I am sitting in Sheikh Jarrah, a district to the north of the Old City of Jerusalem, and one of the Arab neighbourhoods. The quiet evening air gets heavy to breathe as loud cracks start to the south-east of where our home is. They come in sporadic bursts, followed by a crackling sound. It for all the world sounds like fireworks, and here it is all too possible to jump to the conclusion that every loud bang is accompanied by a muzzle flash.
Except tonight it isn't fireworks I'm hearing. My housemates scanning Twitter inform me that clashes are taking place in Ras al-Amud, which is indeed to the south-east of us. It was initially between groups of young people, but from the sounds of things, the IDF have now become involved. The bangs are either rubber-coated bullets or tear gas being dispensed as an air-burst. Either way, tonight there is violence taking place barely fifteen minutes' walk from where I live.
It's been a tense time here in Jerusalem. Israel has just celebrated its 67th Independence Day, with Israeli flags covering cars and buildings in the city, while military aircraft fly overhead. But on this same day, a group unaffiliated with Hamas launched a rocket from northern Gaza, which landed in an empty piece of countryside. Israel responded with a drone strike against the 'terrorist target'.
Several young Palestinians have also been killed recently, most notably a sixteen year old boy at A-Zayyim checkpoint. He was accused of attempting to attack the soldiers there with a knife, in some accounts carrying two knives. However, according to all Palestinians, he was unarmed when he was shot, and the evidence removed very quickly to make the shooting look justified. Having not been there myself, I cannot confirm or deny the veracity of this. All I know is that a sixteen year old was killed by a professional soldier. It's a dead kid however you look at it. And this is probably the spark of tonight's problems, until the next story of Palestinian suffering and response filters through the ears of those who will listen. It isn't at all dissimilar to the situation in places such as Ferguson, MO, where a young man was killed by a trained officer, and rioting happened. Personally, I believe that in each case the authorised officer's training, as well as back up, should have meant that neither Michael Brown nor Ali Sa'id Abu Ghanem were lethally shot. I cannot change whether you think they were guilty or not, but I do care if you cannot understand why these killings aggravate friends and relatives to the point where riots and clashes happen.
So, groups of young people begin a clash and the IDF, of course, joins in to protect the Israeli youths in the current scenario. Finger pointing will inevitably happen and there will be those determined to say 'well they started it'. I have seen that myself talking to other adults about the situation here. But even if the first stone is cast by someone, they must have a reason for that throw, such as the shooting of a young man, who is reputed to be innocent. I saw this video recently. Once again, this took place less than fifteen minutes away from where I live. The centre of Jerusalem is not a large place, which only intensifies the problems here.
But anyway, the video. In it you can clearly see a large group of predominantly young Israelis, chanting 'death to Arabs' with gleeful smiles. I don't watch this and hate them. I watch this and just feel incredibly sad for them. These young boys are clearly finding this a lot of fun, shouting to the windows of the shopkeepers above and around them that they wish them dead. This is hate speech in a pure form. I am not angry at these children, as I say. I reserve my anger for those who have taught their children that this is their future. When each generation is raised to think that calling for the death of those they live side-by-side with is the right thing to do, the cycle can never be broken.
And what of the end of the cycle? The words 'two state solution' are always talked about in relation to Israel and Palestine. But actually being here, those words, sadly, begin to feel more and more hollow with each new thing I learn. One of my future posts will deal with my opinions on the two state solution in detail.
So now I sit here, hoping to not hear when I check the news tomorrow morning of the death of another Palestinian. But in equal measure, I hope that no Israeli has been seriously wounded or killed either. An eye for an eye will not bring peace to this troubled city. But all I can do is listen to the sounds of the clash in the distance and wait to hear about the damage, when I am able to open my eyes in the morning, free from the effects of tear gas and rubber-bullets. I just hope that everyone in Ras al-Amud can open their eyes in the morning too.
(Apologies for the somewhat brief and undetailed post, but I wanted to post about this while it was happening.)
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