2006-02-19-French Hill

By Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM —I opened my mailbox this morning to find an article that had been submitted to a journal of urban planning. I had seen a previous version, and the editor was asking my opinion on this revision.

The article deals with Jerusalem during the height of Intifada al-Aqsa, and the barrier being built as a result. It is a good piece of work that shows the impacts of terror and Israeli responses on Jewish and Arab populations. Among the findings are data showing that our own neighborhood of French Hill (named by one version after General French, one of the British commanders in the region during World War I, and by another version after a French church that predated the famous warrior) suffered a relatively high incidence of casualties during Intifada, and as a result experienced an out-migration and relatively high decline in property values.

This rings true. What is called "French Hill junction" is only about a kilometer from here, and the bus stops at the location serve both nearby Arab neighborhoods as well as buses traveling to Jewish settlements and army posts in the West Bank. Those bus stops were frequent targets. One of the explosions was close enough to our evening walk so that we could smell the chemicals used to produce it.

The revision that I saw today is a fine piece of work, that I recommend to be published. It brings the story up to date, showing among other things a sharp decline in the violence since 2002, and a resurgence of property values in French Hill! There are Arabs moving into this and other "Jewish" neighborhoods, which give them access to jobs, the university, and other services, whereas lower-priced neighborhoods on the other side of the barrier are now effectively shut off from Jerusalem.

One of my colleagues has a simple explanation for the decline in violence. What he calls Israel's "counter-insurgency" has killed or jailed Arab fighters as a higher rate than organizations can recruit replacements. The article I saw includes the finding that public opinion polls among Palestinians show a shift from support to opposition to violence. it has been costly for them.

Now, of course, the test is what happens with the new Palestinian government led by Hamas. If it concentrates on cleaning the stable of widespread Palestinian corruption, we will probably leave it alone. If it wants to flex muscles and show what good Muslims they are by taking all of Palestine by force, we also know what to do.

What is just as important as all this concern with violence and movements of people and property values is what I saw in the midst of reading the article. I stretched by aging neck and looked out the window. French Hill may be more vulnerable than other neighborhoods, insofar as it is on the eastern border of the city, close to the desert and Arab neighborhoods. But its sunrises are unsurpassed, especially in the winter when there are clouds to show the colors.

Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem