Israel Matzav

The 'Palestinians' of 1967

Michael Totten refers to the Arabs who obtained the right to Israeli citizenship following the results of the Six Day War as the 'Palestinians' of 1967. He interviews some of them - mostly a shuk (souk) merchant names Ghazi whose attitudes far more approximate those of Judea and Samaria Arabs than those of Jerusalem Arabs here.

I'd like to make a couple of points. First, Totten makes it sound like you never see Arabs in 'west' Jerusalem, and you never see Jews in 'east' Jerusalem. I wouldn't know about seeing Jews in 'east' Jerusalem - I don't go there unless you count the Jewish neighborhoods across the 1949 armistice lines as 'east' Jerusalem. But I can tell you that you see plenty of Arabs in 'west' Jerusalem, and especially in its shopping malls. Ironically, as Totten is making this point, he inserts a picture entitled "Jewish West Jerusalem," which was taken in the Mamilla mall just outside the Old City, which mall has constant Arab traffic.

I also don't believe that Haifa is as integrated as he makes it out to be, although I have not spent that much time in Haifa (I have readers there - feel free to comment). My sense is that Totten is right with respect to the younger generation and particularly the students but is less correct regarding the older generation, and even less correct when it comes to religious Jews.

Finally, at the end he admits that Ghazi's willingness to die so long as Israel is (God forbid) destroyed is a minority view in Jerusalem and wonders whether it is a more common view in Judea and Samaria. It is.

Perhaps the lesson from Totten's findings is that we would have been better off annexing Judea and Samaria a long time ago.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: East Jerusalem, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Jerusalem Palestinians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:43 PM