UNDER THE NOSES OF THE ISRAELI POLICE

Drug use in East Jerusalem is rising steadily. Residents of the Palestinian
city do not trust the Israeli police to efficiently combat the problem, but
in the absence of enforcement institutions of their own they are helpless.

Drug dealers in East Jerusalem operate almost openly, say social workers and
residents who are trying to combat the phenomenon. They claim that very
often the dealers operate right under the noses of Israeli police officers -
beside the branch of the Interior Ministry in East Jerusalem, in the
vicinity of Damascus Gate, near the Flower Gate, in the Ras al Amud
neighborhood beside the police headquarters and in the Christian Quarter of
the Old City, right on the route taken by students on their way to school.

One does not need particularly sharp eyes to distinguish the pair of youths
acting secretively in a corner and afterward hurriedly exchanging a handful
of bills for something hidden in clenched fist. One does not have to be an
expert to figure out that the youths on the corner of Sultan Suleiman St.
are dragging on a hash or marijuana joint and not on a regular cigarette.

People in East Jerusalem can tell you that during the Christmas and New Year
period, the drug of choice is LSD and that it is easy to obtain. That
doesn't mean that it is hard to obtain heroin. One social worker who deals
with addicts says a gram of heroin costs $70-80 in Jerusalem markets these
days, compared to $200 a few months ago. The laws of the free market economy
work - the price drops when supply rises.

Addicted at 16

Once only the Shuafat refugee camp and the Old City were stigmatized as
"drug dens." Today, says Wisam Jawhan, who works in a Palestinian institute
that advises and assists addicts and their families, drugs are everywhere.
They have entrapped young people from all types of homes - religious and
secular, rich and poor, refugees and the children of established Jerusalem
families. Jawhan has also encountered young Palestinian women who use
ecstasy and marijuana.

Each year the addicts Jawhan is asked to treat are younger and younger. If a
16-year-old is already an addict, one can only guess at what age he began
using light drugs.

The high rate of drug users and addicts in East Jerusalem is another clear
indication of the creation of a huge Palestinian slum in the Israeli
capital. This symptom is joined by the tremendous extent of poverty
(municipality statistics indicate that 66 percent of the Palestinians in
Jerusalem live below the poverty line - more than anywhere else in the
state), the blatant neglect of development and infrastructure, housing
density that is among the highest in the city, building violations (for
whatever reason) to the point of endangering lives, street gangs that
control territory practically unimpeded, political-religious alienation
between the authorities and the residents.

In 1999 the Arab Thought Forum (ATF), a center for Palestinian research in
East Jerusalem, initiated a study of drug addiction among Palestinians in
Jerusalem in order to increase anti-drug activity and reduce drug use.
Addiction and the widespread use of drugs - with much higher levels than
among Palestinian society in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and higher
than among Jewish-Israeli society - have been worrying the capital's
Palestinian community for years.

Members of the ATF feel this use of drugs indicates the extent of social and
personal frustration among the community's youngsters, the disintegration of
family cohesion, the demise of social and religious conventions and the
apathy of the authorities.

The ATF's study was conducted by sociologist Michel Sayegh, in conjunction
with a group of field workers - rehabilitated addicts. The study was
published in 2001, six months after the outbreak of the bloody hostilities
of September 2000. Sayegh and Jawhan believe the number of drug users has
only risen since then.

A Livelihood From Crime

It is hard to verify the estimates because, among other reasons, the
Authority for the War Against Drugs in Israel was unable to provide Haaretz
with updated figures on the extent of addiction in East Jerusalem so that
they could be compared with the extent of addiction in Israel. The
authority, the body that coordinates all the activities in this area also
failed to provide information on the rehabilitation facilities available to
Palestinians. Haaretz received no response to a list of questions sent to
the authority's spokesman, Shamai Golan, on January 6, 2003 and again on
January 12, despite assurances that the information would be provided.

Sayegh based his research partially on the 1999 figures published by the
authority. The gap between the ratio of drug users among the Jews and Arabs
in Jerusalem is similar to the gap in the ratio between poor Jews and poor
Arabs (27.8 percent compared to 66 percent). According to the figures
published in Sayegh's study, 10,500 Jerusalem Arabs (5.5 percent) used drugs
in 1999, compared to 14,434 Jews (3.3 percent). These figures were provided
by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Jawhan says that the figures do not
portray the severity of the problem and estimates that some 19,000
Palestinians in Jerusalem are drug users and alcoholics.

Sayegh's study found "only" 5,000 Palestinian drug addicts (2.4 percent of
the Palestinian population). Statistics compiled by the anti-drug authority
in 2000 showed that 6,000 Jerusalem Arabs (almost 3 percent) and 8,000 Jews
(about 2 percent) were addicted to drugs. Sayegh also found some not very
surprising correlations between socio- personal status and drug use. 94
percent of the fathers of the 250 addicts who participated in the study were
unemployed or were not working for other reasons (such as disability,
illness or age). Some 60 percent of those surveyed were from single parent
families; the fathers of half of them were illiterate; 16.4 percent of the
addicts were illiterate themselves, 29.6 percent had attended elementary
school and 30.8 percent had completed ninth grade.

Sayegh's research showed that a large proportion of the addicts were young
adults, with 32 percent being between the ages of 20 and 22 at the time of
the survey and 27.6 between 23 and 25. Most of the rest were older. Some
19.6 percent of those surveyed said their families were helping them
financially, 46 percent said they earned a livelihood from theft and other
crimes and the remaining 34.4 percent said they worked for a living or
subsisted on savings from previous employment.

