By Ahmad Sub Laban (Palestine Report, February 20, 2002)

THE ABU SARIYA home is not far from the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev north of Jerusalem. Actually, it is smack up against it. The Abu Sariya's Jewish neighbors are only about half a meter away. This Palestinian house is one of four remaining Arab houses located in this neighborhood of the settlement.

The area owned by the Abu Sariya clan is a world away from the paved roads, colorful gardens and organized rows of houses of the Israeli settlement. Here, one is met by muddy and unpaved roads that are pitch black at night for lack of streetlights. One must trudge up a steep mountainous road to get to the first house at the top of the hill.

The Palestinian identity of the homes is apparent through their traditional stone architecture and the patter of children's Arabic.

"In 1971, my cousin Zakariya Abu Sariya and I built two of the homes on the mountain, which we live in today," says Abed Rabbo Abu Sariya. "There was no other house on the mountain and there were no Israeli houses in the beginning. There were just these two houses built without a license."

Abed Rabbo explains that they had applied for a building license but were denied by the Israeli authorities, who said that the area was "green area," zones in which construction is prohibited.

"We wanted to build two more houses for my brothers Abdel Aziz and Ali," he continues. "In 1986 when the Jews began building the settlement, we applied for a building license again and started to build at the same time. We were handed a violation notice and were threatened with an order for demolition because we built in a green area, according to the Israelis."

Abed Rabbo says he told them that the settlement was being built on the same land. "Become Jews and you can build too," he was told.

"I was fined for NIS 56,000," the equivalent of $13,000, he remembers. "I refused to pay it so they put me in jail for three months in 1996." After Abed Rabbo was released, he applied again for a building permit and to his surprise, was granted one.

Living in these homes has become an act of courage for these Palestinians. Um Samer, Abed Rabbo's wife and mother to 10 children, the youngest of these seven-year-old Mustapha, spoke of the hardships her family faces just trying to go about their daily lives.

"In order to get to our house, we have two choices," she explains. "Either we get down on the highway and squeeze through an opening we made in the stone fence. This, of course, is very dangerous because we could easily be hit by a car. Also, entering through this hole is considered illegal. But if we don't use this way, we would have to pass through the middle of the settlement and walk almost a kilometer to get home."

Um Samer says the times they have entered the settlement by car, there have not been problems. But when they walk, there are always stares from the settlers living there.

"They look and wonder and dislike our presence in their area," she speculates. "Frankly, we are afraid for ourselves and for our children because it is such a long way to our house. We never let our children walk alone because we are afraid of extremist Jews."

Then there are the Palestinians who wonder why they are living in the center of a Jewish settlement, especially since the start of the Intifada. Um Samer says her daughters have been cursed at from time to time by other Arabs who see them walking towards their home.

She remembers one afternoon in particular when she was returning from Jordan. She asked the taxi driver who picked her up from Allenby Bridge to drive her home. When they reached Israeli territory, he asked her if she was sure this was the way to her house. "I answered, 'Does anyone lose their way home?'"

As he went further into Pisgat Ze'ev, he asked her again if she was going home, looking at her suspiciously in his rearview mirror. "He must have thought I was going to the settlement for some illegal activity or that I was an Israeli collaborator," she says.

But when they reached the door to her house and he saw her children run out to greet her, the driver immediately apologized and asked her to forgive him for doubting her. "This affects us and our will to endure," Um Samer admits.

Israeli assaults

Things aren't always peaceful in this forcefully integrated community. Abed Rabbo says that at the beginning of the Intifada, his and his brothers' houses were pelted with stones and eggs by Israeli children.

That didn't last long, though. They went to the children's parents and told them, "Look we have kids and they are Intifada children who are experts at throwing rocks, so you better stop your children."

Ten-year-old Mohammed Askar says the Jewish children throw rocks at them, especially during the Yom Kippur holiday. As a result, they rarely play outside. "Even on regular days, we hardly go to the playground," he says.

Mohammed is one member of the Askar family, who lives a few kilometers from the Abu Sariya house. Their home, built in 1974, also falls within Pisgat Ze'ev. At that time, the land was located within the borders of the West Bank, but when Israel erected the settlement, it annexed the area inside the Jerusalem municipality borders. The Askar family was not included in the annexation.

That meant that, although their home was officially within the borders of Jerusalem, the family all carried the orange colored identity cards that identified them as West Bankers. In other words, it became illegal for them to be in their own home without a permit from the Israeli military government.

Countless number of times, the family was harassed at checkpoints leading into the city, until finally, in 1996, they were given Jerusalem identity cards - all 30 members of the Askar family, that is, except for sons Abdel Wali and Shibli and their 18 children combined.

Now the brothers are separated from their family and can no longer live in the home that has been theirs for almost 20 years. In the Intifada, with the particularly strict inspections at Israeli checkpoints for those entering Jerusalem, the dilemma has worsened. The brothers either meet outside of Jerusalem or sneak their way illegally into the city.

But this, too, has caused them problems. Assad Askar, one of the brothers with a Jerusalem identity who often smuggles his West Bank siblings into Jerusalem, has been told that he will be fined NIS 18,000 or $450 if he is caught one more time by police trying to get his brothers into Jerusalem. His siblings were now illegal in his own car.

And then there is school

Another problem with living in a settlement is that services there, such as transportation, are only for the use of Jews. This means that Askar's children have no bussing to distant Arab schools, while nearby schools are Israeli.

"We had two options," he says. "Either we would take our children to school on our own or hire a transportation service to take them."

Since all the men work in construction and leave home at the crack of dawn, they have been forced to pay a taxi service $600 a month to take their children to school.

Assad says that other services are also not offered to them, despite the fact that they pay taxes to the municipality. "We pay NIS 16,000 [$400] a year for our 200 square meter, two-story home," he explains. "But we don't get one percent of the services our Jewish neighbors enjoy."

The road leading to their home is unpaved and there are no streetlights. "We even asked the Israelis to build a park near our homes for the children like they do in every housing group, especially since we make up an entire Palestinian neighborhood. We are almost 30 people, in addition to my uncle's house just next to ours. But they never did it."

And disappointment

The Askar family planned to marry their son Saleh just before the month of Ramadan started last year. "In the past, we always had the wedding party in our house - this is our tradition," says Assad. "But we realized that this was too difficult because all our relatives carry West Bank identities, making it difficult for them to enter Jerusalem borders."

His brothers Abdel Wali and Shibli are particularly afraid to try and enter Jerusalem because of the punishment they have been promised if caught by the Israeli police. "So, after long discussions, we decided to hold it in Hizma, even though it went against our years of planning."

Um Samer Abu Sariyeh says she will not hold her son Samer's wedding at her home, even though she would like to. Several years ago she held a religious celebration for Samer when he graduated from pharmacy school. In the midst of the party, Israeli police came to the house demanding that the celebrations be halted. The family's Jewish neighbors had complained of the Quran reading and religious hymns resonating from the house. Finally, police agreed to allow the party to continue but only if it was over by midnight.