SO THESE are the two stories, which have very little in common.
The people of Har Adar are completely shocked. Since they live 20 minutes drive from Jerusalem, they do not consider themselves settlers at all, but Israelis like any other. They don't really see the Arabs all around them as people like themselves, but as primitive natives.
The Har Adar people are not like the fanatical, religious and nearly fascist people in some settlements. Far from it. Har Adar people vote for all parties, including Meretz, the left-wing Zionist party which advocates the return of the occupied territories to the Palestinians. This is not seen as including Har Adar, of course, since there is a consensus among Zionists, right and left, that the settlements close to the Green Line should be annexed to Israel.
Har Adar people can rightly be proud of their achievements. From the air, the place looks very orderly. It has 3,858 inhabitants. Their average income is about $5000 dollars a month, well over the national Israeli average (some $3000 dollars). Their local council is the third most efficient in the entire country.
Located in the mountainous area around Jerusalem, it has a beautiful landscape. It also has man-made amenities: a library, a youth club, a skate-park and an amphitheater that seats 720 people. Even for an average Israeli, this is paradise. For the Arabs around, who cannot enter without a special permit, it is a perpetual reminder of their national disaster.
Of course, like other settlements, Har Adar is not located on land that was empty. It occupies the location on which stood a village called Hirbat Nijam, a village which already stood there in Persian-Hellenistic times, some 2,500 years ago. Like most Palestinian villages, they were Canaanite, then Judean, then Hellenist, then Byzantine, then Muslim, then crusader, then Mameluk, then Ottoman, then Palestinian -- without the population ever changing. Until 1967.
WHEN NIMR was born, all this long history was long forgotten. What remained was the reality of the Israeli occupation.
This now looks like the normal state of things. The members of Har Adar are happy, feeling secure and well guarded by the efficient Security Service, the Border Guard and local mercenaries, mostly Arab citizens of Israel. Neighbors like Nimr seem content, and probably are, if they are lucky enough to have a job and a work permit, even with pitiful wages. The historical grudge lies deeply buried within their consciousness.
And then something happens, something that may be quite irrelevant -- like the escape of his wife to Jordan -- to bring it all up. Nimr the lowly laborer suddenly becomes Nimr the freedom-fighter, Nimr the martyr on his way to paradise. All his village respects his sacrifice and his family.
Israelis are furious that the families of "martyrs" are paid an allowance by the Palestinian Authority. Binyamin Netanyahu accuses Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of incitement to murder with these payments. But it is quite impossible for Abbas to annul them -- the outrage reaction of his people would be tremendous. Martyrs are holy, their families respected.
THE DAY after Nimr's dastardly terrorist act and/or heroic martyrdom, a grandiose national ceremony took place in another settlement.
All the country's major dignitaries, led by the President and the Prime Minister, assembled to commemorate the 50tth anniversary of "our return to our homeland, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights".
Missing in the list is the Gaza Strip, which Israel has evacuated, leaving behind a tight land and sea blockade aided by Egypt. In the Strip there are about two million Palestinians. Who the hell wants them?
All hell broke loose when the President of the Supreme Court, who was supposed to send a judge to represent the court at this ceremony, canceled his attendance because of the highly propagandist style of the event. She decided that this is party propaganda, in which her court would not take part.
ALTOGETHER, NOT a day of quiet in this country, a state without borders and without a constitution, where every story has two totally different sides, where nice and quiet people suddenly become raging martyrs.
There will be no quiet until there is peace, with each of the two peoples living in their own state, a situation where real friendship has a chance of blooming.
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