From Times of Israel: ... a fight brews in Abu Tor over how to get along
It's just one more little crack in a too shattered world.
On Saturday, David Maeir-Epstein and some 25 other neighborhood residents stood on a main road distributing cakes and sweets to Palestinians driving to their homes in the neighborhood.
The gesture was meant as a show of support for coexistence at a time when tensions in the city between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs had reached a boiling point over the pending eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and over police riot-control measures on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.
“We wanted to express that we are neighbors, not enemies, and that what is happening in other cities must not happen here,” Maier-Epstein explained.
“The reactions were extremely warm, emotional and respecting. One couple said sweets were nice but tell your government to stop bombing children and to allow us to pray peacefully at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (on the Temple Mount). But there were no threats of physical danger. The opposite was true,” he said.
As a courtesy, Maeir-Epstein sent photographs and a brief description to Abu Tor’s community police coordinator.
Somehow, the photographs reached the Israel Police spokesperson’s office and made their way, on May 15, to the police Facebook page, where they appeared as part of a post claiming, wrongly, that both the cake distribution and the entire Good Neighbors project were police initiatives.
The post, since removed, featured the faces of Palestinians involved with Good Neighbors, who have since been branded as collaborators on Palestinian social media, according to critics of the project.
“The last thing we need is to be accused of doing [Good Neighbors] not because we want peace but because the police have put us up to it,” Maier-Epstein said.
The gesture was meant as a show of support for coexistence at a time when tensions in the city between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs had reached a boiling point over the pending eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and over police riot-control measures on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.
“We wanted to express that we are neighbors, not enemies, and that what is happening in other cities must not happen here,” Maier-Epstein explained.
“The reactions were extremely warm, emotional and respecting. One couple said sweets were nice but tell your government to stop bombing children and to allow us to pray peacefully at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (on the Temple Mount). But there were no threats of physical danger. The opposite was true,” he said.
As a courtesy, Maeir-Epstein sent photographs and a brief description to Abu Tor’s community police coordinator.
Somehow, the photographs reached the Israel Police spokesperson’s office and made their way, on May 15, to the police Facebook page, where they appeared as part of a post claiming, wrongly, that both the cake distribution and the entire Good Neighbors project were police initiatives.
The post, since removed, featured the faces of Palestinians involved with Good Neighbors, who have since been branded as collaborators on Palestinian social media, according to critics of the project.
“The last thing we need is to be accused of doing [Good Neighbors] not because we want peace but because the police have put us up to it,” Maier-Epstein said.
It's just one more little crack in a too shattered world.
