The Arabs on the outside

[Rasputin]

Another suitor backed off when he realized that making her his bride would banish him from Jerusalem, the city of his birth. Although Ms. Shawara lives within the Israeli-drawn boundaries of Jerusalem, she holds a West Bank ID and could be arrested if she's caught inside the city but outside her village. She can't travel, study, or work in Jerusalem.

Palestinian West Bankers can't reach her. Palestinian Jerusalemites don't want her. She is cut off from the city: a similar reality that one-quarter of the city's Arab residents, a new report says, may soon face as Israel's security barrier zigzags around the city, creating a new boundaries.

"I can't move. I can't go anywhere," says Shawara, locking her arms across her chest and gazing bitterly into the distance. "Last week, the soldiers told me my name wasn't on the list and I couldn't go home. Recently, we went shopping and bought a lot, and the soldier wouldn't even let us enter the village in a taxi, so we had to carry it all on foot."

Her story is just one of numerous examples of how life in this city - which lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - is fast becoming less penetrable and more gerrymandered. As the boundaries around Jerusalem harden, Palestinians are being shut off not only culturally but economically as well. Critics of the wall say these new burdens will only cultivate more anger toward Israel.

Residents never got Jerusalem IDs

Nuaman is located on land considered by Israeli law to be part of the united city of Jerusalem. Israel annexed the Arab eastern part of the city, which had been under Jordanian rule, after the Six Day War of 1967. But residents of Nuaman were never issued Jerusalem IDs.

Arab residents of the city are affected not just by the concrete barrier, portions of which were being added even as this reporter visited several sites over the course of two months, but by expanded checkpoints and restrictions.

For instance, Israeli authorities have stopped giving Jerusalem ID cards for marriage or "family reunification." Even if Shawara married another Jerusalemite or an Israeli citizen, she wouldn't be allowed to reside in the city legally.

In many places outside urban areas, Israeli officials point out that the barrier is actually an army-patrolled, electronically monitored fence. But here in Jerusalem, it is an almost 30-foot high wall, and parts that are now demarcated with fencing are scheduled to become a concrete wall.

It's unclear why the people of Nuaman wound up living within Jerusalem without Israeli identification. Almost all residents of East Jerusalem whose neighborhoods Israel annexed after the Six Day War were made permanent residents, but Nuaman somehow was left off the map. Israel refers to the area only as Mazmuriya, named for a Roman archeological site.

The Israeli army referred all questions about this issue to the Interior Ministry, which deals with matters of citizenship and residency. An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said all related questions now fall under the aegis of the Ministry of Defense, which not could be reached for comment.

Lt. Col. Shlomo Dror, the spokesman for the Coordinator of Activities in the Territories, an office which is assigned to be a liaison between the Israeli authorities and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, says that Nuaman's difficulties will eventually be smoothed out.

"We know about the people there. Some of them are not legally there, but we are not going to push anyone out," says Mr. Dror. "We'll find a solution for this problem. Maybe, one day, the fence will be in another place, or maybe that part of East Jerusalem will be part of the West Bank."

The somewhat amorphous limits of what Israeli politicians call the "Jerusalem envelope" are making an impact on far more than just a few hundred residents of Nuaman, whose numbers are decreasing due to the squeeze. Rather, various nongovernmental organizations say the changes are part of ongoing plans to finish the wall in Jerusalem - and to leave some 50,000 Palestinians outside the city line.

For other Arab Jerusalemites, like the 30,000 residents of Shuafat Ridge, the wall means they are being pushed to the periphery. They are card-carrying Jerusalemites - entitled to Israeli services like healthcare and education - but they are being left on the wrong side of the wall.

The Israeli group Ir Amim ("City of Peoples"), which focuses on bringing local and international attention to the implications of current policy on the prospects of an equitable, sustainable Israeli-Palestinian peace solution that includes Jerusalem, is about to release a report that shows the proportion of the Palestinian population that will soon be excluded from city's population count.

"One of the lesser discussed aspects of the barrier, but one with tremendous bearing on the future of the conflict, is its separation of some 55,000 Palestinians - close to one-quarter of the Palestinian population of the city - from Jerusalem," reads the report, an advance copy of which was provided to the Monitor. "This exclusion drastically reduces residents' quality of life, separates them from their city, and reorients them, by default, to the West Bank."

