In Search of Blood News?

by Genevieve Long

JERUSALEM–When journalists go out on the streets to report, it is usually to record a newsworthy story. But what about when reporters search for violence? Look at the recent events in Jerusalem surrounding Al-Aqsa mosque. Rumors that extremist religious Jews were planning to enter Al-Aqsa and pray there sparked widespread calls for Muslims to take action to protect it. That, and other factors, led to a heightened state of security.

There are deep historic grudges over the ground near Al-Aqsa, called Temple Mount, which includes the dome of the rock, where some say the footprint of Adam and the dawn of human history can be found. It is far too complicated to understand in the abstract, let alone explain in a few sentences. Suffice to say that when tensions flare over this part of Jerusalem, it’s truly no laughing matter.

Even so, on the ground this past Friday in Jerusalem, the number of journslists was shocking. Camera crews, photographers, reporters–there was a little bit of everyone. At some points it seemed as though there were more journalists than police.

The question came to mind, while I was in the midst of this gaggle of reporters as one of them–why were we there? A colleague of mine recently said, “People in Israel are news junkies.” So maybe it was a response to demand. Or maybe the competition factor. Everyone else was out and nobody wanted to be left behind, just in case.

It’s the latter thought that started to disturb me as the hours went by. Tensions had been high in recent days (or maybe higher than usual, since Jerusalem is always a bit edgy). As I walked through the streets inside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem–the route to Al-Aqsa mosque and the source of the tension–I looked around every corner for drama worth reporting, worth taking a photo of. There were barricades to the side streets leading to Al-Aqsa, and some barricades in the middle of main walkways (cars don’t seem to drive through the old city). There were scores of police, and a few agitated Arabs. One old Arab woman yelled after going through a barricade that all the Arabs and Jews needed to get out of the city. To say the old lady was the height of the drama I witnessed would be putting it mildly.

As I stood in a side street waiting for a good shot of something, two British women tourists passed, and asked if I spoke English. They wanted directions, but we ended up talking about the events of the day. One of them said they’d heard there were people (which kind, I don’t know) holed up in Al-Aqsa in protest. I told her I’d heard there would be a large protest and prayer outside the walls of the old city later for all those who were denied entry to morning prayers at the mosque.

“There are about 1,000 rumors in this place!” she exclaimed to me, and we all laughed at the irony of it all. In that moment, reporters chasing such news didn’t seem so different from chasing rumors.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here to report the truth!” the woman said after I gave them my Epoch Times card and explained why I was there. Then she hesitated, and added a last thought. “At least one version of the truth, anyway.”

And as it turned out, she was right. The protest outside of the walls did happen about 2 hours later. It was peaceful, with scores of heavily armed Israeli police on one side, and scores of quiet Muslim worshipers on the other. They sat and listed to a slew of rhetoric in a speech made in Arabic that was so mundane my bilingual colleague found it too boring to translate in full. Then they prayed. Then they left. It was a day of good photo ops of interesting characters in a play.

On my way back to my newspaper bureau in Tel Aviv, I ran into another American at the bus stop, a young man from the Jerusalem Post. A brief, loud conversation on his cell phone revealed there was finally some drama happening. As he sprung up and started back in the direction of the old city, I ran after him, “Is something happening?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m just on my way back there,” he answered excitedly. “You can come if you want.” Suffering from fairly severe dehydration, I didn’t manage to keep up with him, but did see some of his footage later. Violence had erupted in some of the neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem (which is code for largely Arab neighborhoods); there was stone throwing, rubber bullets, some women threw planters and paint from rooftops, and about 12 Israeli soldiers were injured.

When I saw the video footage, I felt like I missed the story. Then I started to search the Internet for other coverage, and found a surprising imbalance in the mainstream media reports. During a day that was marked by large groups of people peacefully protesting not being allowed to go to Al-Aqsa, the media took the most violent slant by honing in on brief violence in a neighborhood in another part of the city. They had sent them out in search of blood, and didn’t stop until they found it.

It is a complicated part of the world, that’s true. And news is news, no matter which way you slice it. But after seeing the chain of events from the inner walls of the old city to the final product on the Jerusalem Post and other media’s websites, it’s questionable whether the news was the brief violence, or a day of mostly calm. In the end, the story I filed had a headline I thought was a more accurate depiction of the day’s events: “Jerusalem Protests Largely Peaceful.”

As media, the least we owe the public is the most complete story possible. Not just the most dramatic version of events.

Click here to read the original blog posting for the Foreign Policy Association

Filed under: Commentary, Israel , Al-Aqsa, dome of the rock, Israel, Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Jerusalem Protests Largely Peaceful

By Genevieve Long for The Epoch Times

JERUSALEM—Widespread fears that recent tensions in Jerusalem would descend into violence proved largely unfounded on Friday. Protests by east Jerusalem residents, who are mainly Arabs, throughout the city on Friday were mostly peaceful.

Israeli police stand at attention on Friday amid heightened security threats in Jerusalem.

Thousands of Israeli police were on high alert throughout the city. Most of them were stationed in and around the old city of Jerusalem. They guarded every entrance to Haram a-Sharif where Muslims were on their way to pray at Al-Aqsa mosque.

