Joseph’s Tomb is Israel’s tomb. This bizarre site in the West Bank Palestinian city of Nablus is the new Mini Israel. If the original park, near Latrun, has 385 miniatures that are supposed to show the beautiful face of Israel, in the eastern neighborhood of Nablus one model is enough to show where we are headed. The future is already here, at this tomb.
Everything is there, in this accursed tomb: messianism, fundamentalism, violence, the storm troopers, the trampling of the dignity of the other nation, the lordliness, the moral rot, the ultra-nationalist imperiousness and the corruption.
In a masterful article – it’s a pity there is no Israeli Pulitzer Prize – Hagar Shezaf and Deiaa Haj Yahia (Haaretz Hebrew, April 13), reveal the scene in all its ugliness. Most of the ills of Israel, especially those of the occupation, on one ticket. Go to Joseph’s Tomb – and see us.
Less than two months ago, the photographer Alex Levac and I visited Yazid Amer, a young Palestinian man with epilepsy, at his home in the Ein Sirin neighborhood of Nablus, which overlooks the tomb. On the night of January 15, there was another Jewish invasion; the sickly Amer, 24, was hunted down by the soldiers who secure these pagan pilgrimages. Fragile and trembling, he was placed in restraints and left out in the open the entire night, until the invaders left his city. His medical condition has deteriorated ever since. But Amer is the easy victim of these insane pilgrimages. Seven Palestinians were killed last year so that Rivka in her head covering could prostrate herself on the grave. A “frequent flier,” she knows that “prayers here are really answered.”
Here’s how the prayers are answered: Every invasion means a night of terror for residents and a restless night for the hundreds of soldiers who are deployed in the city to guard the armored buses carrying the holy group, which is separated by gender of course: men in the front and women in the back.
Those behind the windows of the bus have no idea of the price the city’s residents pay so that they can prostrate themselves on the wretched structure. A structure for which there is no evidence – archaeological or otherwise – that this is indeed where the biblical Joseph was buried. Even if there were, so what? The Jewish pilgrims also don’t see the nearby Balata refugee camp, they don’t want to see it. There are no people living in Balata or Nablus.
The tomb needs to be preserved and renovated. Subcontractors of Israel’s security, known as Palestinian police officers, guard the tomb when there are no Jews there. When Jews arrive, the Palestinian police must leave in disgrace. The tomb is managed by a religious nonprofit association, the foundation for the heritage of Joseph’s Tomb: What, exactly, is the “heritage of the tomb”? A contracting company, Har Kabir, founded by a settler from an illegal outpost, profits from the renovation work. The Jews would not let city residents renovate the tomb, located in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood, lest they defile it.
Every “visit” is accompanied by shooting, destruction and sometimes even death. On the day a Haaretz reporter joined the trip, two Palestinians were killed for the ritual, but who’s counting? And who cares? Each visit turns the area into a battlefield, and residents close themselves up at home and wait in terror for dawn, while the young people try in vain to drive out the intruders with stones.
Yossi Dagan, a settler macher, makes political capital from every visit. The Samaria Regional Council, which he heads, handles the organization and transportation; Dagan, as is his habit, makes sure to take selfies with celebrities. This madness transcends governments. As with every issue related to the occupation, in Israel there is no real difference between governments, between left and right. No one dares to end this insanity.
That’s how it is in the land of the settlers who have a state. When Shezaf participated in the visit, she saw an older woman throwing toffee candies at the crowd. A cry was heard from the men’s section: “I’m in a good place in my life, friends, I’m in a good place.” Perhaps a similar exalted cry was heard when Ahmed Shahada, 16, lay dying outside, after the soldiers shot him, too.