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Palestinians in Purgatory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2018

Eric Rouleau
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Extract

On the medieval porch of the Haram-el-Ibrahimi, the great mosque of Hebron whose proud and massive walls are a monument from Herodian rimes, three Israeli soldiers stand guard. Leaning nonchalantly on their machine guns, they scrutinize the visitors, courteously asking them to put on the head covering that is strictly required in synagogues. As one climbs the long stone staircase toward the entrance of the mosque the sound of a Jewish liturgical chant, at first faint and indistinct, grows louder until it becomes deafening.

About a hundred faithful, many of them soldiers in uniform with their heads capped with yarmulkes, stand and shake to and fro before the candlelit Torah fervently celebrating their office. For the first time in fourteen centuries Jews are able to worship in the building that contains the "Tombs of the Patriarchs" Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a site sacred to both Muslim and Jew.

Type
Research Article
Information
Worldview , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , May 1973 , pp. 28 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1973

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References

* Salaries paid to Arab workers employed in Israel rose to 300 million pounds in 1971, while exports from the Jewish state to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reached the figure of 380 million pounds. The occupied territories have thus become the world's second largest buyer of Israeli products (excluding diamonds) after the United States and before Great Britain.

* More than 200,000 people fled the West Bank at the time of the 1967 war. They have been added to the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the 1948 war.

1. Cf. The Arabs in Israel, by Sabri Jiryis, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969.

2. Le Monde (June 30, July 25, and August 10, 1972).

3. Cf. The Administered Areas, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (October, 1972).

4. Cf. the documents published in the appendix of Gilbert Mury's book, Septembre noir, which will appear in the Sindbad editions.

5. Cf. the page devoted to Palestinian literature in Le Monde (February 12, 1971).

6. Shu'un Falestinya (October, 1972)-Arabic language review published by the Palestinian Research Center in Beirut.