From the book Jerusalem Today edited by Ghada Karmi with a contribution by Edward Said

The sacramental principle in Christianity means that the land is hallowed by (association). History signifies because of what it contained: geography is sanctified because of what it housed. “I will be there”, said the voice in the bush to Moses, “as whom there I will be”. The event of exodus gives the only feasible clue to the God whom exodus pledges. What happened became definitive of what had to be recognized. The actual event enabled- and warranted- a mythology about its meaning, a meaning meant to be, for all generations, a reliable disclosure of “whom they had believed”. How “all our fathers passed through the sea” became a theme of memory. Exodus had sacramentalised their status as “the people of God”, and Passover simply transacted the meaning in annual experience. Apostolic Christianity was heir to this perception of theology, only that the Cross of Jesus had become the epic theme. Jesus, in the meaning of his wounds, became for founding-Christians “the place of the Name”, where God could be known in how he had “been there” in the dimensions of the love that suffered.

This sense of things inherently hallowed the physical place where all had transpired, the Galilee of his words and ministry, the Gethsemane of his sorrows. It was a sense of things which subsumed, if it did not supersede, all other sanctifying aegis having to do with land and story. In a sense the significance of the Temple as “the place of the Name”, the expression of divine identity, passed over for Christians into the person and the work of Christ. The Pauline phrase “in Christ” came to mean a spiritual domicile in which peoplehood-in-faith became “the body of Christ” was thus ‘dis-enlandised’ (if we may invent the term) while remaining in fond and gentle love, by association, of the “where” and the “when” of the eventfulness that made it so.

Before pursuing this essential theme more fully in the first Christian mind, it may be well to reflect briefly on the centrality of the basic concept of the sacramental. Despite the word’s Latin origin, the idea has deeply Hebraic sanction, though Christian faith had its own welcome for it. The term is initially simple enough, namely that things physical embody and express things spiritual- a frown, a smile, a handshake, flowers, a kiss, an embrace. All these do not merely inform, they transact. They indicate relationship but they also effectuate it. Two realms combine. I put my sympathy into a gesture, I write my anxiety on my face.

These devices are bound to have theological counterpart. The Aaronic blessing tells of “the face of the Lord”, the prophets asked of “the arm of the Lord”. All faiths need these measures of speech. Without some inter-penetrability of the divine and the human all thought of God, even more all worship, would be null and void. Even mystic silence must return to some sort of conceivability. Christianity grasps this secret full-handedly with due, but not crippling, compunction. It is faith in incarnation where “Word is made flesh and dwells among us, full of grace and truth”. Even faiths that demure over that conception necessarily turn on some measure of divine condescension to the human, or human agency for the divine. For, otherwise, faith and love and truth would be vacuous for lack of medium and meaning.

Posted on: 2002

By Naseer Aruri

Having consolidated its control of West Jerusalem after 1948, Israel used its 1967 conquest as an opportunity to extend its jurisdiction to the Jordanian-ruled East Jerusalem, and to enlarge the boundaries yet another time to add numerous new Arab villages and neighborhoods. More than 25 percent of the area known as the West Bank was expropriated and incorporated into a newly- created greater Jerusalem. The physical barriers between East and West Jerusalem were removed.

The Moghrabi section of the Old City was totally razed with its 350 homes for more than 1500 residents, who were subsequently expelled in order to accommodate a new plaza in front of the Western Wall.

Defying U.N. resolutions the Israeli Knesset adopted three legislative acts on June 27, 28 and 29, 1967, extending Israeli law to the occupied Eastern sector of the city and enlarging the municipal boundaries of “united” Jerusalem, which had suddenly grown from 44,000 donums to 108,000 donums (approximately 29,000 acres). According to Sarah Kaminker, an Israeli town planner in the Jerusalem municipality, the new land grab constituted 70,500 donums (about 17,500 acres), which had almost doubled what had been quadrupled in 1948.  Israel managed to avoid adding about 80,000 Arabs to the population of the expanded city by not applying its amendment to the Law and Administration Ordinance to the Arab villages of Abu-Dis, Anata, Hizma, Beit Iksa, Beit Hanina, and al-Ram, as well as the Qalandia refugee camp and the neighborhood of Bethany.  To bolster the Zionist dictum of acquiring the land without the people, Israel carried out a general census of the entire newly occupied territory, including Jerusalem on July 25, 1967.

All residents who were away working, visiting relatives or touring were considered absentees and thus denied their right to reside in the City. That was also applied to the Palestinian civilians who either fledthe fighting or were persuaded to board the Israeli buses waiting to take them to the Allenby Bridge.  An estimated number of 100,000 lost their international right to belong totheir national patrimony.  The process of dispossession, displacement, dismemberment, disenfranchisement and dispersal, which was savagely applied to the Palestinians in 1948, was reenacted systematically after 1967.  For Jerusalem and its surroundings, the objective objective was to create a huge Jewish metropolis that would disrupt the territorial continuity of the West Bank, keep the Arab population to no more than a manageable 30 percent and preempt any sovereign existence for the Palestinians there.

