No clinic? No school? We'll open one
Haaretz, November 28, 2006
By Aryeh Dayan
At the end of the period of Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem, and even during the early years of Israeli control, many Palestinians referred to Kafr Aqab as "millionaires' row." The neighborhood has deteriorated since then. Today, three years after the construction of the [security] wall there, the signs of neglect and disorder are clearly apparent, even at the entrance of the neighborhood, which is right after the Qalandiyah checkpoint. That checkpoint, and the wall that runs south and north of it, give the once-fashionable Palestinian suburb the look of a slum in a Third World city.
Kafr Aqab, with its current population of 25,000, is officially within the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem, and is supposed to receive services from the city. As part of the Israeli decision in 1967 to annex East Jerusalem, the redrawn northern extremity of the municipal boundary was the northern edge of Kafr Aqab, giving those who lived there the status of Jerusalem residents. As a result, they hold "blue" Israeli identity cards, pay taxes to the city of Jerusalem, are eligible for the services of the National Insurance Institute, and are entitled to travel and work anywhere in Israel.
The separation fence has left Kafr Aqab outside Jerusalem. To reach other parts of the city, its residents need to go through the Qalandiyah checkpoint. They can get to the West Bank cities of El-Bireh and Ramallah, on the other hand, without encountering any Israeli checkpoint. In this way they have fallen between the cracks: the Jerusalem Municipality (and the State of Israel) have stopped providing services to a neighborhood that is beyond the wall; while the municipality of El-Bireh to the north, whose jurisdiction borders Kafr Aqab, refuses to provide services to a neighborhood that is part of Jerusalem.
The reaction of the residents of Kafr Aqab to the situation in which they found themselves was completely different from that of other Palestinians in similar situations in other areas. Initially they did exactly what the others did: appealed the land-seizure orders for the construction of the wall, petitioned the High Court of Justice against its construction, organized demonstrations, sent demands to the Jerusalem Municipality and organized various lobbying activities. They soon realized, however, that they could expect to gain no benefit from all that, and opted for a different strategy.
At the initiative of several groups of young residents, a new neighborhood committee was established, which elbowed aside the existing, more conservative representative body. The new committee established a new organization called "the Kafr Aqab Development Company," officially registered it in Israel, and set about raising funds within the neighborhood (which is still home to quite a few well-heeled Palestinian businessmen).The company forged a connection with two associations that deal with matters concerning Arab residents of Jerusalem (the Israeli Ir Amim and the Palestinian Media and Development Institute), put its plans on a business basis, and began to promote several basic projects in fields that usually fall under the responsibility of the municipality and of government ministries.
Less than two years since the company was founded, many Kafr Aqab residents already see the results of its activity. Some 500 local children who, in the previous school year, had to be at the checkpoint before 6 A.M. to make it to school before classes began at 8 A.M., now study in a school established by the company in the center of the neighborhood.
Thousands of residents who regularly pay into the NII, and are entitled to medical attention under the National Health Insurance Law, were forced to traverse the checkpoint every time they needed to exercise their rights. Now they have at their disposable a clinic that the company has set up in the neighborhood, which operates as a licensee of the Clalit Health Services. Hundreds of local youngsters, who until recently aimlessly wandered the streets of the neighborhood, now come daily to the community center the company created. Dozens of houses, which for years the Jerusalem Municipality had refused to connect to the city's sewage system, have been connected by the company (without authorization), employing residents who work or have worked in the past for the municipal company that manages the system.
"After the wall was built, we understood we had only two choices: to live in a garbage dump or to take matters into our own hands," explained Samih Abu-Rumeileh, the moving spirit behind the neighborhood committee and the Kafr Aqab Development Company. "The wall created an entirely new situation here. Before it was built we received only a small part of what we were entitled to. After it was built, we got nothing. And the daily crossing at the checkpoint to get to school or to a clinic was simply destroying our lives."
License from Clalit
"We have no intention of giving up on the city and the state's fulfilling their obligations toward us," says Fawaz Tamimi, Abu-Rumeileh's colleague in the leadership of the residents committee, and appointed by him as vice-principal of the school. He is 38, the son of a jewelry merchant, and studies business administration at a college in Ramallah. "We pay municipal taxes like every Jerusalem resident, and the city has to give us the same services it gives everyone else. We simply decided to reverse the order of things. Instead of waiting until the government gives us services, we first provide the services ourselves and then make demands of the government."
In the many meetings they had with the municipality regarding the education system, they repeatedly heard the claim that most of the buildings in the neighborhood were illegally built, and the government is prohibited from renting an illegal structure for establishing a school.
"We have no problem renting a building that was erected without a license," says Tamimi with a smile. And that is exactly what they did. With contributions from the parents, and a large endowment from the Ford Foundation (through the mediation of Ir Amim), the Kafr Aqab Development Company rented a three-story building on the main street of the neighborhood, renovated it, furnished it and turned it into a school. Today it boasts 497 students in 15 classes, from first to 12th grade. The teachers were drawn from educators who live in the neighborhood, and who, in the past, were compelled to deal with the checkpoints to go to work. Only then, just as the school year was about to begin, did they turn to the Education Ministry and to the municipality with a demand for recognition and funding. The recognition has been given; the funding, they hope, will start coming through next month.
That is, more or less, the way they handled the clinic. The Kafr Aqab Development Company organized a group of businessmen and a few doctors from within the community. They invested $100,000 in procuring equipment for a clinic that would be able to provide most of the services that most HMO clinics provide. After they had rented an appropriate building, they approached the Clalit HMO and requested a license to operate the clinic in its name. Clalit operates several clinics on this basis elsewhere in Israel. The licensee receives a monthly payment for every member of the HMO living in its district, and the HMO determines the medical standards and supervises the professional operation of the clinic. "Economic calculations show that a clinic that serves 3,000 members can maintain itself," says Abu-Rumeileh, who once renovated buildings, then drove a truck, and is today the clinic's administrative director. "There are 3,000 members of the HMO in Kafr Aqab, so I hope it will start showing a profit in another few months."
Even if there was not a direct political motive, the "declaration of independence" of the residents of Kafr Aqab is not divorced from political considerations. "Kafr Aqab is part of Jerusalem, and we are all part of the Palestinian people, and we all oppose the occupation," says Abu-Rumeileh. "But there is no reason for us to suffer the occupation in silence, and just wait for it to go away." He believes that Israel is moving in the direction of a "long-term transfer" of Palestinian residents [out of] Jerusalem, that it hopes the Palestinians will break down and move away. He says that everything they have done in Kafr Aqab has been intended, among other things, to fight that trend.
It is a new strategy, and both Israel and the Palestinian organizations still have difficulty assimilating it. "At the beginning they accused us, especially Fatah, of collaborating with Israel," Abu-Rumeileh relates. "Later both Fatah and Hamas began to understand our activity is for the benefit of the people."
The response of the Jerusalem Municipality was that "the municipality gives the residents the best services it can under the present circumstances," and that it is the intention of the municipality "to integrate the Kafr Aqab Development Company and other local organizations in its activities.”
