Saudi Arabia is expecting more than two million visitors this month for the annual Hajj, a momentous event in the Muslim calendar.
The four-day pilgrimage brings together Muslim worshippers from all corners of the globe to take part in an event that every able Muslim must carry out at least once in his or her lifetime.
As in previous years, there will be pilgrims from a most unlikely destination: some 4,500 Muslims have departed for Mecca from their homes in Israel, a Jewish country with no diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.
The spiritual weight of the Hajj is enough to overcome the political complications involved in a delegation of Israelis traveling to enemy soil.
The process is done through the mediation of Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and with the knowledge of the Israeli and Saudi authorities.
Israeli Muslims wishing to embark on the journey usually contact one of several associations dealing with pilgrims. Non-Muslims cannot take part in the event. The pilgrims register their details and submit passport photos, which are then sent to the Jordanian Ministry of Islamic Trust (Waqf).
Once they cross the border from Israel into Jordan, a local official collects their Israeli passports and they are issued temporary Jordanian passports. The documents are valid for a month or two months, depending on the season.
The Jordanian passports are presented at the border crossing with Saudi Arabia, and the pilgrims then head for Mecca as Jordanian nationals.
The 22-hour bus ride from the Allenby Bridge on the Israeli-Jordanian border to Medina in Saudi Arabia is spread over two days. The pilgrims then spend seven days in Medina, the second holiest place in Islam and the burial place of the Prophet Muhammad, before embarking on an additional five-hour ride to Mecca.
Ahmad Jum’a, a 25-year-old student, has been to the kingdom six times for the ‘Umra, the minor pilgrimage. A member of the Nazareth-based Salam Association for Hajj and ‘Umra, he is also qualified to guide groups from Israel during their pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.
Jum’a was born in Sullam, an Arab village in northern Israel. He is an Arab Muslim and has Israeli citizenship. In the temporary Jordanian passport he receives for the Hajj, his birthplace is documented as Amman, but he says the Saudis are under no illusion as to where these special pilgrims come from.
“The Saudis know we’re from Israel because they can see it on some of our documents,” Jum’a says.
He testifies that in all his visits to the kingdom he has never encountered problems from Saudi officials on account of his Israeli citizenship.
“They respect their visitors. It’s a religious ritual and they allow every Muslim around the world to come and do it. It’s a religious obligation,” he says.
Jum’a notes the beefed-up security around the holy places in Saudi Arabia during the pilgrimages. Surveillance cameras both inside and outside the mosques are abundant, and there are many security officers, including women, scouring the crowds for abnormal behavior, he says.
“They don’t allow you to take photographs. If they catch someone they nab them quietly and you usually only hear about it two days later. The security is very heavy, even in the toilets.”
The Muslim pilgrims from Israel are not allowed to roam the Saudi kingdom freely.
“They take our Jordanian passports when we get to Medina,” he says. “If I want to go to [the Saudi capital] Riyadh, there are roadblocks all around and they don't let us through. I think they're concerned about espionage.”
Muslims in Israel?
Jum'a is one of more than 1.2 million Arabs living in Israel. The majority of them, about 80 percent, are Muslim. Excluding Arabs in eastern Jerusalem, who have residency status, Israeli Arabs have full Israeli citizenship and are represented in the parliament and in the government.
But not everything is rosy for this large minority. Israeli Arabs frequently protest they are discriminated against by the government in budget allocations, employment, and in the attitude of the security system towards them. Many say they are equal citizens only on paper, not in practice.
Because of their strong historic and family ties with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they are often depicted in the mainstream media as a fifth column and a security threat.
The complicated reality of Arabs and Muslims in Israel is a little-known fact in the Muslim world, Jum’a says.
Their existence is met with curiosity, and sometimes with resentment.
Once he has fulfilled his religious obligations of the pilgrimage, Jum’a spends the rest of his time mingling with the crowds and talking to Muslim pilgrims about life in Israel.
Pilgrims flock to Saudi Arabia from throughout the Middle East and beyond, stretching from Mauritania to Pakistan.
Explaining that he is a Muslim Arab with Israeli citizenship often leaves his audience gobsmacked.
Frequently, when asked where he is from, he responds, “Palestine.”
“So they ask, ‘Where from in Palestine?’ and I say I'm from inside the Green Line. They say, ‘What's that?’ and I say, ‘I'm from Israel.’ Then they ask me: ‘Are there Muslims living inside Israel?’ and I say, ‘Yes.’ Sometimes these encounters go well and at other times they accuse me of being an Israeli collaborator and they don't want to hear about Israel.”
Mixed Reactions
In his many chats with fellow Muslims in Mecca, the questions Jum’a is confronted with sometimes highlight a genuine interest in the lives of Muslims in Israel.
During his most recent trip in September, Jum’a met a Saudi who was keen to hear more about what Israeli Arabs study, their standard of living and their relations with their Jewish neighbors.
“He asked where I work and whether they let me pray during work hours,” Jum’a says.
Another Saudi said he would gladly visit Israel, if there were a peace agreement between the two countries.
Jum’a also encounters anti-Israel views. He holds the Arab media partially to blame for this, for failing to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of Israeli culture and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The Arab media always shows negative things about Israel and as a Muslim Arab living inside Israel I want to show a positive side of the country. I tell them there are good things in Israel and that we live side by side with the Jews. There are problems sometimes but the relations with our Jewish neighbors are generally good.”
On his recent trip to Medina he found a group of four Palestinians from a refugee camp in Lebanon. They told him they agreed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad that Israel should be wiped off the map.
In a rare dialogue captured on his home video camera, Jum’a explains that Arab Muslims like himself have a different status than Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem, who do not have Israeli citizenship.
The Muslims in Israel have freedom and passports, he tells them. They have a good economic situation and good jobs; they get along with their Jewish neighbors and they benefit from Israel’s services.
On a separate occasion he was talking with a Syrian pilgrim who, it transpired, had been a commander in the Syrian army in the 1967 War (Six Day War). Upon hearing that Jum’a was from Israel, the officer attacked him verbally and expressed support for Hizbullah.
Jum’a, a student of Middle Eastern studies, retaliated with a detailed review of Syria’s history, poor economic situation, its lack of freedom and the persecution of dissidents.
The Syrian officer was stunned by Jum’a’s knowledge, and astonished when he learned this was being taught in Israeli universities by Jewish lecturers.
“When I’ve completed the ritual, I talk politics,” Jum’a says. “I feel that I’m an envoy and wherever I go I need to explain the good things and bad things about Israel.”
Jum’a is not alone in this conviction.
Sheikh ‘Ali Bakr, 47, an imam from northern Israel who works for the Israeli Interior Ministry, has been to Saudi Arabia 24 times on pilgrimages. Bakr does not feel a contradiction in holding Israeli citizenship and attending the Hajj.
“On the contrary, I feel we’re a bridge between Israel and the Arab countries. We can bring people closer together,” he says. “Some think that Israeli Arabs are neglected and underprivileged, so we tell them that’s not the case, that we live here as equal citizens and that we fit well into the Jewish social fabric.” _________________ He who is merciful with the cruel, will end-up being cruel to the merciful
- Kohelet Rabba 7:16
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