Feature Stories

Next Year in Jerusalem (Bassem Eid)

These words, from a Muslim Arab who was born and raised in Jerusalem, will change your view of Israel’s unified, eternal capital!

Photo Credit: Emmanuel DYAN [License]

Next Year in Jerusalem
By: Bassem Eid*
I was born in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, under Jordanian occupation. In June 1966, the Jordanian government decided to evacuate 500 Palestinian families, including my family, from the Jewish quarter and to relocate them to Shuafat Refugee Camp, with no clear reason as to why they did so.
One day before the onset of the 1967 ‘6-Day’ War, I arrived from the Shuafat Refugee Camp to the Old City of Jerusalem, to visit my aunt. The following day, the war had begun and I was 9 years old and stuck at my aunt’s house. I heard shooting and asked my aunt ‘what’s going on?’ She said, it is a war between the Arabs and the Jews. I said, ‘what is a Jew? Are they human beings like us?’ She said no, they eat human beings. I became very afraid.
Three days into the war, I started hearing in Arabic, via loudspeakers that anyone who wants food, he can go to a specific point where we are distributing food. My aunt asked me if I want to go and bring food? I said no way, they will eat me. She said I will not send you alone I will send you with the neighbors children. Then I went with the neighbors and I found Israeli soldiers, distributing bread, tomatoes and milk. I carried as much as I could and came back to my aunt’s house. I understood the Israeli soldiers were not like the witch in the children’s tale of ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ where they would fatten the kids before cooking them. I realized that my aunt was a liar and that this was no fairy tale.

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