No Shortcuts in Israel, Just Small Steps

By Daniel Seidemann

Sunday, August 24, 2003

JERUSALEM -- The Tuesday evening news was on. In the middle of the broadcast came the anchorman's all too familiar downward glance, a tightening of voice: "We are getting initial reports of an explosion in north Jerusalem. . . ." The scenes of senseless carnage that soon appeared only confirmed what we had all feared, almost known, from that first downward glance.

Within minutes, the familiar mantra mongers were on screen. "If we just take out the terror leaders and retake the refugee camps . . ." -- "If we just complete this final status agreement . . ." -- "If we just erect another 100 miles of fence . . . this will all be over." And despite our desire to believe, we hear these multiple choices and we know the answer is none of the above.

My wife, our three daughters and I work and go to school within 200 yards of one another in downtown Jerusalem. In our own private Bermuda triangle we have had 10 suicide attacks within the last three years. For the six brief weeks of the hudna, the cease-fire, we had allowed ourselves a pretense of normalcy -- previously unthinkable trips to the mall, nights at the movies. But by the anchorman's fifth word Tuesday night we were back on the edge of the abyss.

We -- and by "we " I mean the large majority of Israelis and Palestinians, bloodied and exhausted -- know how this all will end five or 10 years from now: with a Palestinian state more or less along the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. It is all over but the body count. But today there seems to be no way of proceeding from here to there, to bridge the chasm between the politically impossible and the historically inevitable. Mutual exhaustion is not a replacement for leadership -- and neither side has leaders capable of articulating, much less implementing, a credible political process. At this stage of the game, it is Politics 2, History 0.

For the past 12 years, I have taken my government at its word: that the Palestinians of East Jerusalem are entitled to due process and equality under law. As an Israeli lawyer, I have made efforts to assure that this is no empty slogan.

But how does one go on the day after such an outrage?

It is easier than it sounds. By taking it step by step. By getting up the day after the terrorist attack, in my case, for an 8 a.m. meeting with Samih.

Samih is a 29-year-old Palestinian who lives in Kfar Aqab, the northernmost neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Nominally, he is a sausage salesman. But in essence, he embodies the future of Palestinian Jerusalem.

How? I'll give you an example. Virtually no municipal or governmental services reach Kfar Aqab -- even if it is part of "the undivided capital of Israel which will never be re-divided." The neighborhood hasn't had a sewage system for 35 years. (And, oddly, sewage even in Jerusalem obeys the laws of gravity, not the Likud party platform or the PLO covenant.) Complaints and pleas didn't help, and despite repeated promises, nothing was done. But four months ago, Samih marched into the Jerusalem Municipality offices, grinning from ear to ear, and confessed to a crime. He had collected money from his already impoverished neighbors, gotten a sewage line built and had it hooked it up illegally to the city pipelines. Initially taken aback, municipal officials are now hoping to replicate this model of self-empowerment in other areas of endeavor.

Another example: Palestinians complained about the graft paid to soldiers at checkpoints, but I couldn't go to the authorities without evidence. "Bring me a photo," I told Samih. Days later he sauntered in, grinning again. "Will a receipt do?" he asked, proudly brandishing a piece of paper -- while I wondered whether his grin was about his own success or the stupidity of the soldier.

That is why, hours after last week's terrorist attack, I met with Samih as planned. We are used to working in the shadow of disaster, and we got right down to the next task: how to prevent the perennial flooding of his neighborhood next winter.

Samih and I are not alone. There are people like Haj Hassan, a retired town planner who started his career when Jordan ruled East Jerusalem, who is working with Ayala, an Israeli architect, to try to humanize the blatantly dysfunctional planning regime in East Jerusalem. And Hillel, a retired Hebrew University computer expert, has joined forces with Hussam from Beit Hanina, Pepe the councilman and Fuad who runs the clinic in Beit Safafa to get Palestinian kids into public schools.

Two years ago, a few of us got together in my living room to talk strategy on the school issue. From a neighborhood not far away, we could hear machine-gun and tank fire. There was an awkward pause, and then one of the Palestinians said, "Our people are firing on your people, and your people on ours. Can we meet like this?" The answer was immediate and unanimous: Yes. "We've got work to do."

Are we representative? Of course not. The cumulative fear, humiliation and terror of the past three years have destroyed the hestitant mutual humanization that began during the Oslo years. Palestinians have no idea how terrorized Israelis are, how disrupted our lives. And we Israelis have no idea how humiliated and subjugated the Palestinians are.

But as marginal as this group might be, we are far more representative of our respective peoples and their aspirations than the suicide bombers and the extremists on both sides. Both peoples are better than their current leaderships. Even Jerusalem is still an eminently viable city. If history has condemned us to share this city, it is a verdict the vast majority on both sides can live with.

There are no shortcuts. There are small steps to take, however, and that is what we do.

It is late Thursday afternoon. From my desk in downtown Jerusalem, there's a view of the setting sun bathing the city in a golden-pink glow.

As I type, news comes in of the "liquidation" of Ismail Abu Shanab, the Hamas leader. He will not be missed in these parts, but the dozens of Israelis and Palestinians likely to die in the frenzy of retaliation and counter-retaliation will indeed be missed.

And calls come in from the Palestinian village of Abu Dis, where a new stretch of security fence is going up. A D9 Caterpillar has arrived, heavily secured by the military. Some frantic phone calls to the army -- good people carrying out a horribly misguided policy -- and the authorities agree to limit their immediate actions to breaking down a garden wall. We will negotiate the precise route of where the eight-yard-high security fence will be placed.

In the aftermath of Tuesday's bus attack, there is no immediate prospect of stopping this folly. For the first time since Suleiman the Magnificent walled in Jerusalem in the 16th century, Jerusalem will be walled once again. The residents ask for my advice, and I have none. And words of solace sound hollow.

Did I say solace? On this worst of days, when infant children are brought to burial and the hudna is dead on arrival, the best I can say is that things are better today than they will be this time next week, or in the foreseeable future.

So why bother?

Thirty years ago I left the United States and never looked back. I came here as a Zionist, and a Zionist I remain . Ironically, Zionism's crowning achievement -- a secure place among nations -- can be achieved only by resolution of the conflict with our Palestinian enemies, just as their achievement -- a Palestinian state -- can be reached only with us.

I live in and love this often-unlikable city; no one need convince me of Jerusalem's hypnotic, symbolic lure. God's place in Jerusalem is secure, as is that of various peoples and symbols. Far less secure are the almost 700,000 real people, one-third of them Palestinian, who live here. So, along with countless others of good will, I devote my efforts to making room in Jerusalem for those people.

No warranty was attached to this enterprise. Contrary to custom in this town, we neither promise nor expect salvation. If Sharon is not de Klerk, and Abu Mazen not Mandela, so be it. When history deals us the grand gesture that will cut the Gordian knot, we will be here to welcome and assist. But in the meantime there is work to be done. We are here for the duration.

Dan Seidemann is a lawyer in Jerusalem.