Muslim men pray outside of the old city of Jerusalem. They were prevented from entering to pray at Al-Aqsa mosque because of heightened security.

Rumors that extremist religious Jews were planning to enter the mosque and pray there, which at one point in history was a Jewish temple, sparked calls to protect the mosque. According to local media reports, religious and nationalistic groups inside and outside Israel called for widespread popular uprising outside of the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.

Gates to the old city were heavily guarded during the day on Friday as thousands of Muslims streamed into the area for morning prayers at the mosque. There was also a heavy police presence inside of the walls of the old city, with numerous barricades blocking all side streets to Al-Aqsa. Only women, young children, and men over 50 were allowed to pass through to the mosque. Tourists, media, and those with Israeli IDs could enter the old city, but not pass through to Al-Aqsa.

An Arab man is denied entry to the old city of Jerusalem on Friday amid a high-security alert.

At Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the old city, dozens were turned away, including an Arab man who was just one month shy of his fiftieth birthday.

Following the end of morning prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque, large groups of men who were denied entry gathered outside the walls of the old city in protest. At Damascus Gate, a group of about 150 men sat quietly and listened to a 20-minute speech calling for justice from Israel. There were no incidents following the speech, which was marked by a brief prayer before the crowd dispersed. Dozens of heavily armed Israeli police in riot gear stood nearby throughout.

Elsewhere in Jerusalem, small-scale riots broke out in the eastern part of the city. According to local media, about 12 police suffered minor injuries from stones thrown at them. Some police responded by firing rubber bullets. At least two Arab youths were arrested.

Filed under: Israel , Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, Temple Mount

No Ground Gained in Talk Palestine, Israel, U.S. Talks

Read the full article about the tri-lateral meeting with Obama, Abbas, and Netanyahu here

JERUSALEM—U.S. President Barack Obama finally got his wish for a meeting with the leaders of Palestine and Israel on Tuesday. After months of high-level diplomatic pressure, he hosted a highly anticipated meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York.

The meeting did not bear much in the way of results. It ended with a short remark made by President Obama urging the two sides to come together.

“We have to summon the will to break the deadlock that has trapped generations of Israelis and Palestinians in an endless cycle of conflict and suffering,” said Obama in televised comments after the three-way meeting. “We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back. Success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency.”

Obama wants to restart negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and forge a permanent agreement for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. But the problem lies in the unwillingness or the inability of both the Israelis and the Palestinians to soften their basic demands.

Read the full article about the tri-lateral meeting with Obama, Abbas, and Netanyahu here

Filed under: Israel , Abbas, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestine

Access to West Bank Historic Site Still Choked

by Genevieve Long for The Epoch Times READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

WEST BANK—Jamal Serahan has spent 29 years of his life watching over a well in the Middle East. It might seem like an odd job, but for Serahan, the well is a precious part of the region’s history. It is fabled to be the same well that Jesus was offered a drink from by a Samaritan woman during a long journey 2,000 years ago.

Jacob's Well, in the West Bank near Nablus. (Genevieve Long/The Epoch Times)

Today, the well is housed deep in the caverns of a massive church near the town of Nablus, in the Central West Bank. You can still draw water and drink from it. Before the 2nd intifada in 2000, busloads of tourists visited the area and the well. According to the middle-aged Serahan, who lives in the nearby Balata refugee camp, the numbers of visitors fell off when fighting started and access in and out of the area was restricted 10 years ago.

The numbers have yet to recover, mainly because even though travel restrictions have eased and it is much safe, whether checkpoints will be choked or access will be stalled is still a day-to-day guessing game. But during a recent month-long festival in Nablus some outside life was brought back into the area.

“The tourists are starting to come—now [there are] about 20, sometimes 50, sometimes 70, sometimes 10 [tourists per day],” said Mr. Serahan by telephone from the West Bank, who added that even with easing security restrictions, smooth travel is still uncertain. “They don’t know if the checkpoint is open.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Filed under: Israel , Jacob's Well, Nablus, Palestine, West Bank

2a.m., drinking coffee

by Gidon Belmaker on The Jerusalemite

It is now 2 AM .  After a few days of constant reading about all that happened in this area since the fall of the Ottomans (1924), I take a break. Looking out of my living room window, overlooking  the Jerusalem Botanical garden, I feel the sweet Jerusalem breeze, mixed with the the hot smell of dark bitter coffee.

In my head I can still hear the roaring canons and smell the gunpowder of old wars, coming out of history books. I hear hateful speeches of fallen heroes, and sword brandishing by opposing factions.

Then comes a moment of silence. I look at the clouds, cascading  over the the rooftops. I stretch my neck to feel the breeze a bit better. This is the only place in Israel where it can get a bit chilly in August. For a moment, I could hear the loving heartbeats of my city. For one moment, I could here  my city weep.  She weeps for her sons, calling her name, killing each other.  She weeps for herself, for she never forgets.

Every morning, the city wakes up, puts on her makeup and smiles. I, for one moment,  could hear my city weep. I wept with her.

