Notes from the Conservative Yeshiva

The causes of the recent flare-up of violence in Jerusalem

Jim Lederman

[Last Thursday, aviva_m and I went to the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem to daven shacharis. Rabbi Joel Levy then invited us to join the year programme students on a tiyul of Talbiya, taking in its history during the British Mandate period (thanks, R. Joel!). Afterwards, the Yeshiva had invited Jim Lederman to give a talk about the causes of the flaring up of violence in Jerusalem over the previous two or three weeks, which we were also invited to, so completely without planning it, we ended up spending most of the day in Yeshiva programmes!]

[Standard disclaimer: All views not in square brackets or hover text are those of the speaker, not myself. Accuracy of transcription is not guaranteed.]

Demographics

In 1967, 74% of the population [of Jerusalem?] was Jewish, 25% Muslim and 1% Christian; today only 63% is Jewish and 37% non-Jewish. About half of the Jews today live on the other side of the Green Line. The Arab population has a birthrate of 2.6%, the Jewish 1.9% including the chareidim. The median age is the population of Jerusalem is 23.7, versus 35 in Tel Aviv.

Because of the growth of the chareidim many secular are leaving. This leads to the ghettoisation of Jerusalem: reduction of mixed neighbourhoods, whether Arab/Jewish or secular/religious (though French Hill has become mixed Arab/Jewish due to Israeli Arabs (as opposed to Palestinians) working in the area).

32% of Jerusalemites are chareidi. 48% (including Arabs) are below the poverty line. 60% of children are below the poverty line; 58% of the chareidim, 77% of the Arabs. This means not enough taxation for the upkeep of the city, so a shortage of municipal services.

40% of the Arabs in Jerusalem drop out before the end of high school. In 1967, the government decided that the Arabs in Jerusalem [who until the Six Day War in that year had been ruled by Jordan] should continue to use the Jordanian curriculum. This is problematic because in it a pupil only has one shot at the matriculation exam—and 36% of those who take the exam fail it.

Housing

The Jewish population has an average of 24 m² to live in; the Arab population only 14 m².

Because of these shortages, increasing prices have made housing unaffordable. Many of the chareidim have moved into three purpose-built cities in the West Bank for this purpose, plus Beit Shemesh (with all the problems that caused). But a plan to build housing above the Jerusalem Forest was quashed by the Supreme Court, leading to more pressure to maove into the new quarters of Jerusalem.

Municipal budget

The chareidim control the spending, even though they only have 37% of the vote, because they hold the balance of power.

Many of the Arab population are West Bankers who snuck in to Jerusalem to be with their families, which means even less money. The chareidim also do not pay taxes. Only 26% of them, including women, work, down from 70% two decades ago.

The Arab areas only got 6% of the municipal budget because the chareidim were not giving them money. So much of the Arab areas were built illegally. If an Arab stays out of Jerusalem for seven years they lose their residency, so they try to stay, which puts enormous stress on the infrastructure. The water company, the sewerage company and the electric company won't go into the Arab areas to fix things because there are so many houses added illegally [to the grids], so repairs are not being made.

Causes of the recent violence

The triggers to the violence came from three areas.

Firstly, the kidnapping and murder of an Arab boy, and the fact that the perpetrators' houses were not blown up (which is the law when a terror act happens and someone dies). [I.e. it's perceived as one law for the Arabs, and another for the Jews.]

Secondly, the war in Gaza; Ḥamas sold this as a victory, even though their terror infrastructure was largely demolished in it.

Thirdly, the Jews having moved into whole Arab areas, such as Silwan. [This is an attempt to "Judaise" areas, either to lower the chances of East Jerusalem becoming the future Palestinian capital, or, as in the case of Silwan, to ensure places of historic Jewish importance end up in Israel and not a future Palestinian state.]

