The speaker of those words is one Ziad Zaranda, the Gazan whose fiancée, Yusra Azzami, 20, was murdered because the couple were seen walking by the sea and Hamas operatives decided this act was so immoral, she deserved to die.
The young couple's tale is fraught with implications for Palestinian political and social life, but I focus on Zaranda's statement that Hamas is worse than Israel because it fits a theme I have researched for some years and have just gone into print with. Titled "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat," the longish article provides what may be the first-ever compilation of pro-Israel statements by Palestinians, then draws some conclusions from this recurring pattern.
But history does not stop with the publication of an article, so I shall continue to collect such statements, by Palestinians and other Muslims, and post them here as they reach me. (April 13, 2005)
_________
May 25, 2003 update: Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior political leader of Hamas, criticized Palestinian self-rule to an American reporter while at in his home in Gaza City: "When the Israelis were here, we lived our lives better than now, in every way. Believe me. Look how the streets of Gaza are not clean,"
Dec. 22, 2005 update: "I think that Iran is more dangerous to Iraq than Israel because of the assassinations that the Iranians have been doing. I think Israel would have been more merciful," says Added Hamid Hashim, 30, an Iraqi Sunni, referring to recent killings of prominent Sunnis. "I hated Israel before the war, but now I hate Iran even more."
His is one of several quotes collected by Nancy A. Youssef in an article, "Many Sunni Muslims diverting anger from Israel to Iran." She finds a reassessment underway since the results of Iraq's national assembly election on Dec. 15 show that Shiite Muslim candidates, many of them backed by the Iranian government, would dominate the new parliament. "Sunni Muslims have begun to ask: Is Israel really Iraq's enemy, or is it neighboring Iran? … privately many said Israel has not done anything lately to harm them; Iran has."
Mustafa Mohammed Kamal, 58, a retired schoolteacher observes that Iranian interference in the election "was very clear and that makes Iran the number one enemy of Iraq. The Iranians have many supporters in Iraq. Israel is an enemy, but they are not as egregious."
Mithal al Alusi, who has long called for stronger ties with Israel, finds Iraqis are warming to a stronger relationship with Israel. "They are afraid of Iran's extremist political system. … We don't have border problems with Israel. We don't have historical problems with Israel."
June 14, 2006 update: "The Israelis are better than you," shouted a Palestinian Authority employee at a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, distressed at not having been paid for some time.
Aug. 23, 2006 update: After a horrible bus crash in Egyptian territory near the Sinai resort town of Nueiba, in which ten Israeli Arabs and another tourist were killed, the Egyptian authorities performed in their usual feckless way, leaving the wounded untended by the roadside for three hours, then taking them to a local clinic, and delaying their evacuation to Israeli hospitals. Some of the injured Israeli-Arab tourists commented that they would never visit Egypt again and Nadi Hilu, a female Arab member of Israel's parliament called on all Israelis to cancel their travel plans to Egypt in protest.
May 28, 2007 update: One Palestinian remarks, about two-thirds into a news video: "Now, most of the people here, in this area, they say, ‘We pray that Israel will come back and rule us again'."