Frustration, Depression

The scourge of drugs in East Jerusalem is worst and has been around the
longest in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, according to local
residents. The problem began back in the 1970s and was so bad that it was
one of the main causes behind the emigration of many Christian families.
Former addicts say that even today, any new drug that hits the market
appears first in the Christian Quarter. People who are active locally in the
war against drugs note that Christian families suffer most from more than
one family member being an addict or drug user. On the one hand the
Christian families have been more attracted to the modern customs of Western
Jerusalem, but on the other, since most of these families are middle class,
their ambitions for social and professional advancement, just like those of
middle class Muslims, have been blocked in the city expropriated by Israel.

The families can afford higher education, but the Israeli job market was and
is closed to Palestinian professionals such as doctors, lawyers and
accountants, even though they are residents of Jerusalem. In Christian
society, unlike in Muslim society, alcohol is permitted. This removes
another important defense against dependency in cases in which
personal-family status, frustration, a feeling of being trapped and
unemployment lay the groundwork for addiction. And Palestinians in East
Jerusalem have many reasons to feel personal frustration and depression, say
Sayegh, Jawhan and other community workers like Maha Abu Dia, director of
the Center from Women's Counseling in East Jerusalem.

The center serves Palestinian women from the West Bank and Jerusalem, who
complain of discrimination and violence both inside and outside the family.
Abu Dia noticed that the complaints of violence or abuse in the home are not
connected to drunkenness or drug addiction, while those of women from East
Jerusalem usually stem from violence against them due to the addiction of a
family member.

Many share Abu Dia's impression that despite the poverty, frustration and
depression among residents of the West Bank and Gaza, the problem of drug
addiction is not as bad there as in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian police
told social workers at a Palestinian rehabilitation center in the West Bank,
there are about 5,000 addicts in each of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Sayegh and Jawhan note that this is purely and estimate, but agree that the
phenomenon is much worse in Jerusalem.

Shin Bet Collaboration

One reason for the difference between Jerusalem and the Palestinian
Authority (PA) areas is the accessibility of drugs. Jawhan say that the
closer a Palestinian community is to the Green Line, the more drug users it
will have. Another explanation is that families in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip have a greater tendency to hide addiction from the eyes of
society. This may affect the statistics, but it also reduces the friction
and the exposure there. The damage caused to the institution of the
Palestinian family in East Jerusalem is another reason: even in the Old City
social workers have noticed that the exposure to drugs is much lower in the
more religious Muslim neighborhoods and families, and it is reasonable to
assume that this is true in traditional locales in general.

Another reason is that, contrary to what is happening in Jerusalem, the law
enforcement authorities in the PA areas operate with more diligence. They
have every intention of fighting the drug trade, all the more so because the
drug trade is always linked with collaboration with the Israeli Shin Bet
security services. Jerusalemites who are active in political organizations
that have been outlawed by Israel say that more than once they have shared a
prison cell with drug addicts, also Jerusalemites, who admitted at some
stage or other that they have worked for the Shin Bet.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem say that the Israeli police is not doing all
it can to halt the drug trade. Moderates say it is clear the police
allocates most of its resources and efforts to security operations. Others,
however, have the impression that in general more drug users than dealers
are caught, and that the while drug sale locations that serve Jews are shut
down within a week, those that serve only Arabs are allowed to continue to
operate unhindered.

No Neglect

Before the hostilities resumed, members of the Palestinian preventative
security forces operated almost openly against drug dealers. Today, sources
at the Orient House say the if preventative security personnel or any other
person from any Palestinian institute, including community workers, try to
act against drug dealers, they are liable to be arrested on suspicion of
"operating under the auspices of the PA."

On the Mount of Olives, for example, a group of youths decided to beat up
another group of youths, drug users and dealers who operated in the area
unhindered. Local residents relate that it was the instigators of the
beating who were arrested, not the dealers.

The poverty in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, the neglect and
the high rate of addiction are fertile ground for the flourishing of
theories of conspiracy whereby the Israeli authorities, including the
police, are actually interested in the social and moral deterioration that
leads to the weakening of the Palestinian community. The Jerusalem police
reject this claim out of hand. According to police figures, in the past year
there was and 8.3- percent increase in police activity toward preventing
drug-related crime in the eastern part of the city.

Of the 545 persons arrested for drug-related crimes in 2002, 255 were
Palestinians. Three of the six undercover dealers operated by the police
worked in East Jerusalem, leading to the arrest of 66 drug dealers. Last
year 400 criminal files were opened in East Jerusalem (some people had two
files against them) - 165 for drug-related offenses, 42 for possession of
drugs not for consumption and about 60 for drug use. The police add that
there is no basis for the claim that places where drugs are sold to Jews are
closed down while those selling to Arabs remain open, if only for the simple
reason that Jews have stopped buying drugs in the eastern part of the city.
The police emphasize that there is no deliberate neglect of the war against
drugs.

One thing that the police do not dispute is the willingness of the
Palestinian society to assist in catching drug dealers. Palestinians admit
that their revulsion to drug dealers and their fear of the spread of
addiction outweigh their apprehension and hesitation regarding calling on
the Israeli police. The police concur that the Palestinians help the police
in the war against drugs more than in any other area of crime. Residents are
quite willing to let the police use their rooftops as lookouts for drug
dealers and when patrol vehicles come to pick up dealers local residents do
not crowd around the vehicles in an attempt to delay them, as the do in
other types of cases.