Jerusalem: unified city, divided views

Forty years after the city was unified, it remains split into Arab and Jewish enclaves.

from the May 15, 2007 edition

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Atoon earned a degree in architecture, but he never practiced. Instead, he became politically active, a choice that eventually landed him in Israeli prison for five years after being charged, he says, with intifada-related activities during the first uprising, which began in 1987. 

It was a personal tragedy that brought home how different life is from East to West. His toddler son was killed crossing a road where cars turn quickly. Were this West Jerusalem, he's sure that there would have been a crosswalk and signs warning drivers to go slowly.

There's also no city sewage system in much of this area; people have private septic tanks. Garbage pickup is once a week. Roads are poorly maintained.

He's never voted in a Jerusalem municipal election, except for when he was in jail and felt forced to do so. Most Arab Jerusalemites choose to make the collective statement of not voting, and therefore, have no representation on the city council. He did vote in the Palestinian Authority's elections in January 2006. His cousin, Abu Majahed Atoon, a legislative council member from Hamas, was elected. He was arrested by Israel and jailed about a year ago when tensions rose between Israel and Hamas.

Atoon shuns one benefit – Israeli-funded public education for his children – to put them in a private Islamic school system called Riad Al Aqsa. The facilities aren't necessarily better, he says. "But people are more concerned with what's going into their kids' head than what kind of building they're sitting in," he says. 

Though it costs him much more, he says, it's worth it. He worries about the lure of the prosperity his children see in Israel. He's proud that he's not among those who walk up the hill every day to work in Ramat Rachel – at the hotel restaurant, the cleaning crew, or the laundry. 

"The reality is that our people need jobs, so they do what they have to. The problem is that when people meet and merge, they lose their roots," he says. While work is one thing, he says, he's not interested in sending his kids to a school where they'll be asked to read Israeli literature, or play sports with the Jewish kids up the hill. 

 "Maybe they're right there," he says, "but we're quite distant from each other." .

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