The report, due to be released later this month, indicates that the barrier will "de facto add 164 square kilometers (63 square miles) of West Bank territory to metropolitan Jerusalem," land that is currently outside Jerusalem's municipal line. "On the other hand," the report continues, "it cuts inside the city line in a number of places, thereby excising Palestinian residents from the city."

Ir Amim's report, based on statistics and maps from Israeli, Palestinian, and UN officials, shows how significantly these changes could tilt the demographic balance here, in which the Jewish majority has been slipping for decades. When Israel occupied and then annexed East Jerusalem, the demographic ratio between Jews and Arabs was 74 percent to 26 percent, the report notes. By 2004, it had shifted to 66 percent to 34 percent.

"We don't say there was no justification for the wall whatsoever, but we look at each piece of it," says Daniela Yanai, staff attorney for Ir Amim. "It seems to us when you're talking about excluding this many people from the city, you can't divorce it from Israeli history and the ongoing drive to maintain a Jewish majority for the city."

The report directly calls into question Israeli proponents' arguments in favor of the wall: that it is an antiterrorism measure and not a land grab. The Ir Amim study, which tracks the impact of the changes on Palestinian Jerusalemites in several areas, is the first indication that the wall is apparently being drawn with the explicit goal of improving Israel's demographic hand. (For Israel's reaction to claims within the report, see below)

History of the wall

None of the changes can be properly viewed outside the complicated continuum of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Following the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, Israel sought construction of the wall to protect its citizens from an onslaught of suicide bombers. Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza were no longer welcome in large numbers in Israel. The election of Hamas a year ago in January made the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation more remote than ever before. That led Israel to clamp down further on travel inside the West Bank and on access routes into Israel, particularly via Jerusalem.

But the long view of the rising ramparts around the city indicates a steady continuation of the unilateralist agenda forged by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who began construction of the wall. Mr. Sharon led the country in the unprecedented step of pulling soldiers and settlers out of Gaza in September 2005. The theoretical underpinning for that move was also based on crunching population numbers: Had Israel not left Gaza, it would have been a few years away from losing its Jewish majority in the total territory under its control.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is drawing the same conclusions - and similar lines.

"Olmert must give Kadima some substance and distinguish himself. Otherwise, this party will simply fall apart," says Shlomo Aronson, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Sharon, and, later on, Olmert, had a certain agenda: unilateral disengagement, including from parts of the West Bank, and the completion of the separation fence is part of that."

But for most Israelis, argues Professor Aronson, currently a guest professor at the University of Arizona at Tucson, the bottom line is that the fence works. "The main point is that, wherever the fence is erected, there are no suicide bombings anymore. If we forget the macro part of the picture, we lose sight of reality."

Some Israelis, posits Ms. Yanai, are closing their eyes to a reality that is changing rapidly.

[Rasputin]

"The terms of Jerusalem have been altered radically, and it doesn't bode well for future negotiations," says Yanai, an American-Israeli lawyer.

"It's such a starkly unilateral act - to the Palestinian street, but also on a policy level. This is a huge shift in the status quo, and that has a major impact on 'my negotiating power' versus 'your negotiating power,' " she explains.

"I think it's possible to say there's also a shift in anger and frustration and despair.... And if you start to make people's lives miserable and impact their economic stability, you start to perhaps undermine the stake people have in maintaining that relatively stable security situation."

As for Shawara, she is still hoping for a marriage ticket out of Nuaman.

But leaving, her mother says, is a mistake: it would mean abandoning their land to Israel, and that, she says, is what Israel wants. At the same time, there isn't much left here for them: "Life was a little better a year ago," says Fatma Shawara. "Now, it's unbearable."

Ahmed Malhi is just 25 feet from school when Israeli soldiers stop him and demand ID. It's the third checkpoint he's encountered during a commute that takes him from one side of Jerusalem's security barrier to the other.
The soldiers wave Ahmed and other students through. He's relieved. He's got a history test on World War I, and the last thing he needs is to be late again.

