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.

On the 6th and final day of the war, more announcements were made via loudspeakers that anyone who wants to go outside, can safely get outdoors. People can open their shops, people can travel. I told my aunt that I should get back to my family in Shuafat. I walked 7 kilometers back home through Wadi al Joz, found dead bodies scattered and saw an Israeli military car approaching and jumped into a house to hide myself there. After the military car passed the house, I continued my walk to the camp.

At the entrance of the camp, I find my mother and father planning to go to the Old City to find me. It was a very emotional moment, after losing my parents for six days while not knowing what happened to one another.

It used to be a very boring and abysmal life for us. No electricity, no running water, no TV, no refrigerator, not even a toilet, as we used public toilets in the camp. My father used to be a tailor, earning pennies and we were 8 people in our family, living in extreme poverty, in 1 room.

In 1972, my father found a job at Hadassah Hospital as a cleaner. 10 years later, in 1982, my father became a very close friend to a Jewish professor at Hadassah. That professor used to visit us in the refugee camp on Shabbat with his daughter. Professor Isaac, as we called him, built the Sharet Center for Cancer in Hadassah and he succeeded to find a job for my father in that new building. He sent my father for training for 6 months to Tel Aviv, to learn how to sterilize medical equipment. I remember one day, my father left the house in the morning in a tie and suit. I asked my mother if my father is travelling? She said no, he is going to work. I said, why does he need a tie and a suit to clean? She said he got a new position.

One day, I went to visit my father in Hadassah and I saw him wearing a doctor’s robe in a room with huge machinery and instruments all around. On that day, I realized that we should have to support Israel because Israel is the only country that gave us the chance and opportunity for a good life.

In my opinion, the whole issue of the Palestinian cause is almost finished. Neither the Arabs, nor the Muslim states, nor the Palestinian leadership cares about the Palestinian cause. So I am calling my Palestinian colleagues to calm down and to realize the facts on the ground. It is the time for the Palestinians to start saying, I am dying to live! Now is the time.

These days, I am very happy that I am living in Jerusalem under the Israelis. There’s no doubt that Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel and this fact can not be changed whether the Americans transfer their Embassy to Jerusalem or not. If I will be invited to celebrate the new Embassy opening in Jerusalem, I will gladly participate.

Jerusalem Day will be especially meaningful this year, followed by the first-ever opening of a foreign embassy in Jerusalem, initiated by the first-ever American administration who has fearlessly broken the ice in a never-ending stalemate. Let’s hope that next year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the Kingdom of Bahrain will also open their embassy in Jerusalem!

* Bassem Eid is a Jerusalem-based political analyst, human rights pioneer and expert commentator in Arab and Palestinian affairs.

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