Israel Hayom..
21 January '14..
When Abdullah el-Tell of Jordan and Moshe Dayan of Israel sat down together in November 1948 to draw up the border for Jerusalem, the village of Issawiyeh fell between the cracks of the two states. Historians today are still arguing over which side of the border the village falls on.
Mount Scopus, adjacent to Issawiyeh, did not fare much better as a result of the fateful meeting. It became a demilitarized Israeli enclave in the heart of Jordanian territory, where once every two weeks an Israeli supply convoy was allowed in. Today the matter is abundantly clear -- Mount Scopus and the village of Issawiyeh both sit inside a unified Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Far less clear is the actual reality of the situation. The reality has become so blurred that it often seems as if Israel is still adhering to those old maps.
A few minutes' drive from the National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem, where along the way sits the Hebrew University campus (founded 88 years ago), soldiers, students, policemen, civilians and local residents try braving the drive to arrive safe and sound to school, reserve duty or their homes. Along the way, they may encounter anything and everything from Molotov cocktails, stone throwing, hit-and-run attempts, burning tires and cinder blocks on the road. In this ongoing local intifada, which has known its ups and downs, everything is fair game as far as the youth of Issawiyeh are concerned.
At a glance -- at more than a glance actually -- it appears that the days of Israel's fledgling independence are back and convoys are again required to traverse the path up the mountain. The Israel Defense Forces -- you won't believe it -- operates road-clearing patrols after darkness falls on the road between the Ofrit base, passing by the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and the main road in order to allow soldiers to go home on leave. Yes, just like the old days in Lebanon or Nablus, here in the heart of our capital, spitting distance from Hadassah Hospital (which has also been hit with stones and firebombs).
Female students leaving the campus on foot frequently suffer sexually related assaults. They have tried everything -- whistles, pepper spray, self-defense courses, they have written letters to police commanders, held meetings in the Knesset. Nothing has helped them. Take that path, go around that way, protect yourselves like this -- these are the answers they hear.
The notion of "protecting yourself to the hilt" is a mistake. The routine has become so "boring" that the media no longer finds it newsworthy. Because after all, how many times can you report about another stone, another assault, another hit-and-run attempt, another bus pelted with rocks -- and only when someone is killed will the headlines scream out loud.
We occasionally report about the arrest of a cell or a lone perpetrator responsible for this reality. That's fine, but the real test is the long-term result, and in this case it has been a continuing failure. Avigdor Hameiri, whose song "From the Peak of Mount Scopus" has become canonized, paid homage to a Jerusalem dreamed about by 100 generations and vowed: "I won't move from here." But the realities on the mountain are breaking this vow.
Under American pressure, the Israeli government time and again has frozen vital construction plans to build in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, which could create the much needed Israeli territorial continuity on the mountain and prevent it from being cut off again.
We have grown accustomed, but those who continue defining the situation on the mountain as a "low-intensity conflict" will receive, one of these days, the same "low intensity" in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Hadera. It never stops with just the settlements, and not with the settlement of Jerusalem either.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7093
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