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Taking the hint from the Acre blowout
Recent events in the 'mixed' town, which boasts a rich and proud history, have brought into focus the need to address the untruth of 'co-existence'.
- By Uri Avnery
- Published: 00:11 October 20, 2008
- Image Credit: Gulf News
Only a few of the world's cities can boast such a stormy and checkered history as Akko (Akka in Arabic, Acre in French and English), the main port of the country. It was a Canaanite-Phoenician town, traded with Egypt, rebelled against Assyria, confronted the Jewish Hasmoneans, was conquered by the Crusaders, served as a battle-ground for the legendary Saladin and the no less legendary Richard the Lion-Hearted, was the capital of the semi-independent Arab state of Galilee under Daher Al Omar and withstood the siege of Napoleon.
Point of discussion
During some of these periods, there existed in Acre a small Jewish community, but it never was a Jewish town. On the contrary: among the Rabbis there was an ongoing discussion whether Acre, from the point of view of religious law (Halacha), belonged to Eretz Israel at all. This was important, because certain commandments apply only to the Land of Israel. Some rabbis believed that Acre did not belong, while others asserted that at least a part of the town did.
In the 1948 war, Acre was occupied by the Israeli forces, and since then it has lived under Israeli rule: 60 years out of a history of 5,000 years and more.
This is the background of last week's events in Acre. The Arab inhabitants consider Acre as the town of their forefathers, which was forcibly occupied by the Jews. The Jewish inhabitants consider it a Jewish town, in which the Arabs are a tolerated minority - at most.
For years the town was covered by a thin blanket of hypocrisy. Everybody praised and celebrated the wonderful co-existence there. Until the blanket was torn, and the naked truth was exposed.
I would not drive on Yom Kippur in a Jewish neighbourhood, just as I would not eat in public during Ramadan in an Arab neighbourhood.
It is difficult to know what the Arab driver Tawfiq Jamal was thinking of when he entered a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in his car on Yom Kippur. It is reasonable to assume he did not do it out of malice but rather out of carelessness.
The reaction was predictable. An angry Jewish crowd chased him into an Arab house and besieged him there. In a distant Arab neighbourhood, the loudspeakers of mosques blared out that Arabs were in mortal danger. In a few minutes, 60 years of "co-existence" had been wiped out - proof that in the "mixed" town there is no real co-existence.
The Acre events are just another episode in the war between the two peoples of this country and should give rise to second thoughts in the mind of anyone who believes in the "One-State solution". Such a "solution" would turn the entire country into one big Acre.
There is reasonable hope that at some future time we shall end the national conflict and reach a peaceful solution that both peoples will accept (if only because there is no alternative.) A Palestinian state will come into being side by side with Israel, and both peoples will understand that this is the best possible solution.
But peace, based on two states living side by side, will not automatically solve the problem of the Arab citizens in Israel. We must be ready for a long, consistent fight over the character of our state.
We must all have the courage to look the problem in the eye, to see it as it is, without hypocrisy or falsification.
- Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book 'The Politics of Anti-Semitism'.
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