To operationalize that imperative, Israel mobilized varied resources and utilized legal gimmickry that would facilitate the passing of Arab land into Jewish ownership, and then making it off limits to Arabs.  During the past 25 years, more than 33 percent, or about 16 square miles of the expanded Arab East Jerusalem areas were confiscated.  East Jerusalem, which was a mere 4.3 square miles or 4% of all of Jerusalem prior to 1967, is now 48 square miles or 63% of the newly redefined Jerusalem-expanding eleven fold.  The land confiscated from the West Bank is now part of non-negotiable Jerusalem, and is not therefore an issue for discussion until the so-called  final status negotiations. Netanyahu’s so-called “umbrela municipality” adopted on June 25, 1998 had simply formalized what is now “greater Jerusalem”.

It extended Jerusalem’s jurisdiction from a territory of 48 square miles to 72 square miles, by incorporating the illegal settlements of Givat Ze`ev to the North, Ma`ale Adumim to the East and Betar and Efrata to the South.  The new Jewish population thus added plus the  142,000 apartments built for Jews only, will accomplish Israel’s demographic balance of 70 Jewish majority and a tolerated Arab minority of less than 30%.

Such an enterprise, which flies in the face of numerous U.N. resolutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention (1949) and even the Oslo Accords, may last 20, 30 or even 50 years; but it will not last forever.  For it is being driven by the engine of power and hegemony.

Ethnic cleansing and apartheid-style living, which have already been discredited in the world, will ultimately crash head on with the norms of universalist humanism.  How long can the Jewish ideals of tolerance and conciliation remain alienated from the Israeli political agenda?  How long can the Palestinian people remain reticent in the face of steady conquest proceeding under no-war conditions?  The future of Palestine/Israel will be more secure when all the inhabitants of that land, Muslims, Christians and Jews, can feel equal under the law and can co-exist in a society free of population quotas, by-pass roads, and discriminatory legislation-a society which can give dignity to every single human being. The widely publicized “compromise” offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David II in July, 2000 is very distant from these ideals in that it expects the Palestinian and Arab people to acquiesce in Israeli sovereignty over a city that has been unilaterally expanded twelve fold since 1967.

The Palestine Authority would be given civil control in the surrounding villages and Arab neighborhoods of East  Jerusalem. The Muslim and Christian Holy Places would be effectively under Israeli sovereignty, but The Palestinians would be offered a formula that would allow them to claim that they have control over the Holy Places. In fact, under the dying Oslo formula Arafat would be able to establish his government in the village of Abu-Dis, but it could be called Jerusalem. The uprising which began on September 28^th of this year after Israel’s General Sharon made his provocative and unwelcome visit to the Haram al-Sharif, served notice that the gap is wide not only between the Palestinians and Israel but also between the Palestinians and Mr. Arafat.

Posted on: 2000

By Khaled Nsseibeh

No doubt mirth and laughter are a part of what we are as human beings. In addition to its being a natural human tendency– universally observable– people’s sense of humor is often times culturally derived. The people of a tiny hamlet or town may have a sense of humor especially enjoyed and that is familiar to that particular town or region. Traditions and a shared historical experience may explain a great deal.

Can we say something about the sense of humor of Arab Jerusalemites?

Before addressing this question lets say something about humor in Islam: The Muslim faith encourages laughter to the extent that it is a religion that seeks to achieve human well being. On one occasion, the prophet Muhammad told an elderly woman that her likes will not go to paradise; she was obviously astounded by the Prophet’s remark… But he (peace be upon him) explained that this is so because in paradise people are forever youthful…(this is not the exact narration).

Having said that we can say that certain types of humor which encourage racism and prejudice, or which foster denigration by dint of the humanly blameless (social status, the physical and social environment, accent or cuisine of a group, gender affiliation, handicap, etc.) are Islamically discouraged. In contrast, humor which brings to focus these differences but which at the same time helps in social solidarity and compassion is Islamically encouraged.

Going back to the question: what can we say about the humor of Jerusalemites? Generally speaking it is a subdued sense of humor. A part of the reason is that Arab Jerusalemites are extremely conscious of social perception, generally reluctant to engage in boisterous kinds of laughter– especially on occasions when many people are present. It is commonplace to reproach someone who express lewdness in jokes to be reproached as “Qalil Haya” (or suffering from insufficient sense of shame).

Does that mean that Jerusalemites are incapable of vulgar humor, or that, in fact, lewd joking doesn’t exist? The fact is it exists: but when it is practiced, this writer would argue, there is sometimes an effort to conceal it or to resist it. But like any other city there is a certain amount of corruption which occurs in how people stimulate laughter, or how they go about resisting it.

