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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Development Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Smoke, but no fire
By Graham UsherChiselled into the blue Galilean hills, Um Al-Fahm is a small Palestinian town of 40,000 people. They share all the problems that afflict Israel's million or so Palestinians. Their land has been confiscated, their homes demolished and they have no meaningful rights in terms of zoning or urban planning. Unemployment exists amongst the young, poverty among the old and there is the palpable fact of discrimination for all.
But, in the words of one resident, they are "politicised," with a long tradition of resistance. Um Al-Fahm was once a bastion of Israel's Communist Party. It is now home to the "northern wing" of Israel's Islamist movement, led by the town's popular mayor, Sheikh Raad Salah. And for an Israeli society increasingly torn apart by its own confused sense of identity, Um Al-Fahm and the visible oppression of Arabs and the challenge it represents, is both a Zionist nightmare and the easiest of scapegoats.
In the last week, Um Al-Fahm has been described by the Israeli media as a hotbed of "nationalist extremism," a garden of "errant weeds" and, best of all, an area of "Islamic autonomy" in the heart of the Jewish state. Israeli politicians, extrapolating like mad, have referred to "Palestinian Israelis" as a "malignant growth" and called for the Islamist movement to be outlawed.
Nor have these comments been confined to Israel's far right. On the contrary, they were given additional weight by Alik Ron, Chief of Police of Israel's "northern district" and, some say, future contender for the Likud Party's list in the Knesset.
At a press conference in Nazareth on 12 September, Ron announced that some 41 Palestinians, "including some senior members of the Islamic movement," had been arrested for such "terrorist crimes" as plotting to assassinate "collaborators" (Palestinians who work for Israel's police and intelligence services) and arms smuggling.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered on Friday at a soccer stadium in Um Al-Fahm for an "Al-Aqsa is in danger" rally
(photo: AP)
He also insinuated that a "certain Arab Member of Knesset" had been actively "inciting" Palestinians to attack the police. "It is a long time since such serious nationalist activity with such serious intentions has been uncovered," intoned Ron. The "certain MK" turned out to be Mohamed Barakeh, leader of the three-MK Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and a long time thorn in Ron's side.
For the next three days, Ron's smoke warnings billowed across the front pages of Israel's newspapers. By Sunday, they cleared. For one reason: there was no fire. Very simply, there were no "terrorists," Islamist or otherwise.
On 17 September, Haifa District Attorney, Lili Borishansky, confirmed that 41 Palestinians from Um Al-Fahm (and three from the West Bank) had been arrested. Of this group, twelve have been indicted. But "there was no evidence of nationalist motivation for any of the offences," she said.
True, twelve had planned to burn the house of Um Al-Fahm resident Khalil Jabrin, who had worked for the Shin Bet both in the occupied territories and the Galilee. But the revenge had little to do with Jabrin's past labours. It had everything to do with Jabrin's murder of three of their kin after they had refused to buy his house. (Jabrin is now in the relatively safe custody of the Israeli police on trial for murder).
As for the gun running, "this is an old story," says Um Al-Fahm resident, Mohamed Salama. "There are hundreds of guns in the town, bought and sold between families, and used mainly for weddings or simply to show off. And the police know about the phenomena. Our complaint is that they do nothing to stop it." To emphasise his point, he describes the case of a two-year girl who last week was shot in the head by a gun fired at a party. She is currently in hospital.
Nor does there seem to be much meat to the charge against Barakeh. He takes as "a personal compliment" Ron's accusation that at a recent demonstration against house demolitions in the Galilee, Barakeh declared that "the right to a roof over one's head takes precedence over the duty to obey the law." What Barakeh does not accept is the "intolerable ease" with which Israel's attorney general, Elyahim Rubinstein, immediately launched a police investigation against him based solely on Ron's charges.
Never mind, the enquiry "will be an opportunity to examine police conduct vis-à-vis Arabs and the crime of demolishing the homes of Israel's Arab citizens. The ball they threw at me is going to be thrown right back," said Barakeh on 13 September.
The first pitch happened that night. A meeting of the Arab Monitoring Committee in Israel vowed that, should Barakeh even be questioned by the police, there would be "Deri-like" demonstrations by Palestinians in his defence. Since Barakeh is a Communist, it was left to the Islamist MK, Abdel-Malik Dehamshe, to raise the notch on the scale of invective. "We'll hit any policeman and break his arms if he comes to destroy an Arab house," he said.
But the real response came on 15 September and, appropriately, in Um Al-Fahm. Some 40,000 Palestinians, from the West Bank as well as from Israel, wended their way over hill, road and valley to assemble in the town's football stadium for an "Al-Aqsa is in danger" rally. Although organised by the Islamist movement, those on the front row represented a pan-Palestinian front, including Barakeh, head of the Monitoring Committee, Mohamed Zeidan and even the spokesperson of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, Atallah Hana.
But pride of place was given to Salah. Framed against a vast mock-up of Al-Aqsa Mosque shackled in chains, he laid down two markers that, for this audience at least, will be the measure of their leaderships both in Israel and beyond. The first was to do with the final status negotiations on Jerusalem. "Israel's insistence on sovereignty over the Haram Al-Sharif [Holy Sanctuary] is a declaration of war on the Muslim world," he said. "The only permissible authority is that of the Muslims and Palestinian people. Not one stone or grain of sand should be shared."
The second was to do with the stance Palestinians should take if there are elections in Israel anytime soon and Ehud Barak suddenly recalls, as he did in 1999, that nearly one in five of the Israeli electorate is Palestinian. "We should not vote for Barak," said Salah. "His promises to us last time dissolved the morning after they were made. And Barak's silence over Ron's incitement against us means that he is complicit with it and so with the policies of land confiscation, house demolitions and discrimination it represents. That silence could be the gravest mistake of Barak's political life. Our gravest mistake was to vote for Barak."
