Jerusalem's reaction shifts by the street
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published November 12, 2004
JERUSALEM - Yasser Arafat won't get his wish to be buried in Jerusalem, and the way the two sides of the city reacted to his death Thursday helps explain why.
In the Arab part of town, almost every store was closed and traffic was unusually light. Of the few cars on the road, some had bits of black fabric pinned to their antennas in a show of respect.
But in the Jewish part of Jerusalem, shops stayed open and the streets were as crowded as ever.
"He was garbage, pure garbage," said Yoram Dudu, owner of Cafe Hillel. "How many bombs have we had because of his stupid ideas? I hope his soul is in hell."
On Sept. 9, 2003, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the cafe. The seven killed included a renowned emergency room doctor and his daughter, who was to be married the next day. Dudu anguished over whether to reopen but decided it would be wrong to give in to terrorism.
A month later he was back in business, this time with a metal fence and shatterproof glass in the floor-to-ceiling windows.
On an overcast Thursday afternoon, customers nonchalantly passed through a security check before settling in with their mochas and cappuccinos. "I think we get used to this kind of life in Jerusalem," Dudu said.
Since the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2000, at least 3,200 Palestinians and 989 Israelis have been killed, many of them in suicide bombings in Jerusalem.
As a result, this has become a city divided by mutual distrust. Most Jews stay in their part of town and most Palestinians stick to theirs.
Israel has the upper hand, and Israeli officials rejected demands that Arafat be buried in the Old City of Jerusalem, near a site sacred to Muslims and Jews.
"Jerusalem is the burial place of Jewish kings, not Arab terrorists," one Israeli minister said in an instantly famous comment.
No part of Jerusalem has been hit more often than the area around Jaffa and King David streets, the commercial heart of the Jewish side.
On Aug. 9, 2001, a suicide bomber killed 15 in the Sbarro pizza parlor.
It reopened but moved recently to a new location nearby, replaced by an upscale bakery.
On Thursday - the day before the start of the Jewish Sabbath - customers lined up to buy fresh bread, pastries and croissants.
Here, most people didn't want to comment on Arafat's death or were measured in their words.
"I feel on the one hand someone has died and that's a pity," said 18-year-old Josh Aronson. "On the other hand he has done a lot of bad for us Israelis."
A year ago, Aronson made aliyah from his native Britain to Israel, as Jews call the move to their biblical homeland. He followed his brother, Michael, now a Yeshiva student dressed in the traditional black suit, white shirt and black hat.
Arafat "seemed to be interested in peace once," Michael said, twirling a dreadlock around his finger. "But he hasn't shown any intention of moving anywhere in a long time and was blocking those who might."
Like many Palestinians, retired Israeli social worker Mili Mass is convinced Arafat died days ago and that the announcement was delayed while his wife and Palestinian leaders wrangled over his fortune.
Mass thinks the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has many causes, but "I partly blame him for the terrorism and what he did to his own people. I was outraged when I learned he was one of the 10 richest leaders in the world. He made a lot of money from all these donations to the Palestinian Authority."
Mass stopped to talk as she took an afternoon walk past what used to be the Cafe Moment. On March 9, 2002, a suicide bomber blew up the popular night spot, killing 11.
"This site was cursed," she said emphatically. "There are so many places like this where one restaurant after another closes - when they moved here from down the street I thought this was going to be the end and they would not survive here."
After the explosion, customers flocked back to the cafe in a show of support. But they stopped coming, perhaps uncomfortably reminded of what happened by the plaque with the victims' names and the words, "God Will Avenge Their Deaths." A few months ago, the club finally went bankrupt, Mass said.
Today, the only traces of Cafe Moment are the plaque and two candle holders with a photo of a handsome young couple who died that soft spring night.
Mass once taught at Hebrew University, site of yet another deadly bombing in 2002. Many Israelis and Palestinians think Arafat's death will lead to a breakthrough in peace negotiations, but Mass is not among them.
"I'm afraid Israel will blow every opportunity because we are afraid of peace. Rightly or wrongly, we don't trust Palestinians.
"Why? Because we are the ones that are going to give up things for peace and the (occupied) territories are inhabited by very zealous people, by fanatics. And because we have been living with the mentality of wars, and it is very hard to change mentality."
Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com