I'm at an important stage right now," Ahmed says later. "If I'm not able to be there on time, how can I pass the graduation exam?"

This day he made it to class after about an hour's walk and a five-minute taxi ride. Prior to barriers being built, he would arrive in 20 minutes. But the new reality for Ahmed's family, and many other Palestinian Jerusalemites, is that a range of measures designed to increase Israeli security and a demographic majority mean they're being left outside Israel's barrier despite Israeli-issued IDs that identify them as legal residents of Jerusalem entitled to services similar to those offered to Israeli citizens.

Now, in many cases, receiving healthcare or an education or going to work can be a long, complicated process for Palestinians who have to cross through the barrier - which runs through Shuafat and is being transformed from a fence into a concrete wall - to reach the rest of the city.

It's an ordeal that human rights groups such as Btselem say is an unjust burden on Palestinian Jerusalemites. They say Arab residents are being increasingly cut off from basic services with political goals in mind: increasing security for Israelis, and decreasing numbers of Palestinians, including those with Israeli-issued residency.

Of course, this new reality was not chosen by Ahmed or his family. He didn't ask to attend school in Dahiyet el-Barid, a neighborhood that straddles the barrier, but was assigned to study here by an educational wing of the Jerusalem municipality, which oversees all schools throughout the city.

Though his school and home are both part of the capital city, they're now wedged between a maze of checkpoints. The area where the school is - past several security checkpoints - has become a bottlenecked, almost mysterious passageway.

The policies of who can pass and when seem to change almost by the hour. Other areas here and in the West Bank have "flying checkpoints," as Palestinians have dubbed them - here one day and gone the next.

A year ago, life wasn't like this. That was before the wall began winding through this area, drawing landscape-altering lines between who is and is not able to enter Jerusalem. That was also before Ahmed's father, Omar Malhi, died at a checkpoint near their house. His family says he died from complications related to a heart attack because he couldn't reach the hospital soon enough. Witnesses say his ambulance was delayed at the checkpoint.

Thereafter, Ahmed's father was declared a shahid il-mahsom, or checkpoint martyr.

[GoorGoor]

stuck in the middle! and cant get out of it!

[Rasputin]

نخستين ميزگرد انجمن ايران شناسی فرانسه در ايران با موضوع "ويژگی های فرهنگ و روحيات ايرانيان" روز چهارشنبه، ۴ بهمن ماه ۱۳۸۵ برابر با ۲۴ ژانويه ۲۰۰۷ در خانه هنرمندان در باغ هنر تهران برگزار شد .
در اين ميزگرد "بوم برژه" (رييس انجمن ايران شناسی فرانسه در ايران)، دکتر منصوره اتحاديه (استاد تاريخ دانشگاه تهران) و حامد فولادوند (مترجم زبان فرانسه و پژوهشگر تاريخ) حضور داشتند. اعلام شده بود که داريوش شايگان نيز در زمره سخنرانان خواهد بود، اما حضور او به جلسات بعدی موکول شد .

بحث درباره فرهنگ و روحيات ايرانيان با اين سخن حامد فولادوند (مجری ميزگرد) آغاز شد که: در فرهنگ غربی آن چنان که فرويد نيز مطرح ساخته، عقده ای به نام "عقده اديپ" وجود دارد که ناظر بر کشتن پدر به دست پسر است، اما کسانی چون فريدون هويدا با الهام از کشته شدن سهراب به دست پدرش رستم، "عقده رستم" يا پسر کشی را مطرح کرده اند و آن را تفاوت ايران و جامعه غرب دانسته اند .

او سپس از بوم برژه خواست که نظر خود را در اين باره و به طور کلی درباره ساختار خانواده در ايران بيان کند.

ساختار پدرسالاری خانواده ايرانی

رييس انجمن ايران شناسی فرانسه در ايران در پاسخ گفت: "از نظر من نويسندگانی چون فريدون هويدا و عباس ميلانی عقده رستم را مطرح می کنند تا يک نوع ارتباط اجتماعی بين نسل ها را بيان کنند؛ ارتباطی که بر مبنای قدر قدرتی پدر شکل گرفته و پسران را وادار می سازد که در مقابل پدر سر تسليم فرود آورند."