Papers reported that some people in Gaza even want the Israelis to return to the Strip. Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, journalists for the Israeli-Arab weekly Al-Sinara, wrote: "People in Gaza are hoping that Israel will reenter the Gaza Strip, wipe out both Hamas and Fatah, and then withdraw again... They also say that, since the [start of the] massacres, they [have begun to] miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime, [they said]. Once, we resisted Israel together, but now we call for the return of the Israeli army to Gaza." [20]
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist Yahya Rabah wrote: "When the national unity government was formed, I thought, 'This will be a government of national salvation.' If a government that includes Fatah, Hamas, other factions and independents associated with [various] factions has not been able to save the day, it means that no one can, unless Israel decides that its army should intervene. Then it will invade [the Gaza Strip], kill and arrest [people] - but this time not as an occupying [force] but as an international peace-keeping force. Look what we have come to, how far we have deteriorated, and what we have done to ourselves." [21]
Palestinian journalist Majed Azzam wrote: "We should have the courage to acknowledge the truth... The [only] thing that prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation [in the West Bank]... [as opposed to] its absence from the Gaza Strip." [22]
Bassem Al-Nabris, a Palestinian poet from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, wrote: "If a there was a referendum in the Gaza Strip [on the question of] 'would you like the Israeli occupation to return?' half the population would vote 'yes'... But in practice, I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70%, if not more - [a figure] much higher than is assumed by the political analysts and those who follow [events]. For the million and a half people living in this small region, things have [simply] gone too far - in practice, not just as a metaphor. [It did not begin] with the internal conflicts, but even earlier, in the days of the previous Palestinian administration, which was corrupt and did not give the people even the tiniest [ray of] hope. The fundamentalist forces which came into power [after it] also promised change and reform, but [instead, people] got a siege, with no security and no [chance of] making a living... If the occupation returns, at least there will be no civil war, and the occupier will have a moral and legal obligation to provide the occupied people with employment and food, which they now lack." [23]
Oct. 16, 2007 update: Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just raised the idea that Israel might cede some heavily Arab areas of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority; "Was it necessary to annex the Shuafat refugee camp, al-Sawahra, Walajeh and other villages and state that this is also Jerusalem? I must admit, one can ask some legitimate questions on the issue." In response, Mark MacKinnon found that "Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime," the title of his article in today's Globe and Mail.
After 40 years of living under Israeli occupation, two stints in Israeli prisons and a military checkpoint on the same road as his odds-and-ends shop, one would think Nabil Gheit would be happy to hear an Israeli prime minister contemplate handing over parts of East Jerusalem to Palestinian control. But the mayor of Ras Hamis, a Palestinian neighbourhood on the eastern fringe of this divided city, says that he can't think of a worse fate for him and his constituents than being handed over to the weak and ineffective Palestinian Authority right now. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Gheit said, smoking a water pipe as he whiled away the afternoon watching Lebanese music videos. "We will not accept it. There would be another intifada [uprising] to defend ourselves from the PA."
Residents of Ras Hamis and other neighbourhoods, MacKinnon reports,
dislike the idea of their neighbourhoods, which are generally more prosperous than other parts of the West Bank, being absorbed into the chaotic Palestinian territories. Mr. Gheit, with two posters of "the martyr Saddam Hussein" hanging over his cash register, can hardly be called an admirer of the Jewish state. But he says that an already difficult life would get worse if those living in Ras Hamis and the adjoining Shuafat refugee camp were suddenly no longer able to work in Israel, or use its publicly funded health system. The 53-year-old said he'd be happy to one day live in a properly independent Palestinian state, but not one that looks anything like the corruption-racked and violence-prone areas that are split between the warring Hamas and Fatah factions. "I don't believe in these factions. I only believe in putting bread on the table for my children. I fight only for them. At least in Israel, there's law."
These are not merely abstract sentiments but ones that can cause people to change their lives:
Mr. Gheit said that over the past five years, some 5,000 people have moved into Ras Hamis from other parts of the West Bank, concerned that they would lose their Israeli identification cards if they didn't live within the city limits. There would be a mass exodus into other parts of the city, or other towns in Israel, if it looked likely that Ras Hamis and Shuafat, home to a combined 50,000 people, were about to be declared no longer part of Jerusalem, he said.
Comment: This may be a suitable moment to mention that I have a study, titled "Muslim Aliya," in the works. As the name implies, it surveys the topic of Muslim immigration to Israel, including those 5,000 mentioned here.
"I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here," says Ranya Mohammed as she does her afternoon shopping in Shuafat. "I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport," says Mrs. Mohammed, whose husband earns a good living from doing business here. "I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I'm not ready to give up."