After the 1948 and the 1967 catastrophes it is arguable that the Jerusalem Arab community (inside and outside Palestine) became more exposed to influences transmitted through newer social environments, through avenues of the media and education which were not present in earlier times.

No doubt, Israeli occupation and culture also had an influence on the styles of humor of Jerusalemites. In effect, humor is evoked oftentimes by both the painful as well as the sweet, by enemies as well as friends, by what is indigenous to a social group and what is extraneous.

Sometimes, absence or availability of money is a source for humor, when wealth is referred to: “Fulan Zangil” (a word of ostensibly Turkish origin) may mean: so and so is rich. By contrast, the remark “Fulan mfaliss” may mean he is penniless1. The adjective “mfaliss”, may mean “without fils”– the first syllable of which is “mafi” (without), and the second syllable “fils” is a monetary unit.

Perhaps for Jerusalemites the moral example may be the Egyptians: they maintain their mirth and sense of humor under the most difficult or under the easiest of circumstances. Oftentimes, that may add up to laughing hearts that get warmer over time.

Do the Turks have a sense of humor? To the extent that a Turk is a man, and to the extent that humor is a human trait we can deduce that the Turks have a sense of humor. To observe Turkish humor directly knowing Jerusalemites may be a helpful thread.

End Note

1- This is the common meaning of the word mfaliss, however, the literal meaning of the word indicates the opposite and that is a person has fils or money.

Mr. Khaled Nusseibeh is a translator and writer. He currently manages the Ubada Center for Writing and Translation Services in Amman. Born in Amman in 1961, he obtained his BA and MA from Columbia and Princeton Universities, respectively. Mr. Nusseibeh, who originates from Jerusalem, specialized in Near Eastern Studies with a focus on Islamic thought and studies.

Posted on: 1999

By Khaled Nusseibeh

Islam and Muslim civilization have been criticized by many detractors. The anti-Islamic polemic has addressed many themes. One such theme is the question of the dealing of Islamic societies with protected people (Dhimmis), or the “People of the Book”: Christians and Jews.

In all fairness, some of these critics, or students of Muslim civilization have often mentioned the tolerance of the Muslim religion towards Ahl Al-Kitab– or People of the Book: the people of the Torah and the Evangel. In fact, in comparison with other civilizations Muslim civilization embodies tolerance of an unequalled extent.

The issue of the view of Islam of Christianity and Judaism, or of Jews and Christians is too broad to be dealt with in a short article. Relevant to say here is that Dhimmis’ freedom of religious practice, rights to property, to life, to honor were generally defended by the Islamic caliphate and by Islamic governments. In fact, the law of Islam defends those rights.

Even under circumstances of a military conquest of territory by Muslims the rights of the non-Muslims were generally safeguarded: In the sense that freedom of religious belief was not infringed (although people were encouraged to become Muslim, and hence, an integral part of the Muslim nation), women and children were not murdered, private property was generally safeguarded.

When we speak about Israeli occupation of Arab territory and honest comparison between historical Muslim treatment of Jews and Israeli treatment of Arabs is perhaps never evoked. Quite objectively, the record of the Israeli governments over fifty years has been dismal: land is routinely expropriated, economic warfare has oftentimes been perpetrated with viciousness, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remained in Palestine have been arrested over the years– sometimes tortured and killed– not to mention the denial of the right to return for perhaps more than half of the Palestinian people– multitudes of whom continue to live in camps of refuge in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

This writer recently attended a lecture delivered by a Jordanian official describing his impressions of east Jerusalem at the premises of the Jerusalem Forum in Amman: in a nutshell, the situation for the Arab quarter of the city is dismal. Compared with the western part of the city the municipal services are vastly inferior, the economic circumstances are recessionary, there is an absence of intellectual and political leadership, and Arab property is shrinking.

In effect, the Arab quarter of Jerusalem that is so talked about in the press and by politicians has been ghettoized. Even Islam’s holy Aqsa Mosque is being continually threatened by elements that wish to inflict damage to it– through the construction of underground tunnels or through periodic attacks on its premises by extremist elements.

On a final note: it is best for those that criticize Islam on the issue of “protected people” and who are at the same time supporters of and apologists for Israeli occupation to refrain.

Intellectual and moral honesty may be better served in the process.

Say, “O you people of the book, come to a just word between you and us, that we worship none but God, and that we associate naught with him, and that we take not one another for Lords apart from God.“ But if they turn away, then say, “Be it witnessed that we are Muslims.” (Holy Qur’an, 3:64)

Mr. Khaled Nusseibeh is a translator and writer. He currently manages the Ubada Center for Writing and Translation Services in Amman. Born in Amman in 1961, he obtained his BA and MA from Columbia and Princeton Universities, respectively. Mr. Nusseibeh, who originates from Jerusalem, specialized in Near Eastern Studies with a focus on Islamic thought and studies.