Dead City

From Jerusalem, TIME'S Don Burke cabled:

This Christmas Week in the Holy Land, shepherds went armed, travelers to Bethlehem were shot at, and wise men stayed indoors. An atmosphere of fear, gloom and tense anxiety thickened. Man is against man, and over all Palestine there has been bitter fighting.

To see what Christmas Week was like this year, I toured the holy places. I started at Jerusalem's Old City. Unlike old-time pilgrims, I needed an armed escort of British police. We entered at Jaffa Gate, headed down through the ancient Jewish quarter, where for ten days the Arabs had besieged some 3,500 Jews. Sniping still goes on day & night.

Empty Houses; As we walked down the narrow, cobblestoned, smelly streets, our footsteps clattered loudly. At the sound frightened faces pressed against windows, were reassured by the uniforms. Along Jews Street, the quarter's center, only a few shops were open. Life in the Jewish quarter had ground to a shuddering halt as Arab violence flared up at the announcement of Palestine's partition. Those Jews whom we did see clung closely to their doorsteps, ready to flee inside at the slight est warning. The only Jew oblivious to it all was a turbaned Moorish Jew, who sat silently leaning against a building in the sun begging for baksheesh.

As we went on we entered a stretch of no man's land, a wide swatch of deserted houses left by Arabs and Jews who had lived side by side. The streets in front of these houses were littered with the debris of terror--old shoes, a battered wide-brimmed felt hat of an Orthodox Jew, an old scarf. One house's door hung slantwise on a twisted hinge, as though its occupants had plunged wildly through it in mad haste. On the rooftops were British sentries with Bren guns. Also to be seen were rooftop Jewish guards--young Haganah members; technically illegal, they were unarmed, but they kept arms within hand's reach.

On the Arab side of no man's land, the magnificent old stones of the Wailing Wall, worn smooth by centuries of kissing by devout Jews, shone brightly ; in the brilliant sunlight. There were no Jews there, and the three British constables guarding the wall said that none had visited the wall since trouble broke out. When we crossed the Old City to the First Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa, crowds of Moslems were coming out from Friday prayers at an Arab holy place, the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock (often miscalled the Mosque of Omar). They all glanced sharply at me, but hurried on as they spotted my two constables.

"Some Excitement." Along the Via Dolorosa all was dead. An Arab youngster bounced a ball against the plaque denoting the Third Station. At the Sixth Station, where Veronica wiped Christ's face a Hebronite Arab brushed past silently, carrying an enormous tray of bread loaves. Christendom's greatest sanctuary, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was indeed as though it were a place of the dead.

In the church itself, there were only Coptic and Orthodox priests swinging censers over Christ's tomb, while in its dim reaches the Franciscans could be heard singing.

As we returned to Jaffa Gate, I realized that there had been no street noises, that here were people who lived in fear. As we reached the police station at Jaffa Gate, a British inspector met us by the barbed-wire entanglements. Said he: "You missed some excitement, Burke. Just a few minutes ago this place was a seething mass. A Jew who'd become a Christian tried to visit Christ Church [an Anglican church next to the police station]. He was spotted by a mob, who beat him. When he ran, someone fired two shots, hitting him in the leg and head. He made the church all right and was hidden by a priest, but we had to get him out in an armored car."

"Mabrouk." Since partition's announcement, life in Palestine has died down to a period of agonized waiting. Few pilgrims will venture the winding, stone-walled roads to Bethlehem unless they travel in heavily escorted convoys. British troops and policemen will patrol Manger Square for Christmas Eve's midnight solemn high Mass. Just i. few days ago outside Bethlehem Arabs ambushed a Jewish convoy, killed ten, while yesterday in north Palestine Jews invaded an Arab village, threw bombs, killed ten including five small children.

In New Jerusalem, commercial life is dead. Jews don't go to Barclay's Bank, which is in the Arab area, because they wouldn't live to come out, and Arab taxi drivers won't take customers through any Jewish neighborhood. To those of us who do move around, it's like crossing & recrossing between two foreign countries.

For safety many an Arab who had become westernized has suddenly gone back to Arab ways. Most Arabs now wear khafiyas (headcloths) or tarbooshes, which haven't been popular in Palestine since 1936. Tarboosh-Maker Philip Akrouk, who ordinarily turns out three tarbooshes daily, is now working elbow-deep in red felt, is selling as many as 30 a day. Says Akrouk as a customer finds one that fits: "Mabrouk!"--"[Wear it] with blessings."

Fifteen Long Miles. When I came up a few days ago from Lydda to Jerusalem, I carefully picked a private Arab car and went through a totally Arab district (other routes alternate between Jewish and Arab areas). Coming up a long grade we were flagged down by a rifle-toting Arab wearing a desert headdress. Stopping us, he pointed his rifle towards me, saying: "This man's Yahudi [Jew].,"

My driver, a hardboiled, competent Arab taxi driver, said, "He's not Yahudi. He's an English newspaper correspondent [there's also open season in Palestine on Americans]."

Said my would-be assassin: "He looks like Yahudi to me. I'll ride along with you." I offered him a cigarette. When I turned towards the back seat to offer him a light, he had propped an automatic on the back of the seat, pointing it at my head. '

For some 15 miles he rode with us, his gun pointed at my head. As we rode, he and the driver argued over what should happen to me. The usual procedure, if they catch a Yahudi, is to shoot him at once. Finally, the driver said: "Look, would I be carrying a Yahudi?" That seemed to do the trick, so the assassin motioned him to halt at a side road. As he climbed out, he glanced up & down for British patrols, then turned towards me and, bringing his gun up to his brow, he said: "B'khatirkum," meaning "by your leave." I nodded, found all I could say was: "Thanks."

Such occurrences, not always with so happy an ending, happen daily. Meanwhile, Palestine's people live on edge, wait for the next blow from either side. This year Jews and Arabs will stay inside their respective fortified areas as the rest of the world celebrates the 1947 anniversary of the birth of the Prince of Peace. The bright star which guided the Wise Men to the Manger will probably be outshone by the Very lights which British troops in Jerusalem's Old City send up through the long hours of night to spot rooftop snipers. As a new state is aborning in this ancient land, Palestine knows no peace and men of good will are hard to find.

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