Nabil Gheet, a neighborhood leader who runs a gift and kitchenware outfit in the adjacent town of Ras Khamis, also resists coming under the PA's control. "We have no faith in the Palestinian Authority. It has no credibility," he says, as his afternoon customers trickle in and out. "I do not want to be ruled by Abbas's gang," he says, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Nov. 7, 2007 update: As the prospect of dividing Jerusalem again comes up, many Palestinian residents of the city are predictably showing how very much they want to stay in Israel. Ronny Shaked looks into one aspect of this in his Yedi`ot Aharonot article, "Thousands of Palestinians apply for Israeli citizenship," where he finds that "talk of a future division of the city has prompted a staggering increase in nationalization requests by Palestinians seeking to escape life under the Palestinian Authority." Statistics show a ten-fold increase in interest:
Some 250,000 Palestinians currently reside in Jerusalem. Only 12,000 of them have sought to obtain an Israeli citizenship since 1967, an average of about 300 new citizens a year. But over the past four months the Interior Ministry has registered an unprecedented 3,000 applications, primarily residents of the Arab neighborhoods unlikely to remain under Israeli sovereignty according to the political initiative currently on the agenda.
Indeed, Palestinian residents of Jerusalem seeking to apply for Israeli citizenship are discovering that the next available date for an appointment at the Interior Ministry is in April 2008, nearly a half year off. Shaked quotes one Jerusalemite saying of his neighbors, "They've weighed the pros and cons of life under the Palestinian Authority and those under Israel and they've chosen." He gives the example of Samar Qassam, 33, who is applying for Israeli citizenship to improve his family's future.
I was born in Jerusalem, this is where I grew up and this is where I make my living. My entire life is here. My wife comes from the West Bank, so I do fear she may be deported and therefore filed a naturalization request for her as well. I want to keep living here with my wife and child without having to worry about our future. That's why I want an Israeli citizenship. I don't know what the future holds. There's talk of the Palestinian Authority coming to Jerusalem. Personally, I don't think that will happen. But only God knows what will happen. I work as a mechanic for an Israeli company, I have both Jewish and Arab friends. I speak Hebrew and go out to Tel Aviv and Akko in the evenings. I just want a better future.
Nov. 12, 2007 update: Joshua Mitnick further documents the Palestinian reaction in a Jerusalem Report article, "Better the Devil You Know" (not online). A few choice quotes:
"If they put a border here, we'll move to Haifa and Tel Aviv. You'll have 50,000 people who live here leaving East Jerusalem in minutes." …
When Israel started to build the barrier, [Jamil] Sanduqa got the message and rented an apartment in a neighborhood on the Israeli side of the fence even though he stayed in Ras Hamis. "I want to live in peace and to raise my children in an orderly school," said the unemployed council head. "I don't want to raise my child on throwing stones, or on Hamas." …
[Nabil[ Gheit won't hear of being transferred to the authority of the PA, either. "I'll never go," he says. "Where are the jobs that the Palestinian Authority can offer us? Do they want us too to be beggars waiting for international aid?" …
"They are being overtaxed and the state isn't giving them what they need," says Mohammed Dajani, a political science professor at Al-Quds University. "Nevertheless, they feel the benefits that Israel is providing - health care, free movement and jobs. People are worried about what will happen to them, and what their situation will be, because their livelihood is in Jerusalem and they fear they may lose access to Jerusalem." …
"I want the camp to stay with Israel because the PA is a ruthless institution."
A two-story IDF watchtower at the entrance of the neighborhood dominates the warrens of this United Nations-administered slum. The government wanted to route its separation barrier to cut this refugee camp off from the rest of the city, but an injunction against its construction is in force, after the residents challenged the route in the Supreme Court. None of that bothers Imad Abed Thai, a middle-aged women wearing a black dress and head covering, who says she relies on welfare paid by Israeli social security to support her nine children. "They won't give us any money in the Palestinian Authority."
