E=The Terror Lurking In A ChristmAs
Tree: Israel Tries To Ban Non-Jewish Celebrations
25 December 2012
By Jonathan Cook
Israel's large Palestinian minority is often spoken of
in terms of the threat it poses to the Jewish
majority. Palestinian citizens' reproductive rate
constitutes a "demographic timebomb", while their main
political programme – Israel's reform into "a state of
all its citizens" – is proof for most Israeli Jews
that their compatriots are really a "fifth column".
But who would imagine that Israeli Jews could be so
intimidated by the innocuous Christmas tree?
This issue first came to public attention two years
ago when it was revealed that Shimon Gapso, the mayor
of Upper Nazareth, had banned Christmas trees from all
public buildings in his northern Israeli city.
"Upper Nazareth is a Jewish town and all its symbols
are Jewish," Gapso said. "As long as I hold office, no
non-Jewish symbol will be presented in the city."
The decision reflected in part his concern that Upper
Nazareth, built in the 1950s as the centrepiece of the
Israeli government's "Judaisation of the Galilee"
programme, was failing dismally in its mission.
Far from "swallowing up" the historic Palestinian city
of Nazareth next door, as officials had intended,
Upper Nazareth became over time a magnet for wealthier
Nazarenes who could no longer find a place to build a
home in their own city. That was because almost all
Nazareth's available green space had been confiscated
for the benefit of Upper Nazareth.
Instead Nazarenes, many of them Palestinian
Christians, have been buying homes in Upper Nazareth
from Jews – often immigrants from the former Soviet
Union – desperate to leave the Arab-dominated Galilee
and head to the country's centre, to be nearer Tel
Aviv.
The exodus of Jews and influx of Palestinians have led
the government to secretly designate Upper Nazareth as
a "mixed city", much to the embarrassment of Gapso.
The mayor is a stalwart ally of far-right politician
Avigdor Lieberman and regularly expresses virulently
anti-Arab views, including recently calling Nazarenes
"Israel-hating residents whose place is in Gaza" and
their city "a nest of terror in the heart of the
Galilee".
Although neither Gapso nor the government has
published census figures to clarify the city's current
demographic balance, most estimates suggest that at
least a fifth of Upper Nazareth's residents are
Palestinian. The city's council chamber also now
includes Palestinian representatives.
But Gapso is not alone in his trenchant opposition to
making even the most cursory nod towards
multiculturalism. The city's chief rabbi, Isaiah Herzl,
has refused to countenance a single Christmas tree in
Upper Nazareth, arguing that it would be "offensive to
Jewish eyes".
That view, it seems, reflects the official position of
the country's rabbinate. In so far as they are able,
the rabbis have sought to ban Christmas celebrations
in public buildings, including in the hundreds of
hotels across the country.
A recent report in the Haaretz newspaper, on an
Israeli Jew who grows Christmas trees commercially,
noted in passing: "hotels – under threat of losing
kashrut certificates – are prohibited by the rabbinate
from decking their halls in boughs of holly or, heaven
forbid, putting up even the smallest of small sparkly
Christmas tree in the corner of the lobby."
In other words, the rabbinate has been quietly
terrorising Israeli hotel owners into ignoring
Christmas by threatening to use its powers to put them
out of business. Denying a hotel its kashrut (kosher)
certificate would lose it most of its Israeli and
foreign Jewish clientele.
Few mayors or rabbis find themselves in the
uncomfortable position of needing to go public with
their views on the dangers of Christmas decorations.
In Israel, segregation between Jews and Palestinians
is almost complete. Even most of the handful of mixed
cities are really Jewish cities with slum-like
ghettoes of Palestinians living on the periphery.
Apart from Upper Nazareth, the only other "mixed"
place where Palestinian Christians are to be found in
significant numbers is Haifa, Israel's third largest
city. Haifa is often referred to as Israel's most
multicultural and tolerant city, a title for which it
faces very little competition.
But the image hides a dirtier reality. A recent letter
from Haifa's rabbinate came to light in which the
city's hotels and events halls were reminded that they
must not host New Year's parties at the end of this
month (the Jewish New Year happens at a different time
of year). The hotels and halls were warned that they
would be denied their kashrut licences if they did so.
"It is a seriously forbidden to hold any event at the
end of the calendar year that is connected with or
displays anything from the non-Jewish festivals," the
letter states.
After the letter was publicised on Facebook, Haifa's
mayor, Yona Yahav, moved into damage limitation mode,
overruling the city's rabbinical council on Sunday and
insisting that parties would be allowed to go ahead.
Whether Yahav has the power to enforce his decision on
the notoriously independent-minded rabbinical
authorities is still uncertain.
But what is clear is that there is plenty of religious
intolerance verging on hatred being quietly exercised
against non-Jews, mostly behind the scenes so as not
to disturb Israel's "Jewish and democratic" image or
outrage the millions of Christian tourists and
pilgrims who visit Israel each year.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize
for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the
Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to
Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and
"Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human
Despair" (Zed Books). His website is
www.jonathan-cook.net.
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