The mountain of the wall - the battle for Jerusalem

On March 18 1997 on Jabal Abu Ghoneim mountain, near Bethlehem, bulldozers began to demolish the last hope of Israel implementing the Oslo Peace Accord.

Abu Ghoneim mountain is located at the northern borders of the town of Beit Sahour, the ancient site of the shepherds' fields. It is part of the territory Israel occupied during the 1967 war, which the international community has repeatedly insisted must be returned to its Palestinian owners. The mountain was originally declared a greenbelt.
The intention to build another 6,500 housing units exclusively for 25,000 more American and European Jewish settlers on 462 acres of forcibly confiscated Palestinian land could be the final straw that ignites war over Jerusalem. In the Arabic paper al-Quds-al-Arabi, under the heading: 'The battle for Jerusalem', the decision by Netanyahu's government to start building work at Abu Ghoneim was described as having: 'lit the fuse that will trigger the war of Jerusalem ... oblivious to Arab and international warnings and deaf to all the expressions of condemnation and denunciation ... We can predict without hesitation that it will be a bloody battle ...'.

The political motive

Why would Israel wish to violate both the letter and the spirit of the interim Peace Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians by this provocative act? It would seem that quite simply the massive settlement at Abu Ghoneim closes the circle of exclusively Jewish settlements around the north, east and south side of Palestinian Jerusalem and changes the demographic character of the West Bank forever. Har Homa is destined to give the Jews a strategic fortress as part of the process of 'Judaising' Jerusalem before the final status talks. It lays siege to the Christian Palestinian communities of Beit Sahour and Bethlehem. It eliminates their land reserves, isolates them from Jerusalem and cuts them off from the rest of the West Bank to the north.
According to Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist: 'A calculated and premeditated process of changing the character and the demographic nature of the Holy City ... is taking place.' Only 13% of the land of East Jerusalem remains in Palestinian hands. The rest has been confiscated for further exclusive Jewish settlements, bypass roads or closed military areas. Israeli planning for 'Greater Jerusalem' is an open secret. Israel's assertion that Jerusalem will remain the 'eternal and undivided capital of Israel' is a unilateral claim to exclusive Israeli sovereignty over the city that pre-empts genuine negotiation. They need to remember the words of Micah 3.9-13, concerning those who build Zion through injustice.
Under the Oslo Agreement, the Palestinians agreed to defer the status of Jerusalem in exchange for an Israeli commitment to preserve the territorial integrity of the West Bank and Gaza. Two years later, Palestinians are watching this promise evaporate before their eyes as the Israelis continue to demolish Palestinian homes (700 have been issued with demolition orders), to expand exclusively Jewish settlements in the West Bank and undermine what is left of the area's historic territorial integrity.

The military strategy

Netanyahu has shrugged off worldwide condemnation, church protests and threats of violence by frustrated Palestinians. Total Jewish control of Jerusalem is more important than anything else - including peace, he has said repeatedly. According to Eric Margolis, a specialist in military fortifications, this is because Har Homa is part of a Jewish Maginot Line. Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel began building 'housing projects' on a broad arc from north-east to south-east of the Old City. 'Housing' is really a misnomer.
Margolis points out: 'These massive, ugly apartment blocks form a nearly unbroken wall, cutting off Jerusalem from the West Bank. Constructed of large stone blocks protected by earth revetments and thick, steel-reinforced concrete, many are capable of withstanding 155mm howitzer shells and even direct fire by 105-130mm flat trajectory shells. Narrow windows resembling pillbox embrasures face the enemy. These fortress blocks have underground shelters, magazines and independent water supplies. Their residents are armed and organised to defend the complexes.'
By slamming shut this last gate into Jerusalem, Israel sends Palestinians the brutally clear message that Israel alone will rule Jerusalem.

The economic incentive

This settlement is also part of a deliberate and ambitious plan to build a new tourist city on the northern entrance to Bethlehem called 'Bethlehem, Israel'. Like ancient Nazareth, Bethlehem will become a place where tourists go only for a brief visit while the economic benefits are diverted and reaped by Israel. Tourists will be bussed into 'biblical' Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity, then go straight back to 'Bethlehem, Israel' to shop, eat and sleep. This tourist centre, with its own olive-wood souvenir shops, hotels and restaurants will inevitably further suffocate family-owned Christian businesses in Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, and deprive the already flagging Palestinian economy of badly needed revenue. According to Afif Safieh, the Palestinian General Delegate to the UK: 'The economic repercussion of the Jabal Abu Ghoneim - Har Homa settlement will inevitably result in driving the Christian community into exile ...'