Nov. 14, 2007 update: "lazar" at Aegean Stables provides a personal account from his Israel military experience:
When my company assumed responsibility for the security of the Erez crossing in the wake of the Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip, I sat down to eat lunch beside a group of Palestinian workers. Conversation turned to the deepening crisis in Hamas' Gaza Strip, and one man said. "It wasn't like this when Israel controlled it. We had jobs, and were safe. Now, Hamas has made Gaza into a mess. No one wants to live there." The other workers nodded emphatically.
Nov. 26, 2007 update: More Israeli Arab appreciation of Israel and outrage at the thought of being made part of the Palestinian Authority in an article by Eetta Prince-Gibson, "Land (Swap) For Peace?" in The Jerusalem Report.
All the heads of Arab regional councils and cities wrote Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the members of his cabinet a letter that responded to a demand by Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party that a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority include a land swap (meaning, parts of Arab-dominated Israel turned over to the PA in return for parts of Jewish-dominated West Bank under Israeli sovereignty). It stated:
We wish to express our sharp opposition to any initiative taken by the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority with regard to our civil, political and human rights ...We wish to make it clear that as citizens of the State of Israel since 1948-1949... the proposed moving of borders will deprive us of these human rights and tear apart the social and economic ties that have been constructed on the basis of a long and difficult struggle.
The first signatory of that letter, Mayor Hasham Abed Elrahman of Umm el-Fahm (pop. 45,000), the largest Muslim city in Israel, who happens also to be a leader in the Northern Islamic Movement, adds:
This is a painful subject. Why would anyone assume that because I am a Palestinian, I must live in Palestine? After all, no one would say that if I were a Jew, I must live in Israel. I am a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a country that was established in 1948 according to international agreements, so I accept the fact that the State of Israel exists as a sovereign state. But I also expect the State of Israel to grant me equality and not to question my right to citizenship. Of course, I live with a conflict - between my nationality, Arab and Palestinian, and my citizenship, Israeli. But the Zionists created this dilemma, so you have to solve it - by giving us equality, by giving us equal rights and equal budgets, and by not trading on our citizenship.
Asked by Prince-Gibson if he understand that Jews "fear him, Umm el-Fahm, and the Islamic movement?" Abed Elrahman replies: "I cannot argue with feelings. I can tell you that we want to work together with the Jewish majority for the betterment of all of Israel. Religiously, politically and socially, we want to remain part of the State of Israel."
Prince-Gibson persists: "But you want to establish an Islamic state here." Abed Elrahman denies it: "Why do you say that? As a religious man, I tell you: I am not religiously required to establish or even to strive to establish an Islamic state here. It's your fear, but not my reality."
Others express similar sentiments. Sa'id Agbariah, 34, who has a B.A. in economics from Haifa University but now works in a gas station, boasts that during the October 2000 riots threw stones at Jews and public institutions and also tried to block the highways and roads, says
he is deeply disappointed that the Jewish majority in Israel "hasn't learned anything from those riots and still won't give us equality or equal opportunity." Yet when asked about the land swap proposal that would confer Palestinian citizenship on him, he bristles. "What can the Palestinian Authority offer me? Poverty without hope of a better life? I'd rather stay here, even if I have to struggle for my rights."
Su'ad (a pseudonym) is a 26-year-old student, married, and pregnant with her first child. She nearly begins to cry when this topic comes up.
"I don't want you to use my name," she says. "When the Jews talk about swapping me, it's as though they are denying my right to be a person, and my baby's right, too. They want to move me around, like I'm no one. So I don't want them to know my name." Umm el-Fahm, she says, is her home. "It's not just where I live, it's who I am. I'm a Palestinian and I'm an Israeli, too. For 60 years, we've lived here. I think like a Palestinian, but I think like an Israeli, too. My daily life is Israeli."
