[LINK] "Arab families in Jerusalem moving on up"

[rfmcdonald]

In The Globe and Mail today, Patrick Martin takes a look ("Arab families in Jerusalem moving on up") at the phenomenon of upwardly mobile non-Jewish individuals and families moving into the bedroom community/illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev, and the welcome that they're getting from the locals.

The Armenian pottery nameplate beside the door is common, even among Jews, but the painting over the door is a dead giveaway. Only a Christian would display outside his home a picture of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with its black-domed roof and cross on top. And only an unusual Christian would display it here, in the middle of Israel's biggest Jewish settlement.

Yousef Majlaton is an unusual Christian. An Arab born in the Old City of Jerusalem 49 years ago, when it was under Jordanian control, he decided in 2000 that he, his wife and three sons deserved better housing than what they had in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem. So the engineer and building contractor set out to buy an apartment in Pisgat Ze'ev, just north of Jerusalem.

In doing so, Mr. Majlaton started a trend that is raising the ire of a comfortable Jewish settlement, and pitting Israel's democratic values against its Jewish identity.

Pisgat Ze'ev, named for Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the right-wing leader of the Jewish Irgun underground, sits in Israeli-occupied territory. While Israel claims to have annexed it, calling it a neighbourhood and adding it to the municipality of Jerusalem, the international community considers it occupied land.

Not that that bothers Mr. Majlaton.

He wanted better public services, a larger home and a mortgage to help pay for the place, none of which he could get in Beit Hanina. And he soon found that there was nothing to stop him buying in Pisgat Ze'ev, even though it was an exclusively Jewish community. "The agent only asked for my Jerusalem ID," he explained.

[. . .]

This past spring, just after Holocaust Memorial Day, a group of about 20 Jewish youths attacked a number of Arab teenagers at the entrance to the mall. With sticks, clubs and knives, they beat them, some seriously. A few months ago, a 17-year-old boy from Pisgat Ze'ev was sentenced to a year in prison for what the judge called "regretful and shameless" acts of violence. The judge said she couldn't believe the accused had never understood the lesson of the Holocaust - "the horrors in the pursuit of people for belonging to a different race."

Ely Ben Hamu, head of the Pisgat Ze'ev council, says Palestinian families have only themselves to blame. "Jews should live with Jews and Arabs should live with Arabs," he said, "because problems could erupt, like what happened here."

"We don't want them to come to Pisgat Ze'ev," he said. "They have their own areas, such as Beit Hanina. Why should they come and live here?"

We agree that Israel's an ethnocracy, right?