Fraternalmente
Azril
PD: Al respecto, propongo que los "lugares santos" sean administrados por
la ONU y/o mejor por la UNESCO, para revertir las condiciones que subyacen
la violencia histórica de esa ciudad que tiene de todo, menos que "santa
paz".

Por otro lado, para pasar de la denuncia a la propuesta, propongo que las
partes en conflicto (llamados "stockholders", en el lenguaje bancario de
nuestra época) que han perdido la capacidad de des-escalar la espiral de
conflicto, violencia y brutalización que tantas vidas y dolor sigue
ocasionando, es hora de que el "mundo civilizado" intervenga. Recordando a
Gandhi, cuando le preguntaron que opinaba acerca de la "civilización
occidental", su respuesta fué: "no sería una mala idea" :-)


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Uri Avnery fought as a soldier in the Israeli war of independence in 1948,
and was later elected to the Knesset. He is leader of the israei peace
movement Gush Shalom and we  at Tikkun frequently consult with him about
developments in Israel.  We at Tikkun unequivocally condemn the terrorist
acts against Israeli civilians, just as we condemn the killings of
Palestinians by the Israeli occupation forces that continue to happen
weekly and are rarely given the media attention given when Jews are killed.
We are still in mourning for the 2,100 Palestinians killed by Israel this
summer in Gaz and the 60 Israelis who also died in the assault on Gaza and
in Hamas' attempted murder of many more through shelling Israeli cities.
And we remember all too well the murder of 29 Palestinians while at prayer
in the mosque in Hebron by a Jewish settler yemach shmoe some 20 years ago
whose grave is still visited to honor his murderous act by right-wing
Israelis each year. Every unnecessary death, every act of violence, must be
remembered and condemned. From my standpoint, violence begets violence
begets violence. It is not the path to peace or security. And precisely
because I care so much about the safety and security of my many Israeli
friends, I abhor the way that Israel and the international media continue
to ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people that then produces these
terrorists, just as I also distance myself from those who believe that that
suffering is somehow a justification for barbarous acts of terrorism.
Please read Avnery's article below.-- Rabbi Michael Lerner

*Uri Avnery, **November 21, 2014*



                                                *The Unholy City*



IN ITS long and checkered history, Jerusalem has been occupied by dozens of
conquerors. Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Mamluks and Turks,
Britons and Jordanians – to mention just a few.

 The latest occupier is Israel, which conquered and annexed Jerusalem in
1967. (I could have written "East Jerusalem" – but all of historical
Jerusalem is in today's East Jerusalem. All the other parts were built in
the last 200 years by Zionist settlers, or are surrounding Arab villages
which were arbitrarily joined to the huge area that is now called Jerusalem
after its occupation. This week, Jerusalem was in flames - again. Two
youngsters from Jabel Mukaber, one of the Arab villages annexed to
Jerusalem, entered a synagogue in the west of the city during morning
prayers and killed four devout Jews, before themselves being killed by
police.


Jerusalem is called "the City of Peace". This is a linguistic mistake.
True, in antiquity it was called Salem, which sounds like peace, but Salem
was in fact the name of the local deity. It is also a historical mistake.
No city in the world has seen as many wars, massacres and as much bloodshed
as this one. All in the name of some God or other. JERUSALEM WAS annexed
(or "liberated", or "unified") immediately after the Six-day War of 1967.


That war was Israel's greatest military triumph. It was also Israel's
greatest disaster. The divine blessings of the incredible victory turned
into divine punishments. Jerusalem was one of them. The annexation was
presented to us (I was a member of the Knesset at the time) as a
unification of the city, which had been cruelly rent asunder in the
Israeli-Palestinian war of 1948. Everybody cited the Biblical sentence:
"Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together." This translation
of Psalm 122 is rather odd. The Hebrew original says simply "a city that is
joined together". In fact, what happened in 1967 was anything but
unification. If the intent had really been unification, it would have
looked very different. Full Israeli citizenship would have been
automatically conferred on all inhabitants. All the lost Arab properties in
West Jerusalem, which had been expropriated in 1948, would have been
restored to their rightful owners who had fled to East Jerusalem.



The Jerusalem municipality would have been expanded to include Arabs from
the East, even without a specific request. And so on. The opposite
happened. No property was restored, nor any compensation paid. The
municipality remained exclusively Jewish. Arab inhabitants were not
accorded Israeli citizenship, but merely "permanent residence". This is a
status that can be arbitrarily revoked at any moment – and indeed was
revoked in many cases, compelling the victims to move out of the city. For
appearance's sake, Arabs were allowed to apply for Israel citizenship. The
authorities knew, of course, that only a handful would apply, since doing
so would mean recognition of the occupation. For Palestinians, this would
be paramount to treason. (And the few that did apply were generally
refused.)



The municipality was not broadened. In theory, Arabs are entitled to vote
in municipal elections, but only a handful do so, for the same reasons. In
practice, East Jerusalem remains occupied territory. The mayor, Teddy
Kollek, was elected two years before the annexation. One of his first
actions after it was to demolish the entire Mugrabi Quarter next to the
Western Wall, leaving a large empty square resembling a parking lot. The
inhabitants, all of them poor people, were evicted within hours. But Kollek
was a genius in public relations. He ostensibly established friendly
relations with the Arab notables, introduced them to foreign visitors and
created a general impression of peace and contentment. Kollek built more
new Israeli neighborhoods on Arab land than any other person in the
country. Yet this master-settler collected almost all the world's peace
prizes, except the Nobel Prize. East Jerusalem remained quiet.



