Holy Land, unholy feud

NAZARETH, JAN 23: Only the green flags and loudspeakers adorning the shabby Astoria restaurant in the heart of Nazareth hint at the real ...

NAZARETH, JAN 23: Only the green flags and loudspeakers adorning the shabby Astoria restaurant in the heart of Nazareth hint at the real significance of the site at the foot of the Church of the Ascension.

The land behind the Astoria is at the centre of a long feud between local Muslims and Christians which has poisoned the atmosphere in one of the most important Christian pilgrimage towns in the Holy Land. At issue is a plan being pushed by Muslims for a massive mosque named after Shihab al-Din, a local saint. His tomb lies at the back of the site and Muslims say he was a nephew of Saladin, the Kurdish general who defeated the crusaders in the 12th century. But the municipality, under Christian mayor R Jeraisi, wants to create a square on the site to cope with the thousands of Christian pilgrims who every day visit Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up, in a bid to ease severe traffic problem.

The dispute, which has now drawn in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority as mediator, is now a major with violentattacks and hate mail. Says Mohammed Mahajni, a Muslim activist. “This is waqf land. This is waqf land,” he intoned, while Christians believe the place is where Angel Gabriel revealed the divine plan to Mary.

The protesters have obtained a ruling from the mufti of Jerusalem that any land which has or had a mosque built on it becomes waqf land. But the municipality, under Jeraisi, says otherwise. “This is state land. There are absolutely no documents to show that this is waqf land. If there were any documents we would support the scheme,” said Jeraisi’s spokesman Ramzi Hakim.

The spat spills into political territory.

In Nazareth, Israel’s most important Arab town, Jeraisi’s secular Arab Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, was pitted against Abu Ahmed’s United Nazareth List, Al-Qaima. During elections, on night Qaima youths armed with clubs and knives stormed the Jabha offices, wounding seven Jeraisi men. Since then, known Jabha supporters have received hate-mail saying that their names are on ablack list, Jabha businesses have been attacked and a Christian teacher was badly beaten.

Last week, to Netanyahu consternation, Arafat’s Palestinian Authority stepped in to mediate. Jeraisi and Moslem leaders were invited to Palestinian-controlled Ramallah in the West Bank for a meeting with an Arafat aide.

To the visitor, the reason for the determination of Nazareth Muslims is clear. The Church of the Ascension is a modern structure, completed in 1969 on the site of earlier churches. It dominates Nazareth and dwarfs all earlier Moslem and Christian structures in a town where Christians form only 30 per cent of the population.