Filed under: Israel , Gidon Belmaker, Israel, Jerusalem

The Non-Story of Shepherd Hotel

Guest Blog by Gidon Belmaker–visit his blog, The Jerusalemite, here.

Too much ink has been wasted in newspapers around the world about the row between Israel and the US, caused by the Shepherd hotel building permits. A permit to build 20 new housing units in East Jerusalem was issued to a Jewish-American entrepreneur, that’s the whole deal. From 1967 till this day, Israel has built more than 550,000 housing units in east Jerusalem. These 20 new housing units do not make for a new policy of the Israeli Government.

Palestinians in an East Jerusalem neighborhood (Ben Kaminsky/The Epoch Times)

Most Israelis are educated on the slogan of a “united Jerusalem in the eternal capital city of Israel”. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed this thought once again in reaction to to these reports, saying, “I would like to re-emphasize that the united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel.  Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged; this means – inter alia – that residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city”, in a cabinet Meeting  on July 19.

After 1967, Israel hastily annexed the eastern part of the city, and many surrounding Palestinian villages (unlike the West Bank, which is under military rule, even after 40 years), and thus the city was united. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are considered citizens of Israel, though they can’t vote for the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament).

In reality, Jerusalem is on of the most divided cities in the world. Some experts say that Jerusalem in even more divided than Nicosia or Belfast. Yes, you can see Palestinians in the western part of the city, and Israelis in the Palestinian neighborhoods in the eastern part, but invisible walls are separating the two populations.

One small street separates Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem and some Jewish neighborhoods in the west side. Nevertheless, crossing that street is like entering a different world. Nowadays, the border fence that marked the 1967 border between Israel and Jordan (Jordan ruled the West Bank from 1948 to 1967) is gone, but that border is still present.

In an attempt to unite the city, Israeli governments build huge Jewish neighborhoods, some in the size of small cities,  in the eastern part of Jerusalem. The Israeli government some decades ago aimed to create a Jewish majority of 90%  of the city. That plan failed.  If the current birth rates and immigration patterns stay as they are, in about 20 years Palestinians will be the majority in the city of Jerusalem, “the eternal capital of Israel”.

Filed under: Israel , Jerusalem, Shepherd Hotel, The Jerusalemite

A West Bank Story

By Genevieve Long for the Foreign Policy Association

The recent flurry of media coverage on a town in the West Bank called Nablus has a definite positive ring to it. Things are changing for the better there, in an area that has been described by the media as a “former ghost town.” It is also described as a “former militant strong hold”.

Most heavily emphasized among positive changes are the economic advances made in Nablus. They have their first movie theater in 20 years, just set a new Guiness record for the world’s largest pastry, the choking of Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints is easing, and law and order after years of trauma and chaos. It seems all is well in the world of Nablus.

But look a bit more closely, and there’s a problem with all the adulation about the dawn of a new economic era in the West Bank. An article that ran on the front page of The New York Times, “Signs of Hope Emerge in the West Bank” is laced with subtle suggestion that the West Bank is easily understood by outsiders. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just the lead photo on the article alone shows a deliberate attempt to paint a picture that is easy for Americans to relate to: young women with short sleeves, tight jeans, and uncovered hair at the movie box office. About 1 percent of the women in Nablus would dare to walk around dressed in such a way and with their hair uncovered. They are stylish, but extremely demure and are typically covered from head to foot. Is The New York Times and the media in general trying to say that becoming like the west is equal to recovering from war and economic trauma?

Although economic recovery in Nablus–albeit slow–has become somewhat of a bright spot in the West Bank, it’s curious that so much media coverage that is so positive is coinciding with the recent calls from the U.S. for Israel to halt Jewish settlements in the area. In fact, there have been two days of violence against Palestinians near Nablus after Israeli authorities evacuated some illegal Jewish settlements. The Jewish settlers burned and cut down scores of Palestinian olive trees in retaliation, a practice known as a “price tag.”

READ THE FULL POSTING HERE

Filed under: Commentary, Current Affairs, Israel, West Bank , Nablus, West Bank

Small Business Owners in the West Bank Struggle to Survive

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NABLUS, Palestinian Authority—Ibrahim Jaber’s phones are constantly ringing and his office is a merry-go-round of staff and visiting clients who have meetings standing up. Jaber is the branch manager for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) in Nablus, in the West Bank. Through UNRWA’s Microfinance and Microenterprise Department, Jaber oversees the disbursement of at least 100 new small, targeted loans to small business owners every month.

“The bank looks for people who are a good risk,” says Jaber. “We are looking for poor people.”

UNRWA administers three funding programs, of which the donor-based capital fund is US $3 million, almost 30 percent of which is donations from the United States. The funds for approved loans are distributed to business owners via installment checks.

Jaber’s office houses thick files of client records, written in Arabic and English that date back to 1998, when the Nablus branch office became UNRWA’s first Microenterprise Credit (MEC) project in the West Bank.

After peace talks failed and war between Israel and the Palestinian Authority broke out in 2000, it marked the beginning of a downward economic spiral that many of UNRWA’s clients in Nablus (which was a wartime hotspot) are still struggling to recover from.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

Filed under: Israel, West Bank