Politics, religion clash in
Nazareth
By BEN LYNFIELD
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Nazareth,
Israel
Shop owner Salam Habiby says Nazareth is a different place than it
was before a bitter -- and still unresolved -- dispute erupted over building an
Islamic mosque adjacent to the Basilica of the Annunciation.
When I was growing up, no one in my generation thought in
terms of Christians and Muslims, Habiby explained. But now my son
senses there are two kinds of people, Christians and Muslims. He says to me:
So and so is a Muslim, as if it is us versus them.
Habibys experience captures why a dispute here over real
estate has made headlines around the world. Many religion experts believe one
of the forces shaping the next millennium will be the relationship between the
worlds two largest monotheistic creed¯, Christianity and Islam
Ñ and Nazareth, the city where Jesus grew up, has become a laboratory in
which the promise and peril of that relationship are being put to the test.
The argument over the mosque also illustrates the way that
religious problems in the Middle East inevitably take on political and even
commercial overtones, making them all the more complex.
The trouble began in 1997, when Nazareths municipal
government demolished a school building that had been empty for three years in
advance of work on a plaza in front of the basilica. The project was aimed at
creating some open space for pilgrims and residents in what is now a congested,
ugly area leading to the church.
Islamic activists expressed outrage that a minbar, or
prayer niche, in the building, had been destroyed. The Islamic Movement, a
political faction leading the charge for a mosque, set up a protest tent and
asserted its right to rebuild the mosque, despite the fact that the
minbar had not been in use for decades.
Violence erupted over Easter, when dozens of Christians were
wounded and storefronts and windshields were smashed in by mosque
supporters.
Plans call for the new mosque to be named after Shehab al-Din, an
Islamic warrior against the crusaders and nephew of the legendary Muslim
commander Salah al-Din (usually rendered in English as Saladin).
Shehab al-Din died from wounds in the 1187 battle of Hittin, and his
green-domed tomb abuts the proposed construction site.
Catholic leaders argued and continue to argue that the location
was chosen as a provocation and that the mosques erection will inevitably
result in friction.
The massive Basilica of the Annunciation, the largest church in
Israel, marks the spot where, according to tradition, the Archangel Gabriel
told Mary she would give birth to Jesus Christ. It contains what are said to be
the ruins of the house in which Mary lived and an expansive and well-adorned
upper-floor prayer area.
The Islamic Movement accepted a decision last October, touted as a
compromise, in which the government allotted 450 square meters of state land
for the mosque. This was to be added to 250 meters of land already encompassing
Shehab al-Dins tomb, thus enabling the construction of a mosque on 700
square meters.
This was smaller than the movement originally envisioned, but --
again to the municipalitys dismay -- 200 meters larger than what had been
promised by the previous government. Remaining territory was to be allocated to
the municipality for a much smaller square than it envisioned, separated from
the mosque in a manner not specified.
Most Christians object to the very idea of a mosque in such close
proximity to the basilica.
That place is not a good place, said Bishop
Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, vicar of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the
senior Catholic official in Nazareth. We are ready to help them build [a
mosque] but why there? Only for provocation, for political reasons.
The Vatican reacted angrily, with spokesman Joaquín
Navarro-Valls condemning the compromise. I believe that political
authorities in this case have a great responsibility, because instead of
favoring unity, they create the foundation to foment division, he
said.
Both sides agree that the jousting has kindled antagonisms between
Islamic and Christian residents.
The problem is not whether there will be a mosque, it is how
the mosque became a separating factor here and how it became burning oil,
said Lutfi Mashour, editor of the citys As-Sennara
newspaper.
A major reason for the success of the mosque supporters, and the
source of deep Christian anxiety, is demographic.
Seventy percent of Nazareths 70,000 residents are Muslim and
the remainder Christian, a reversal of the situation that prevailed when Israel
was established in 1948. The change is due to an influx of Muslims from
surrounding villages, a higher Muslim birth rate and immigration of Christians
to Europe and the Americas.
With the leading protagonists in the mosque dispute, Mayor Ramez
Jaraisy and Abu Ahmed, the deputy mayor, still at loggerheads, it is hard to
see how the trend toward divisiveness can soon be reversed.
The microbe of religious strife has entered the city,
said Jaraisy, a Christian who heads a list of the Democratic Front Party
comprised of Muslims and Christians and who insists that the dispute is not a
religious one. Rather, he believes, it stems from interference in the city by
larger Israeli political forces and the use by Islamic parties, especially the
Islamic Movement, of the mosque issue.
