Citizen Strangers by Robinson Shira N.;

Citizen Strangers by Robinson Shira N.;

Author:Robinson, Shira N.; [Robinson, Shira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013-05-30T04:00:00+00:00


Military and police commanders take a break from their meal to listen to speeches at the sulha. Courtesy of the IDFA.

Hasan ‘Abd Allah Mansur gives a speech at the sulha. Courtesy of the IDFA.

The actual sulha was carried out with the same staging and control as the first anniversary ceremony, only it required more preparation, a greater enforcement of discipline, and a more elaborately choreographed performance. Even more than the usual planning for Independence Day, nothing was left to chance. From the elegant invitations and seating arrangements, to the recruitment of some of the country’s finest chefs to oversee the preparation of the meal, to the opening of three new water taps in the village, the event was carefully designed for the consumption of the general, if not especially the Jewish and international, public.117 The following excerpt from the Jerusalem Post captures the way the dominant press uncritically accepted the authenticity of the ceremony and the peace and closure it had supposedly achieved:

The men sat down to eat, and the youth and children of the village gathered around the guests, laughing and joking and stopping every now and then to drink from the newly installed water taps, which are more prominent in everyone’s mind by now than last year’s tragedy. . . .

[Although] the sulha seems cruel, with its roasted meats and dishes of fruit set before the relatives of the dead . . . it is a necessity [for] the healing process . . . just as a festering ulcer must be cut out to save a limb.118

Sulha organizers required representatives of each family scheduled to receive compensation to attend the ceremony. There they were seated next to members of the civil and military administration and forced to listen to speakers’ appeals for the restoration of good feeling, as well as to assurances that no pressure of any kind had been exercised to bring the villagers to the table.119 The speakers included Public Committee member Hasan ‘Abd Allah Mansur, a reportedly wealthy landowner from the nearby Arab village of Tira, whose perceived need to clarify that he was not a government agent seemed to have the opposite effect:

I have never been in the pay of anyone, and I have never sold my conscience. We served on the committee for compassionate reasons, so that widows and orphans might receive help. We did so also because otherwise their claims would have been taken over by persons with questionable motives, who would have tried to serve their interests more than those of the unfortunate victims.120

Perhaps their success in preventing the disruption of the dissenters was one of the reasons organizers were so proud of this event. Indeed, Avraham Shapira, the emcee of the ceremony, could not refrain from declaring in his opening remarks that “although it is difficult to say this, today is a great day.”121

The families of Kafr Qasim participated in the charade of the sulha out of fear and in the absence of a viable alternative.122 Their practical decision notwithstanding,



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