او افزود: "در اينجا يک تصوير استعاره ای از پدر را مشاهده می کنيم که به عنوان يک رهبر يا ناجی حتی می تواند بچه های خود را ببلعد و اين اقتدار در تاريخ ايران در وجود افرادی چون رييس قبيله، امام اول يا رهبر مذهبی نيز جلوه گر شده است."

بوم برژه از اين سخن خود چنين نتيجه گرفت که "نظام خويشاوندی در ايران، پدر سالارانه است و اعمال قدرت از سوی پدر و ريش سفيدان زير بنای سازمان اجتماعی است."


شاهنامه يکی از مراجع اصلی بنيادهای فرهنگی ايران زمين است

او افزود: "ايران از اين حيث بی شباهت به بسياری از کشورهای اروپايی است که در آنها پدر هنگام پيری خانه و ثروت خود را برای فرزندان می گذارد و به گوشه ای آرام می رود." و بلافاصله تصريح کرد: "در جامعه امروز ايران، اين اقتدار پدرانه به چالش کشيده شده و از سوی جوانان رد می شود؛ به گونه ای که شايد بتوان گفت جوان گرايی در کمين ايران نشسته است."

پس از سخنان رييس انجمن ايران شناسی فرانسه در ايران، رفتار ايرانيان در برابر بيگانگان مورد توجه قرار گرفت و بيشتر زمان جلسه را به خود اختصاص داد.

ايرانيان و رابطه بغرنج با بيگانگان

فولادوند در طرح موضوع گفت: "تاريخ ايران تاريخ تهاجمات است. تهاجم يونانيان، عرب ها، ترک ها، مغولان، افغانان و اين اواخر روس و انگليس. در اين ميان ما ايرانيان احساس دوگانه ای نسبت به بيگانگان داريم؛ هم بيگانه ستيزيم و هم به آنها علاقمنديم. در عين حال يک نوع عرب ستيزی هم در ميان ما به چشم می خورد که بيشتر جنبه واکنش دفاعی دارد."

او سپس از خانم اتحاديه خواست تا نظر خود را در اين باره بگويد.

اتحاديه پاسخ داد: "انسان بسياری از خصوصيات فرهنگی خود را از مدرسه و آنچه به او القاء می شود، می گيرد و عرب ستيزی هم از جمله چيزهايی است که به ايرانيان القاء شده است. زيرا اگر درست فکر می کرديم می توانستيم به علت سلطه هزار ساله سلسله های ترک نژاد بر ايران، ترک ستيز باشيم. اما نه فقط ضد ترک نيستيم بلکه ضد مغول هم نيستيم."

او افزود: "در آغاز سده بيستم و شايد کمی پيش تر عده ای از روشنفکران ملی گرا از دوره ايران باستان اسطوره ساختند و القا کردند که اعراب تمدن باستانی ما را از ميان برده اند. بنابراين عرب ستيزی ايرانيان يک چيز ساختگی است که در فرهنگ و خلقيات ما جايی ندارد و می تواند خيلی راحت عوض شود."

خانم اتحاديه به طور تلويحی نظريه "دو قرن سکوت" که دکتر عبدالحسين زرين کوب آن را در کتابی تشريح کرده است، نمونه ای از ين القائات و امری غير تاريخی دانست.

او تصريح کرد: "به طور کلی برخورد ايرانيان با خارجی ها و حتی مللی چون ژاپنی ها (که حضور اشغال گرايانه يا استعماری در ايران نداشته اند) همواره توأم با جاذبه و سوء ظن است و در سده ۱۹ ميلادی در همان حال که از روس و انگليس بدشان می آيد، برای پيشرفت کشور از آنها تقليد می کنند."

خانم اتحاديه دو گانگی موضع ايرانيان درباره خارجی ها را در اين جمله ميرزا ملکم خان خلاصه کرد که "عينک فرنگی را به چشم می زنيد تا قرآن بخوانيد."