Prince-Gibson does find one taker for the PA:
Dressed in the white robe and head covering of a devout Muslim, Abdullah finishes tanking up his late-model Honda Civic and joins the conversation. "I want to be part of Palestine," he offers, "because I want to establish an Islamic state, like the Hamas has done in Gaza, only better. I don't care at all about my Israeli citizenship." But he acknowledges that he only knows "a very few people" who agree with him and says that he doesn't bring the subject up when he's with his family. "They're all against it. They've always lived here, for 60 years they've been part of Israel, and that's how they want it to be."
Dec. 26, 2007 update: A poll taken by Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications asked this question of a representative sample of 514 Israeli Arabs over 18 years if age by telephone during the period December 3-5, resulting in a ±4.5 percent margin of error:
There has been a lot of talk lately about the formation of a new Palestinian State. It has been suggested by some that Israeli Arabs could continue to live in Israel, but change their citizenship to the new Palestinian State. Given the choice, and continuing to live where you presently live today, would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?
The replies:
Remain Israeli citizens 62 percent Join a future Palestinian state 14 percent No opinion/refused to answer 24 percent
That's a ratio of 4 to 1 in favor of remaining Israeli. Some interesting sidelights:
Druze have the highest preference for staying Israeli citizens: 84 percent. Lower income households choosing Israel: 71 percent. Men more than women wish to remain Israeli: 67 percent vs. 56 percent. Students most want to join a future Palestinian state: 21 percent. Christian Arab Israelis are the most undecided or refuse to reply: 43 percent.
Comment: This poll confirms what was known from a mountain of anecdotal evidence, usefully adding a statistical dimension.
Dec. 27, 2007 update: Coincidentally, more polling on this issue, just a day later. The Arabic-language newspaper As-Sennara asked, in a telephone poll of 450 adult Arabs living in the Galilee, Triangle, and Negev (all in Israel):
Do you support transferring the Triangle to the Palestinian Authority?
The replies:
Favor: 18 percent Oppose: 78 percent
The ratio here is nearly identical to the Keevon poll a day earlier, a ratio of just over 4 to 1, nicely confirming it.
Jan. 2, 2008 update: My column today, "Palestinians Who Prefer Israel," documents the Palestinian response to an Israeli initiative to withdraw from parts of Jerusalem.
Salim and Samia Shabane, with their children.
Jan. 19, 2008 update: "More Jerusalem Arabs seek Israeli citizenship" reports Dion Nissenbaum for the McClatchy Newspapers. The dispatch focuses on the case of Salim Shabane, who is introduced as considering himself a Palestinian:
But his life and work are intertwined with Israel, where he runs an auto shop. So, despite his tacit support for a Palestinian state, Shabane is part of a new surge of Jerusalem Arabs applying for Israeli citizenship. "I live in Israel," said Shabane, "why shouldn't I be an Israeli citizen?" … "My work and my life are inside Israel," Shabane said. "I am very proud to be an Arab and Palestinian, but for practical reasons I'm not able to be part of the Palestinian Authority." …
For most of his adult life, he's worked as an auto mechanic and, with a Jewish partner, he owns a garage in a Jerusalem suburb. If the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem are transferred to the Palestinian Authority, Shabane fears that new border restrictions could prevent him from getting to his garage. Shabane's family lives outside the Old City walls, and it's unlikely that Israel would agree to give up control of his East Jerusalem neighborhood. But Shabane and others seeking Israeli citizenship don't want to take any chances.
Shabane has a particular worry in the status of his wife Samia.
Because she was born in Bethlehem, Samia Shabane has a West Bank ID that restricts her ability to live with her family in Jerusalem. She must request a new temporary entry permit every six months, can't send her children to Jerusalem schools and doesn't have access to Israeli public health care. Shabane hopes that getting Israeli citizenship will make it easier for his wife, even though current family unification procedures in Israel are restrictive.
