 |
 |
 |
|
|
An Israeli Arab family from the Israeli town of Fasuta, near the Israeli border with Lebanon, walk outside the Sancta Maria Hotel in the West bank town of Bethlehem. (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Associated Press August 7, 2006 |
|
| |
Rashid Khoury and his friends from an Arab village in northern Israel lounged around the spacious lobby of a hotel in this West Bank town. Bags of coffee they brought from home were scattered across a table, along with a kettle, cigarettes, a bottle of coke and empty plastic food wrappers.
Khoury and other Israeli Arabs seeking shelter from Hezbollah rockets fired at Israel are hardly the kind of guests wanted at the Sancta Maria and other hotels in the town of Jesus' birth.
"They are here not because they love us. They are here to be safe," Bamyan Khalil, a West Bank Palestinian, said Sunday. "It's not because they want to support us."
Hundreds of Israeli Arabs have fled to West Bank cities since their homes in northern Israel were caught in the fire of Katyusha rockets, victims like their Jewish neighbors of Israel's conflict with the Lebanon-based Shiite militia.
The rockets have killed 48 people inside Israel in less than four weeks of fighting, many of them residents of Arab villages.
After years of stagnation following the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, Bethlehem's businessmen are taking what little money they can get from these refugees.
But there's no red carpet for the visitors.
Israeli Arabs often find themselves squeezed between their sympathy for West Bank Palestinians and their need to coexist with Israel's Jewish majority. Many of them belong to clans with members on both sides.
But tensions between the Palestinians and their Arab Israeli cousins were evident as they rubbed shoulders in Bethlehem.
Khalil, 42, owns two souvenir shops near the Church of the Nativity, where tradition says Jesus was born. He said the Israeli Arabs were coming to Bethlehem only because it was cheaper than Jerusalem.
He suggested that some of them might even serve in the Israeli army or help the police.
"If I go in front of the police, it's them on the other side," he added.
Arabs make up around 20 percent of Israel's population. They have full citizenship and carry Israeli passports, though they often complain they are treated as second-class citizens and -- since few actually serve in the army -- are denied benefits linked to national service.
They also face resentment from other Palestinians, whose painful conflict with Israel is a dominant feature of daily life.
Bethlehem, about three miles south of Jerusalem, is behind the separation barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank, which it says is meant to stop Palestinian suicide bombers but which the Palestinians see as a crude attempt to grab land and unilaterally create a border.
While Palestinians can cross the barrier only with great difficulty, Israeli Arabs have easier access.
The Khourys and friends came from their homes in Fasouta after spending three weeks in a bomb shelter there.
Rashid Khoury, 39, said he did odd jobs for a living and was trying to spend as little money as possible in Bethlehem.
"It's cheaper, and they speak Arabic," he said, explaining why he chose the town.
But frugality doesn't endear the refugees to the local population either.
"Business is nothing," complained one hotel owner. "The hotel is full with Arabs from the north."
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