Propaganda war

It is no coincidence that Israeli officials and newspapers use only the Hebrew name of the site, Har Homa. This is no innocuous translation from Arabic into Hebrew. The cultural displacement of the Arabic name is inevitably followed by physical displacement. Palestinians know Jabal Abu Ghoneim as 'Green Mountain'. The proposed new Hebrew name is 'Har Homa' meaning 'Mountain of the Wall'. The difference in names is as eloquent as the difference in perception. Thousands of locations in Israel and the Occupied Territories have undergone the same surgical process, cleansing them of their former Arab associations and rendering them an Israeli identity.
The 'virtual reality' of resurrecting biblical hallucinations has become a very potent political lever, aided and abetted by Christian Zionists who naively equate contemporary Israel with biblical Israel. So when Jabal Abu Ghoneim has disappeared from the Israeli collective consciousness and is taken over by Har Homa, it will have become part of the nation's inheritance, to be 'defended' at all costs.

Response by Christians

In a statement released on Good Friday, Sabeel, The Palestinian Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem, asserted: 'The project reflects the arrogance of Israeli power, its obsession with domination over and economic exploitation of the Palestinians. It has and will fuel resentment, deepen the hate, ensure the passion for revenge and bring about an inevitable future of bloodshed and violence ... We in Sabeel condemn the violence of the construction at Abu Ghoneim, perpetrated by the State of Israel. It is a violence against the aspirations of a whole nation. It is a violence directed against the peace process. It is a violence against the future generations of Palestinians and Israelis who must live as neighbours in peace and security.'
The Middle East Council of Churches insist: 'In soil already bitter, it sows seeds of deep distrust and even deep despair.' They urge churches 'to decry what is happening to the City of Peace, and to intervene with their governments in its cause. Our Lord blessed Jerusalem with his presence. He lived there. There he was crucified, died and rose again. It is a trust upon us all, and beckons the faithful to preserve it as everyone's city, a city whose portals open upon eternity.'

Options for genuine peace?

For there to be any lasting hope for peace between Jews and Palestinians, the government of Israel must interpret the biblical injunction which Christians share with Jews: 'Love your neighbour as yourself' (Leviticus 19.18, Mark 12.31) as having an inclusive interpretation, and therefore includes the Palestinians. It must accept the sharing of Jerusalem as a key to a just peace. It must terminate the building of settlements, which makes an idol of the land. Like Switzerland is doing over Nazi deposits of Jewish property, Israel must similarly make restitution to Palestinians who have become refugees, returning their land and property. Both Palestinians and Israelis are strangers and sojourners on the land, which belongs to God: 'The land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants' (Leviticus 25.23). It must be shared under the one creator God who has placed both peoples on it.
What can the wider international community do? Frankly, the American response towards all this has been appalling. While 'understanding the pressures' that Netanyahu's government is under, the Clinton Administration 'wishes' that they didn't build this settlement. However, by vetoing further condemnation of Israel's actions in the UN on the grounds that this is now an 'internal matter', the US has undermined the implementation of international law in the Middle East. It is ironic that it can support Israel annually with more than $3 billion, spearhead continuing sanctions against Iraq, and lead the boycott of former Yugoslavia for its own policy of ethnic cleansing, yet on this issue, apparently it cannot do any more than make a wish.
LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, has urged for a practical campaign, demanding that the US government, the European Union and other foreign aid donors to Israel deduct directly from foreign aid money $100,000 for each new unit constructed in a settlement, and $1,000,000 for each house demolished in the West Bank resulting in the forced homelessness of Palestinian families. Were this to be implemented, Israel might be brought to realise that genuine hope for a real and lasting peace can only be based on justice for all.
In the words of Canon Naim Ateek: 'Peace cannot be built on confiscated land'.

Stephen R. Sizer

© Evangelicals Now - May 1997
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