"Enough of the B.S.," a frustrated Shabane said after his wife declared herself to be a proud Palestinian. "I want her to get an Israeli ID. God forbid that she gets sick. Where can I take her?" Shabane understands the political complexities of his case, but he's made his decision. "If I choose to be Israeli, then the Palestinians will be unhappy," he said. "If I choose to be Arab, I don't get citizenship. I'm in a trap."
Nissenbaum finds that 200 residents of East Jerusalem requested Israeli passports in each of 2004, 2005, and 2006, but that the number shot up to 500 in 2007 as negotiations made the possibility of parts of Jerusalem being handed to the tender mercies of Fatah, Hamas, and company.
Jan. 24, 2008 update: Thousands of Jerusalem-area Arabs moving into Jewish neighborhoods can bring about a "potentially profound transformation" of the city, writes Dina Kraft of JTA at "Arabs moving to Jewish Jerusalem."
The number of Arabs moving into French Hill, as well as other Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is rising. Wanting to be on the Israeli side of the West Bank security fence, which in the vicinity of Jerusalem is mostly a concrete barrier some 20 feet high, thousands of Jerusalem Arabs are heading to the west side of the fence. … As a consequence, outlying Jerusalem neighborhoods like French Hill, Neve Yaakov and Pisgat Zeev—which are on the Israeli side of the West Bank fence but east of the Green Line and therefore technically part of the West Bank—are becoming mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods.
This shift "is prompting Jewish Jerusalemites unhappy with the changes to talk about leaving their neighborhoods or the city entirely." Yisrael Kimche, an urban planner at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, recently wrote that "Processes of this kind are known the world over; seam neighborhoods tend to be the most severely affected. Should the phenomenon continue to spread, it may have consequences for the future of Israeli Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state."
Kraft looks at ways Jews in French Hill are responding. She quotes a longtime female resident:
It is just weird sometimes when you go, for example, to the shopping center and it seems like there are only Arabs there. It does not particularly bother me that there are a lot of Arabs here now, but the thing that strikes me is that I did not come from the United States 37 years ago to become a minority. When I start feeling like a minority it is unsettling.
Some Jewish residents are "setting up committees to prevent Arabs from moving in, and some are circulating fliers in synagogues against selling or renting homes to Arabs." Benita Raphaely, an real estate agent at Jerusalem Homes Realty, comments on the response to Arabs moving in:
We encounter apartment sellers who tell us that they only want to sell to Jews and those who don't mind who buys their property. There is a difference in people's willingness to contemplate selling to Christian Arabs and Armenians rather than to Muslims. Like most things in this country, very fine distinctions are made.
One potential seller, Shlomo Sirkus, a retired Bank of Israel executive, finds there is not much choice anymore in French Hill: "I think only Arabs will buy my house because at this point most Jews would not consider buying in a development where there is such a large number of Arabs." Another longtime resident of French Hill agrees that Jewish buyers are becoming scarce, adding about her Jewish neighbors renting or selling to Arabs: "Their intentions are good. But will there be consequences later? That is the concern."
Mar. 9, 2008 update: A Jerusalem Arab, Ala Abu Dhaim, 25, carried out the terrorist attack on March 6 at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, killing eight students, prompting fears among the 220,000 Jerusalem Arabs that their long-standing privileges as holders of blue Israeli ID cards may be taken away. Other than voting for the Knesset, the national parliament, they live like Israelis: National Insurance Institute coverage, free health care and education, unemployment benefits, freedom of movement, and even the yellow license plates on cars.
For example, a school teacher, Majdi Shweiki, asserted that "the majority of the Arabs in Jerusalem would prefer to continue living under Israeli rule." A lawyer thought it possible the authorities would widely revoke the Israeli ID card in response to the attack. Some, like Hisham Shkirat, fear even worse consequences "This attack has caused huge damage to the Arabs in Jerusalem. I'm very worried when I hear some people in Israel talk about expelling Arabs from the city in response to the attack."
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