I came across a Time-Life book about Jerusalem published in 1976. It includes this vignette:
I peered into one of the shops. Its Arab keeper tried to sell me a dagger, then a cricifix, then a Jewish candlestick. “You sell Israeli things?” I asked.
He avoided my stare. ….”Our people take work from the Israelis because they have to. They’ve no choice.”
“You can’t grow to like them?”
He jerked back his head in denial. …”None of us here minds whether we belong to Jordan, Egypt or Palestine – what does it matter? So long as we’re ruled by Arabs.” With a dark bitterness, he added, “Only take away Israel. That’s all we ask. Set us free from Israel.”
Similarly, many Gazans voluntarily left to go to Jordan in 1967 because they didn’t want to be ruled by Jews, even though Egypt turned Gaza into a large ghetto for Palestinians. Those Gazans’ children and grandchildren are still in Jordan, still stateless, still living in camps.
The book also includes a series of sketches made by David Roberts in the 1830s. These two scenes of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives do not show any Arab villages between the Mount and Jerusalem – no “ancient” Silwan.
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