A Street Divided by Dion Nissenbaum Read Free Book Online Page A

horse. And not just any horse. This one belonged to the head of Silwan, the crowded Arab village outside the Old City that rose on the hillside across the valley from Abu Tor. The man’s horse had run across the valley, up the Abu Tor hillside, past the barbed wire and into Israel, where it was set to be placed under quarantine for 40 days.
    In this case, with this horse, that wasn’t going to work. The horse’s owner called Abbasi and told him in no uncertain terms to bring his horse back without delay.
    â€œYou have to help me,” Abbasi told Israeli. “The entire village expects me to bring it back. All my honor and respect hangs on this. Please help me get it back quickly.”
    Israeli was happy to help—so long as he could use the crisis to Israel’s advantage. Israeli wanted to use the handover to take a swipe at the United Nations. He suggested that Israel give Abbasi the horse the next day at the UN headquarters on a ridge next to Abu Tor, not at Mandelbaum Gate. Abbasi blanched at the idea, but Israeli persuaded him to go along with the plan. Israeli called the general in command at the UN Government House and told him about the agreement. The general, Israeli said, rejected the idea out of concern it would damage the UN gardens. “OK,” Israeli told the United Nations, “I’ll call some reporters and tell them that the UN is blocking a deal between Israel and Jordan.”
    The handoff took place the next day at the UN headquarters.
    Horses, sheep, cattle and dogs weren’t the only ones to venture into No Man’s Land. Adventurous kids would sometimes sneak through the fence to rescue playground balls. Soldiers from one side or the other would risk being shot to gather eggs, vegetables or fruit in No Man’s Land. And young men on the hunt for a daring adventure also tested border security. One night sometime in the early 1950s, while Rubinger was drinking with friends at a neighborhood bar—Fink’s—in West Jerusalem, two guys came in waving a pair of movie tickets from a cinema in the Old City, across the No Man’s Land, in Jordan. How they got into East Jerusalem, they didn’t say.
    â€œIt was a suicidal thing to do,” Rubinger said.
    The failure of Israel and Jordan to eliminate No Man’s Land paved the way for it to become the setting for surreal moments that trumped cow courts and sheep counts. One man claimed he was the Messiah and wandered babbling into No Man’s Land near the Old City. Another guy made local news when he stormed out of his house during an argument with his wife and marched straight into No Man’s Land before he did something he might regret.
    â€œHusband Cools Off in No Man’s Land,” read the headline of a tiny August 16, 1959, Jerusalem Post article about the domestic fight that became an international dispute. 20
    A 27-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Musrara quarter, Avraham Abu-Gzar, got into a quarrel with his wife yesterday afternoon and, after beating her, announced his intention of crossing the border into Jordan. He actually went into No Man’s Land and disappeared among the empty houses.
    Police were called and asked to contact the U.N., and Jordanian authorities . . . but, wise in the ways of quarreling husbands, [they] advised everybody to sit tight for awhile. Sure enough, at 4:15 p.m.—three quarters of an hour after Abu-Gzar had disappeared—he reappeared, having decided not to cross into Jordan after all. Police detained him and released him on . . . bond.
    The beating appeared to be part of a turbulent train wreck of a marriage. The short story only hinted at its troubles: a violent husband; a wife who was living with another man in another city; and three children looking for a stable home.
    â€œThey will decide today if and how to charge the contrite husband,” the reporter wrote. “Two years ago, Mrs. Abu-Gzar left her husband to live in