The Jerusalem Post

Monday, August 30,

'Nash kontrol' II

By BERNARD WASSERSTEIN

Musa Budeiri is now an illegal resident in Jerusalem, the city of his birth. A recap for those who have not been following this case: Five weeks ago, Musa Budeiri, Palestinian academic, senior faculty member at Al-Quds University, and resident of Jerusalem, was informed by the Israeli Interior Ministry that his ID card was being withdrawn and that he would no longer be permitted to live in Jerusalem. The reason given was that he had spent too long overseas. Budeiri was given one month to leave the country. That period has now passed and Budeiri, as a result, is now illegally present in his home town. On August 3, I wrote about the case in this newspaper and promised to report on any action taken by Natan Sharansky, who, in one of his first statements as interior minister, had undertaken to implement a new policy of decent treatment towards the Arab inhabitants of Israel's capital. I noted that Sharansky himself, like Budeiri, had been a visiting professor at my former university in the US and I surmised that he might therefore show some understanding for international intellectual mobility.

Four weeks later, the case is still unresolved. Budeiri has heard nothing officially from the ministry. Meanwhile, the expulsion threat has evoked widespread reaction in Israel, Palestine, and the wider world. A petition circulated by sympathetic Israeli academics secured a large number of signatures. Colleagues in other countries have signed a separate petition. The international press and broadcast media have reported on the case.

All this is heartening. Yet at the same time there are some discordant notes in the symphony of protest. Is it not odd, after all, that, in a democracy, one should have to "petition" for something so basic as the right to continue to live in the place of one's residence? I understand that while many Israeli academics signed the statement, others, including one very prominent one, declined to do so. Perhaps the reason was that the recalcitrants shared my view that it is inappropriate to "petition" for an elementary right. Perhaps they took some other action privately.

Perhaps.... Believing as I do that Israeli universities are citadels of intellectual freedom, I hope indeed that is the explanation. The Israeli press, like its counterparts elsewhere, has reported the case widely. But some comments by Israeli commentators have been strangely off-target. One columnist, Nahum Barnea, reported that he had heard that the case was close to a "happy end": Budeiri was to receive a two-year foreign resident's permit that would allow him to remain in Jerusalem. Barnea seemed oblivious to the fact that this "solution" would literally alienate Budeiri in his place of birth. I confess I react with feeling to such blind impercipience. Just 60 years ago, my late father was pronounced an alien in his country of birth and ordered to leave. He, too, ignored the order and became, like Budeiri, an illegal resident in his home town. No doubt fortunately for him, he left Berlin just before the outbreak of war.

That Jews in our time should regard such a quasi-legal or pseudo-legal procedure as acceptable - indeed as a "happy end" - strikes me as not a little bizarre and, to put it at its mildest, lacking in a sense of historical irony. Actually, we can drop the quasi and the pseudo since the Interior Ministry's action was straightforwardly illegal - as will, I trust, be shown if the Israeli Supreme Court is ever afforded an opportunity to rule on the matter. In the meantime, a heavy gun has been rolled out. The British prime minister intervened personally. On August 19, Mrs. Budeiri, then in London, received an official letter stating that Tony Blair had asked the Foreign Office to inform her that "we understand that Dr. Budeiri's Jerusalem ID status has now been restored to him by the Israeli authorities. We welcome this decision...." But as of Friday, Budeiri had heard nothing directly from Interior Ministry. Sharansky, who has no doubt been apprised of all these developments, has made no public statement and has sent no further communication to Budeiri since the original letter withdrawing his ID. This weekend, Mrs. Budeiri was due to rejoin her husband in Jerusalem with their son, who is supposed to start school here today. At this writing, it is unclear whether the family will be deported, whether they will be permitted to remain but labelled exotics in their own home, or whether, as I still believe, Sharansky will vindicate the cause of justice and human rights that he once upheld so nobly in the former Soviet Union - the country from which he himself was once both literally and physically alienated. This case will not go away. I shall report again in this space in one month's time on Sharansky's resolution of it as well as on its further ramifications.