Israeli forces backed the Islamic Movements challenge in
order to encourage infighting within the Arab minority, Jaraisy claims angrily.
Nazareth was targeted because it is the largest Arab metropolis in Israel, and
its leaders have been prominent in battles against discrimination and for
Palestinian rights, he said.
During the last two years, we were busy with our local
problems. They neutralized the leadership of Nazareth, Jaraisy said.
The charge is widely echoed by both Christian and Muslim
residents.
Israeli policy has been that what is bad for the Arabs is
good for the state of Israel, Mashour said. They are trying
to Lebanonize the Arab sector, which is a tragedy for all of the citizens of
Israel. In Lebanon, political identities were fractured to such an extent
that Muslims and Christians warred with one another, beginning in 1975.
Israeli Government Press Office Director Moshe Fogel rejected the
charge.
The irony of this situation is that even when there are
disputes between Christians and Muslim Arabs, it is easier to turn against the
Jews, the Israeli authorities, and blame them for the lack of tolerance between
Christians and Muslims. We would do everyone a service by focusing on how to
solve the problem, and not blaming third parties, Fogel said.
There are indications, however, that Israeli Jewish groups are not
entirely innocent. A Member of Knesset from the Likud party, Moshe Arens, said
that according to his information, during the previous government of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Likud official backed the Islamic Movement.
A critical question in the maneuvering is what grouping will
dominate Nazareth politics.
Abu Ahmed says with satisfaction that the Shehab al-Din
problem has been good for the Islamic Movement, giving it 3 or 4 more
seats on the council than it otherwise would have had, thus enabling it to have
a 10-9 majority over Jaraisys grouping.
Shehab al-Din became a symbol of Muslim identity,
explained storeowner Ali Kanj, who voted for the Islamic Movement.
During an interview in early May, Abu Ahmed condemned violence and
said confrontations were not on a religious basis, but rather between Muslims
and communists.
All of us are Arabs, and there is no reason to be afraid one
from the other. All are Palestinians, citizens of Nazareth. Muslims and
Christians lived together for thousands of years, and churches beside mosques
[have existed] since history and there is no reason to be afraid.
But at the same time, Abu Ahmed subscribes to a view of Christian
Arab history that most Christians would reject as false and divisive.
Christians, he said, gained an upper hand over Muslims during the 19th century
because they were favored by Europeans and allowed to study in European
schools. Moreover, he said, Israeli forces refrained from expelling Christians
along with Muslims during the 1948 War in which Israel emerged. The
Israeli army kept the Christians and did not expel them because they have a
special relationship with the Christians, said Abu Ahmed.
Abu Ahmeds point is a sensitive one, because Christians here
generally view themselves as devoted patriots to Arab causes and consider their
Arabism to be no less than that of Muslims. Modern Arab nationalism was founded
largely by Christian intellectuals, and some of the most hard-line figures in
the PLO have been Christians.
Asked why the mosque needed to be built on a site so close to the
church, Abu Ahmed said: Why did the Christians build a church in this
place? It is holy land for Christians and beside it is holy land for Muslims.
It is very nice that there will be a mosque beside a church; this will be a
symbol of brotherhood, humanity and common living.
But a visit to the site points to the possibility of a different
outcome. The call to prayer is made through loudspeakers at an earsplitting
volume, something that succeeds in summoning Muslims but does not help to set a
tranquil tone for visitors to the church.
Then there is the righteousness projected by the Shehab al-Din
leaders at the site.
Featured prominently is a 6-feet-by-5-feet depiction of a massive
gray mosque with four minarets and the caption: Here will be built the
Shehab al-Din Mosque. The Basilica of the Annunciation is nowhere to be
found in the picture, leaving the impression that it has either been blocked
out by the mosque or wished away by the artist. Ahmad explained that the
picture is of a mosque in Nigeria and not the mosque that the movement will
build.
Nasser Mansour, a barber, offered perspective. We did not
start living here today, he said. We are talking about thousands of
years. We and the Muslims have one culture. We live together in mixed
neighborhoods. They visit us on our feast days and we visit them on theirs. My
friends are Muslims. A few people on both sides may want strife, but this was a
storm in a teacup. Maybe outsiders have an interest in dividing us, but our
interest is to live together.
It is too early to predict whether the city will pull together for
a period of healing or fracture even more, according to a tourism worker, who
is Christian. There are fanatics on both sides, he said. Is building the
mosque going to make things calm down or heat up? I dont know.
Thats what makes everyone worried, he added.
National Catholic Reporter, May 26,
2000
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