The rioting has been carried out by youngsters as young as eleven, but very few above eighteen. This is because (a) older people have jobs or want to go into higher education, and (b) above the age of eighteen, they are no longer minors, and are treated very differently in Israeli law. So the teenagers are egged on by their older brothers.

There are no demonstrations of this kind in the West Bank, because the Palestinian police have cracked down on them.

This is very different to the two intifadas. The first started in an unorganised fashion but was taken over by Ḥamas and Fataḥ; the second was run by them from the start. Here there is no organisation: people just come out of their homes and go back there.

The Temple Mount

The central location is the Temple Mount, going back to the ruling in 1967 against Jewish prayer there. [After Israel took control of the Old City following the Six Day War, the first thing they did was hand control of the Temple Mount complex back to the Waqf, the Islamic body that had run it, and banned Jews from praying there.] But the mystical national religious movement, which has come to the fore in the form of Habayit Hayehudi became more and more bold. Their rabbis declared they would know where the Holy of Holies was [in the First and Second Temples, and could therefore distinguish between the parts of the Temple Mount Jews are not allowed to set foot in, and those they may], and tried to get the same arrangement as at the Tomb of the Patriarchs [in Hebron], where Jews pray at certain hours and Muslims do at others. But the government has resisted this because the siruation is too explosive. There are a least twenty-four different Jewish groups plus the Muslim groups, plus the Israeli Muslim groups, plus the rights granted to Jordanians in the peace treaty with Jordan—and limiting the Hashemites' rights is in abrogation of the peace treaty.

In the central government, because of the proportional represenation, there is political tribalism. Beginning in 2003 the extreme national religious camp began to feel they were on a wave. They tried to take control of the government, though they had only ever had twelve seats in the Knesset! But they had a lot of the settlers and their supporters join Likud to determine who was on the Likud's electoral list, and they would then themselves vote Habayit Hayehudi, so they had a double vote, and drove out the traditionalist Likud people who were more moderate towards the Arabs.

They are now taking the agenda to places they couldn't take it before: the Temple Mount, the lack of municipal services, and the closing of the road from Ramallah: גבעת המטוס, the last of the suburbs built to Judaise Jerusalem, would be blocking the planned main thoroughfare between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Why the revolts in the Arab world and Israel are always led by men between eighteen and twenty-five

Why are the revolts in the Arab world and here always led by men between eighteen and twenty-five? Answer: a man has to provide a bride price to get married. (It is the woman's only protection in the cause of divorce under shari`a law.) So we have a large number of men who can't get married because they don't have a job, and they take out their frustration through violence.

Organisation from Ottoman times was that the mukhtar, the village or clan elder, who was responsible for the behaviour of everyone in their village. Beforehand the police would go to him to act as an intermediary. But now [the Arab youth] no longer listen to their elders.

Audience question: What about the security fence?

The security wall was built by the Army, which is concerned only with security, not economics, so it cuts suburbs in two.

Audience question: What about IS?

ISIS was born in Jordan; its founder (who died) was from Jordan There are several groups there creating enormous tension. The majority of the population there is Palestinian.

There are two areas that are extremely poor: Ma'an in the south and Zarqa in the north. ISIS and all the other groups are trying to gain influence there. But Jordan can't survive without Israeli assistance, because if the Islamists take over they will menace Israel next. Which means the Israelis have to share intelligence with them.

Since the influx of Syrian refugees the Jordanians have made a secret agreement such that Israel will supply them with first fifty and then one hundred million cubic metres of water, in addition to that guaranteed by the peace treaty.

Most of the water used by Israelis today comes from desalination. It used to come from the Kinneret. They pay now five times as much for desalinated water, while the water from the Kinneret now goes to Jordan. This is an Israeli subsidy that goes off the books.

It was the five years of drought which started the civil war in Syria. This was in the south; they then joined the demonstrators in the north. Also Israeli is treating most of the wounded from the Syrian war along the Golan borders in exchange for information on what is going on in Syria. This information is then passed on to the Jordanians.

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