Sari Nusseibeh: Arab Jerusalemites "Not Really Rational"; 'Unreasonable'

as part of a broader “anti-normalization” campaign, the Palestinian leadership has for decades warned residents against casting ballots. So a vast majority do not vote, despite the possibility that their large numbers could win a solid blocking minority on the 31-member City Council, if not a winning coalition with sympathetic Israelis.

“The whole thing is not really rational,” said Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University, whose family has 1,300-year roots in Jerusalem. “It’s not by reason that people are guided; it’s by sentiments and feelings and fears and histories.”

From his mouth to our ears.


And some other things I found peculiar:

a)  "There are about 360,000 Palestinian residents in this officially united but deeply divided city of 800,000..."

Is the city truly "deeply divided" or is that the catch-phrase that everyone in the media and on the Left employs - to further divided the city and keep it apart?

b)  Alaa Obeid, 23, a student who briefly flirted with running for City Council this year...said.  “In our society, it’s very important what the public thinks...If all these years, people have boycotted the elections, I might be in a place where there’s a risk to my future. I’ll be an outcast.”

That is "thinking"?  Or is that fear of being killed by the PLO or Hamas?  That's public opinion"?  So, it's easier and braver to shoot a Jew, stab him or throw a rock at her than to buck Arab public opinion?

c)  and on the contrary to the above, consider this: "Mr. Barkat’s opponent in Tuesday’s balloting...has accused the incumbent of threatening Israel’s sovereignty in the capital by giving “the extreme left”

So, what is going on in Jerusalem?  Are Jews also irrational?

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I received this from a smart friend:

There is another key line in the piece: “defending his support of Jewish settlement in Arab areas seized by Israel in 1967.”

1.       Arab areas? Is the Jewish quarter of the Old City an Arab area? French Hill? Ramat Eshkol? Ramat Shlomo? What makes them “Arab”? An 18-year Jordanian occupation? (especially if they were empty land since before the Muslim conquest, or Jewish residential quarters for the centuries preceding the Jordanian occupation)?

2.       Seized? Is that what happened in the Six Day War? Israel grabbed?

3.       Settlement is a loaded term, as she well knows.

How about a neutral phrase:

“defending his support of Jewish residence in parts of Jerusalem occupied by Jordan from 1949-1967.”

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