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Different Attitudes, Different Codes

(Jerusalem Post) Khaled Abu Toameh - When the Israel police were searching for 6-year-old Nur Abu-Tir from the Arab village of Umm Tuba earlier this month, a police officer said he literally had to beg the editors of the east Jerusalem-based daily al-Quds to run a story on the missing girl. The next morning there was a brief news item in the paper, but no picture. Nor did they send a reporter to the family's home, as most Israeli newspapers and TV stations did. "The Israeli media gave extensive coverage to the case of Nur while the Palestinian newspapers were busy telling us what Arafat did," said Zuhair Hamdan, one of the mukhtars (headmen) of the nearby village of Sur Bahir, who narrowly survived a Bethlehem Tanzim assassination attempt in November 2001. Hamdan is expected to play a major role in organizing a sulha between Nur's family and the family of the murderer after the case is solved. An Israeli police officer explained, "So much crime is taking place and no one ever thinks about involving the authorities. Everything is settled within the family and behind closed doors.... These people don't believe in the police or judicial system. They behave according to their own codes." "Almost every week there is a sulha in the village following a quarrel or melee," said Ahmed Abu-Tir, a distant relative. Sulha predates Islam. Thousands of cases, ranging from theft to murder, have been solved through the sulha system in east Jerusalem over the past decade. When a serious crime has been committed, a group of elders is quickly dispatched to the victim's family to see what its demands are in order to prevent revenge.
2002-12-23 00:00:00
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