Jerusalem

“You don’t know what they do to us there,” said an acquaintance whose place of business is in the Old City.

So I went to see what they’re doing to him there and saw only a tiny part of what they’re doing inside and outside the Old City walls.

I saw the fear in the eyes, so thick you could cut it with a knife, I saw faces bathed in sweat when a policeman shouts:  “Stop…turn around…empty your pockets…lift your shirt…put your hands on the railing…spread your legs.”

I saw the body freeze in terror when rifle barrels are pointed first at the chest and then at the back, many rifle barrels surrounding him and many fingers ready to pull the trigger.  And he, who knows how fragile his life is during those seconds, is silent and obeys, and he remains silent and submissively waits for the nightmare to end as strange hands pat him down and pass over his body, searching for a hidden weapon or a knife.

“What can we do?” he says to me after they finished with him and turned to the next in line, while he stood there for many more minutes, grasping the metal railing until his pounding heart calms, until his body controls its trembling.  Because he knows, they all know, that only an instant separates him from the fate of others whose blood spilled onto this sidewalk and this plaza and these alleys.

And I saw the mechanisms of control tighten and close over lives, how armed police and Border Police soldiers and private security guards are present in every alley and at every corner, how Palestinians in the Old City lanes avert their gaze, avoiding eye contact with security forces, walk rapidly, on the side, hugging the walls, not arousing suspicion, not wishing to be arrested, to be the victim of a humiliating public search.

I also saw the settlers flying Israeli flags from the roofs of buildings they’d invaded and civilian militias armed with pistols hidden beneath loose shirts, prepared to shoot, guarding the entrances of the houses they’d stolen,

and they and their children, outsiders but rulers nevertheless, walk through the heart of the Muslim Quarter, preceded and followed by guards.

The security forces’ abundance of weapons, their eyes following anyone who looks Arab, their jumpiness and jitteriness at every suspicious movement, the endless number of cameras observing every motion and every person and the multitude of barriers and sensors at the entrance to the area of the Western Wall, which have made it protected and shielded like a fortress and not a place of mass religious ritual, indicate that the fear is mutual, that it feeds on itself and gets stronger.

And what also makes the security forces shudder is a camera that isn’t theirs, my camera, and after they yelled at, and surrounded me, and tried to move me away, and took my ID, “An old ID,” said the commander, “I’m even older,” I replied, and the commander photographed the ID and photographed me, and said, “If I see a photo of any of my personnel on any social network I’ll file a class action suit against you.”