Jerusalem Up Against the Wall

Some Israelis have speculated that Abu Tir—who was related to a prominent jailed Hamas leader—may have acted on behalf of the Islamists. One Israeli intelligence source, refusing to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation, says part of the problem is that East Jerusalemites are "adopting the Islamic way of life in a more radical way." The popularity of Hamas in East Jerusalem spiked in recent years, as it did among Palestinians elsewhere, and most women in the southern neighborhoods now wear headscarves.

But the situation is not that simple. Since Hamas won power in elections two years ago, Israeli security forces have swept through East Jerusalem and the West Bank, arresting scores of senior Hamas figures and shuttering Islamic cultural centers and other institutions. Such centers can, of course, be focal points for Islamic militants, but they can also provide a social safety net and a sense of community. By cracking down on the Islamists in the name of security, Israel is also undermining a powerful source of social stability. The only people who still go to the mosques in East Jerusalem now "are the old people," says bulldozer driver Mohammad Attoun, 25. "Most of the Islamic leaders are in prison. Anybody who goes to the mosque three days in a row ends up in jail. Now I pray at home. The society is completely dismantled."

The same is true even of East Jerusalem's secular leadership. For most of the 20th century, Arab Jerusalem was dominated by a handful of landowning patrician clans with historically close ties to the British governors of Palestine and the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan. But after 1967, the Israeli government set out to weaken the ruling clans, partly by disbanding the prewar municipality and replacing it with an Israeli one. For a time, the heirs of those original Jerusalem aristocrats continued to wield some influence; Faisal Husseini, the scion of an ancient Jerusalem family, helped guide the early days of the first intifada from his Jerusalem headquarters, called Orient House. But after Oslo, the center of Palestinian power shifted still further from Jerusalem to Ramallah. Since Husseini's death in 2001, Jerusalem's Palestinians have been largely leaderless. "One of the most important things is the total disappearance of a political leadership class," says Sari Nusseibeh, the president of Jerusalem's Al-Quds University.

The power vacuum provides plenty of latitude for young East Jerusalemites looking to challenge traditional Palestinian mores. Hussam Dweiat, another hard hat from East Jerusalem, spent his rebellious years working as a waiter in Eilat, Israel's carefree resort town on the Red Sea coast. He dropped out of school after eighth grade and eventually met a young Israeli woman who worked at the same restaurant. The young man experimented with drugs and fathered a child with her. When he got jealous, sometimes he hit her. She finally had him arrested, and he did time in an Israeli prison. They stayed in touch anyway, but after his release, Dweiat's parents forced him to end the relationship.

His mother managed to set him up with a bride she considered more suitable: a young Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem. Dweiat got a job driving a bulldozer for an Israeli company and—outwardly, at least—his life seemed to be turning around. His wife gave birth to two children and says he was a doting father. Still, his debts became overwhelming—more than $200,000, partly because of fines that were levied by the Israelis because he had built his house without a permit. "Sometimes I'd feed [his family] myself," says his mother, Sarah. "His whole salary went to debt." On the morning of July 2, he plowed his earthmover into a line of traffic in West Jerusalem, killing several Israelis before an off-duty soldier shot him dead.

Israelis are arguing among themselves about how to respond to such attacks. Some people, particularly in the security services, want to demolish the attackers' homes. In the past several years Israel has halted punitive demolitions, partly in response to human-rights activists, who argue that they constitute collective punishment. As a result, "we lost our deterrence," says the Israeli intelligence source. Punitive demolitions may indeed intimidate East Jerusalemites in the short run. Yet they are also certain to infuriate the population. "Deterrence, in the long run, doesn't work," says Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli historian and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem. "All colonial powers, in the initial phase, think deterrence is enough. But then they learn."

Jamilla Dweiat, Hussam's widow, can't understand why Israel would punish her and her sons by tearing down their house. She worries about it daily and, to pass the quiet evenings, occasionally tunes in to "Noor," that Turkish soap opera. But the good life now seems so unattainable that she finds herself weeping as she watches. During her interview with NEWSWEEK, a team of stolid Israeli officials arrived at her house and walked around—taking measurements for the demolition, she assumed. As the men strode through the halls, Jamilla bit her lip and hugged her belly. The day her husband killed and died, she learned she was pregnant again.

With Joanna Chen and Nuha Musleh in Jerusalem

© 2008