Two Americans, one great ideological divide

By FLORE DE PRENEUF

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 4, 2000

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Every night two Americans stare at each other across a valley of deafening fireworks involving gunfire, tracer bullets, tank shells and helicopter missiles.

One is a secular Muslim, the other a religious Jew. One American has Palestinian ancestry, the other has Israeli citizenship.

Neither American mans the guns in the nightly shootouts that have been rattling the lives of Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents for the past month in this valley on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Ramallah. But, unlike their relatives in the United States, they are hardly bystanders in the Middle East conflict. These Americans' lives are on the line.

Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American businessman, and Chaim Bloch, an Israeli-American Talmudic teacher, are neighbors but have never met. Their houses are only a mile apart, across a valley of stones and olive trees. But they face each other across a deep historical divide. Despite their common American upbringing, their daily realities and viewpoints keep them radically apart.

As the clashes go into their sixth week, the two Americans speak of how they see each other, the conflict and the role of the United States.

A matter of faith

Roughly 100,000 U.S. passport holders live in Jerusalem and the West Bank. (An additional 120,000 live in Israel proper and about 350 Americans live in Gaza.) Some are expatriate businessmen and missionaries, but most, like Bahour and Bloch, have a personal connection to the Holy Land.

For Bloch, 38, that connection is religion. It is a matter of faith for him that he will stay in Psagot, a fortified settlement built on land captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast war and hotly claimed by Palestinians since then.

Bloch's family moved to Israel from Baltimore 30 years ago to fulfill a religious commandment that asks Jews to live in the land of Israel. He took the extra step of moving in 1990 to Psagot, a small community built by the Israeli army on an allegedly strategic hilltop overlooking Ramallah, to populate what Jews consider "the heart" of historical Israel, the Biblical Judea and Samaria.

But Bloch's sense of religious responsibility comes with a high price. For the past month, homes in Psagot have come under sporadic but almost nightly fire from gunmen in El Bireh, a well-to-do Palestinian-ruled suburb of Ramallah. The shooting has imposed a nerve-wracking routine.

"We don't want them to decide for us when to eat dinner," says Bloch, a father of five. "The danger of panic is greater than the danger of bullets." But defiance has its limits. "The minute they start shooting we turn off the lights and move to the inner part of the house." So far, only property has damaged. "God is protecting Psagot," says Bloch.

A matter of duty

To Bahour, across the valley, the picture looks different. "I have the pleasure of opening my curtain to sunshine and a settlement every morning," says the tall Palestinian-American with a sarcastic smile.

Actually, not every morning. These days, Bahour, 36, and his wife sleep in their daughters' bedroom to avoid being exposed to Israeli fire at night. Tanks stationed in Psagot and hovering helicopter gunships have fired into El Bireh, puncturing, last Monday, an office just 300 yards from Bahour's house. "It shook the apartment and the people inside," says Bahour. "When it happens every night, it becomes an ugly routine."

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, the son of a Palestinian who moved to the United States in 1956 and ran a grocery business, Bahour could have kept enjoying an easy and successful American life. He earned a degree in computer science and was an active member of the Democratic Party in his state. But after the 1993 Oslo peace accords, he chose instead to help the burgeoning Palestinian economy develop its telecom sector. He returned to his grandfather's house in El Bireh six years ago.

Ironically, Bahour and his father only are allowed back in their hometown on a three-month visa because Israel, which issues residency permits, has refused until now to grant them the right to return on a permanent basis. "A Brooklyn Jew gets citizenship upon arrival whereas my father, who was born here and has land in El Bireh going back several generations, can only get three-month permit," Bahour complains.

Some of the property in the hands of the Bahour family clan once included land on the heights of Psagot, says Bahour. "It's hard for me to imagine anybody sitting in one of these houses (in Psagot) and thinking they're going to be there forever," he says. "They would have to be stupid to think that Israel's will to keep settlements will override the international will to get rid of them. All countries -- including the United States -- have declared them illegal and an obstacle to peace."

Of his American settler neighbors, Bahour says, "I think they must be fanatic to the bone to accept living on confiscated land and bringing up their children in great danger. If they've turned themselves into representatives of God on Earth, it's difficult to discuss with them."

Opposing views

In Bloch's view there is nothing to discuss. "Imagine you go away and when you come back you find someone living in your apartment," says Bloch. "What do you say? " "Okay, let's share?' We feel that this is our land and Arabs are living in one of our rooms."

Bloch bolsters his claims with the thousands of religious books that line the shelves of his house: "There is not one book here that doesn't have the word Jerusalem in it. Whereas in the Koran, Jerusalem isn't mentioned even once." For his part, Bahour cites U.N. resolutions that call for a clear-cut end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But both Bahour and Bloch were raised as Americans and have the friendly and engaging manners of smart, likable people. Couldn't Americans on both sides of the Middle Eastern divide just sit down, show tolerance and share?

"It would be naive to think so," says Bloch. "It's not like an American problem."

"Here the land was given to the people of Israel by God 4,000 years ago. We lived here and had a kingdom here. The Palestinians never had a state in this territory. It's so far back. It can't be solved in an American way."

In the Palestinian streets these days, the mere mention of U.S.-brokered compromise is greeted with rage and ritual U.S. flag-burning. Bahour's frustration finds different outlets. "But I think America is on the wrong side of history on the Palestinian-Israeli issue," he says. "Palestinians are paying a heavy price for Americans to learn that the Palestinian cause is a just cause, based on international legitimacy."

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