me go to her home in Sheikh Saed.”

Sapir remains hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold the Tel Aviv court decision and order the army to remove the barriers dividing the village. The Supreme Court completed its hearing in one session and will rule on the appeal in the coming weeks.