تفاخر به ايران باستان

سپس نوبت به بوم برژه رسيد که نظر خود را درباره عرب ستيزی ايرانيان ارايه دهد. او به عنوان شاهد مثال سخنان اتحاديه، گفت که در زمان پهلوی ۱۱ درصد کتاب های تاريخی درباره ايران باستان بوده و اين ميزان پس از انقلاب به يک درصد رسيده است .

او ازاين آمار نتيجه گرفت که "در ايران، تاريخ به صورت انفعالی ضبط نشده بلکه [دولت ها] معنايی را که می خواسته اند به تاريخ بدهند، انتخاب کرده اند."

بوم برژه افزود: "کلماتی مانند ايران، ايرانی و نژاد آريايی که ساخته و پرداخته خاورشناسان اروپايی سده نوزدهم ميلادی هستند، در زمان رضا شاه باب شدند و گرچه نمی توان گفت که چنين چيزهايی واقعيت ندارد اما اروپايی ها آن را رواج دادند."

او سپس با اين يادآوری که "احساس ايرانيان نسبت به بيگانگان مبهم است و در کنار دگردوستی، بيگانه ستيزی هم دارند"، ادامه داد: "از نظر ايرانيان، انگليسی ها منشأ توطئه هستند که البته بی ربط هم نيست؛ روس ها را نيز خشن و مستبد می دانند اما تکليفشان با آمريکايی ها مشخص نيست. هم حس جاذبه شديد دارند و هم دافعه شديد. از يک سو با آمريکا مخالفت می کنند و از سوی ديگر فرهنگ آمريکايی را وارد زندگی خود کرده اند؛ چندان که آشپزخانه ايرانيان به سبک مدرن آمريکايی است و نقشه شهرسازی تهران مانند لس آنجلس است."

افسانه "عرب ستيزی" ايرانيان

آذرتاش آذرنوش از ديگر ايران پژوهان حاضر در جلسه بود که وارد بحث شد و با ارايه مستندات ديگری به تأييد گفته های اتحاديه و بوم برژه درباره القايی بودن عرب ستيزی در ايرانيان پرداخت. او گفت: "من در هيچ منبع تاريخی نديده ام که يک ايرانی، عرب و عربيت و زبان عربی را طعن کند و اين بيت منتسب به فردوسی که "ز شير شتر خوردن و سوسمار، عرب را به جايی رسيده است کار / که تاج کيانی کند آرزو ، تفو بر تو ای چرخ گردون تفو!" کاملا جعلی است و بعدها به اشعار او افزوده شده است."


مدارا با بيگانگان
ايرانيان در طول تاريخ به جای فحش به عرب ها به نژاد ايرانی خودشان نازيده اند و به رغم گفته خاورشناسان و برخی ايرانيان، ما هويتی داشتيم که خيلی راحت و بدون دعوا از مقابل عرب ها و ترک ها رد می شديم. بنابراين نه فقط عرب ستيز نبوده ايم بلکه گاه ايرانی ستيزی کرده ايم


آذرتاش آذرنوش

او به نقش خاورشناسان غربی در القای عرب ستيزی به ايرانيان اشاره کرد و گفت: "خاورشناسان چند بيت شعر شاعران ايرانی را که به نژاد خود باليده اند، جمع کرده و از آن عرب ستيزی و "شعوبيه" به و جود آورده اند و کسانی چون ابن قتيبه و ابن مقفع را نيز شعوبی معرفی کرده اند، حال آن که چند شعر که در طول پنج قرن پراکنده شده دليلی بر عرب ستيزی ايرانيان نيست."

آذرنوش تأکيد کرد: "ايرانيان در طول تاريخ به جای فحش به عرب ها به نژاد ايرانی خودشان نازيده اند و به رغم گفته خاورشناسان و برخی ايرانيان، ما هويتی داشتيم که خيلی راحت و بدون دعوا از مقابل عرب ها و ترک ها رد می شديم. بنابراين نه فقط عرب ستيز نبوده ايم بلکه گاه ايرانی ستيزی کرده ايم؛ چندان که زمخشری به عنوان يک ايرانی در ابتدای کتاب خود می گويد: "خدايا تو را شکر که مرا مجوس قرار ندادی و عرب قرار دادی!"