Only few knew of a secret directive from Kollek, instructing all municipal
authorities to see to it that the Arab population – then 27% - did not rise
above that level. KOLLEK WAS ably supported by Moshe Dayan, then the
Defense Minister. Dayan believed in keeping the Palestinians quiet by
giving them all possible benefits, except freedom. A few days after the
occupation of East Jerusalem he removed the Israeli flag which had been
planted by soldiers in front of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
Dayan also turned the de facto authority over the Mount over to the Muslim
religious authorities. Jews were allowed into the Temple compound only in
small numbers and only as quiet visitors. They were forbidden to pray
there, and forcibly removed if they moved their lips. They could, after
all, pray to their heart's content at the adjoining Western Wall (which is
a part of the compound's ancient outer wall).



The government was able to impose this decree because of a quaint religious
fact: Orthodox Jews are forbidden by the rabbis to enter the Temple Mount
altogether. According to a Biblical injunction, ordinary Jews are not
allowed into the Holy of Holies, only the High Priest was allowed in. Since
nobody today knows where exactly this place is located, pious Jews may not
enter the entire compound.



AS A result, the first few years of the occupation were a happy time for
East Jerusalem. Jews and Arabs mingled freely. It was fashionable for Jews
to shop in the colorful Arab market and dine in the "oriental" restaurants.
I myself often stayed in Arab hotels and made quite a number of Arab
friends.



This atmosphere changed gradually. The government and the municipality
spent a lot of money to gentrify West Jerusalem, but Arab neighborhoods in
East Jerusalem were neglected, and turned into slums. The local
infrastructure and services degenerated. Almost no building permits were
issued to Arabs, in order to compel the younger generation to move outside
the city borders. Then the "Separation" Wall was built, preventing those
outside from entering the city, cutting them off from their schools and
jobs. Yet In spite of everything, the Arab population grew and reached
40%. Political
oppression grew. Under the Oslo agreements, Jerusalemite Arabs were allowed
to vote for the Palestinian Authority. But then they were prevented from
doing so, their representatives were arrested and expelled from the city.
All Palestinian institutions were forcibly closed down, including the
famous Orient House, where the much admired and beloved leader of the
Jerusalem Arabs, the late Faisal al-Husseini, had his office.



KOLLEK was succeeded by Ehud Olmert and an Orthodox mayor who didn't give a
damn for East Jerusalem, except the Temple Mount. And then an additional
disaster occurred. Secular Israelis are leaving Jerusalem, which is rapidly
becoming an Orthodox bastion. In desperation they decided to oust the
Orthodox mayor and elect a secular business-man. Unfortunately, he is a
rabid ultra-nationalist.



Nir Barkat behaves like the mayor of West Jerusalem and the military
governor of East Jerusalem. He treats his Palestinian subjects like
enemies, who may be tolerated if they obey quietly, and brutally suppressed
if they do not. Together with the decade-old neglect of the Arab
neighborhoods, the accelerated pace of building new Jewish neighborhoods,
the excessive police brutality (openly encouraged by the mayor), they are
producing an explosive situation.



The total cutting-off of Jerusalem from the West Bank, its natural
*hinterland*, worsens the situation even more. To this may be added the
termination of the so-called peace process, since all Palestinians are
convinced that East Jerusalem must be the capital of the future State of
Palestine. THIS SITUATION needed only a spark to ignite the city. This was
duly provided by the right-wing demagogues in the Knesset. Vying for
attention and popularity, they started to visit the Temple Mount, one after
the other, every time unleashing a storm. Added to the manifest desire of
certain religious and right-wing fanatics to build the Third Temple in
place of the holy al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock, this was
enough to create the belief that the holy shrines were indeed in danger.



Then came the ghastly revenge-murder of an Arab boy who was abducted by
Jews and burned alive with gasoline poured into his mouth. Individual
Muslim inhabitants of the city started to act. Disdaining organizations,
almost without arms, they started a series of attacks that are now called
"the *intifada* of individuals". Acting alone, or with a brother or cousin
whom he trusts, an Arab takes a knife, or a pistol (if he can get one), or
his car, or a tractor, and kills the nearest Israelis. He knows that he is
going to die.



The two cousins who killed four Jews in a synagogue this week – and also an
Arab Druze policeman – knew this. They also knew that their families were
going to suffer, their home be demolished, their relatives arrested. They
were not deflected. The mosques were more important.



Moreover, the day before, an Arab bus driver was found dead in his bus.
According to the police, the autopsy proved that he committed suicide. An
Arab pathologist concluded that he was murdered. No Arab believes the
police – Arabs are convinced that the police always lie.



Immediately after the Synagogue killing, the Israeli choir of politicians
and commentators went into action. They did so with an astonishing
unanimity – ministers, Knesset members, ex-generals, journalists, all
repeating with slight variations the same message. The reason for this is
simple: every day the Prime Minister's office sends out a "page of
messages", instructing all parts of the propaganda machine what to say. This
time the message was that Mahmoud Abbas was to blame for everything, a
"terrorist in a suit", the leader whose incitement causes the new intifada.
No matter that the chief of the Shin Bet testified on the very same day
that Abbas has neither overt nor covert connections with the violence.



Binyamin Netanyahu faced the cameras and with a solemn face and lugubrious
voice – he is a really good actor – repeated again what he has said many
times before, every time pretending that this is new recipe: more police,
harder punishments, demolition of homes, arrests and large fines for
parents of 13-year old children who are caught throwing stones, and so
on. Every
expert knows that the result of such measures will be the exact opposite.
More Arabs will become incensed and attack Israeli men and women. Israelis,
of course, will "take revenge" and "take the law into their own hands".



For both inhabitants and tourists, walking the streets of Jerusalem, the
city which is "joined together", has become a risky adventure. Many stay at
home. The Unholy City is more divided than ever before.













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