Sharon Moves Into Arab Neighborhood

JERUSALEM â€”  Ariel Sharon, a right-wing member of the Israeli Cabinet who already owns a vast ranch in the southern Negev desert, moved with much fanfare Tuesday into a second home here in the tense and crowded Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Defying warnings that he could worsen Arab-Jewish frictions, Sharon marked the occasion with a Hanukkah housewarming party attended by, among others, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

One invited guest who chose to stay away was Jerusalem’s mayor, Teddy Kollek, who has criticized Jewish settlement in the Muslim Quarter as provocative and damaging to his hope of encouraging coexistence in the Holy City.

Overnight Trips

Sharon, who is now minister of trade and industry, is expected to use the apartment when in Jerusalem overnight on government business. The rest of the time, he will stay at the ranch.

The former defense minister, who masterminded Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, arrived for the party in the glare of television lights and under the watchful eyes of about 300 extra-duty police officers and paramilitary border guards who sealed off the area.

Earlier, police officers used tear gas to disperse a small group of Arab youths who had gathered near the Old City walls to protest Sharon’s move. Merchants in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, where the Old City is situated, made their views known by going on strike.

The walled Old City, the site of the Biblical Jerusalem, is still home to about 26,000 of modern Jerusalem’s 450,000 residents. Most are either Muslim or Christian Arabs, although there are also small Jewish and Armenian quarters.

In the Muslim Quarter, there are about 17,000 Arabs and 300 mostly religious Jews who have moved back into houses that were Jewish property in the 1920s and 1930s. The Arabs and Kollek have strongly opposed the trend.

Neighbors Hidden

Most of Sharon’s new Muslim neighbors stayed out of sight Tuesday, although one, who requested anonymity, complained bitterly: “He wants to create more problems. Now there will be more soldiers, more trouble.�

The leftist Peace Now movement demonstrated outside the Old City walls, at the Damascus Gate.

“It’s like putting a time bomb in there,� commented Galia Golan, a Hebrew University political scientist and spokeswoman for the demonstrators. She charged that Sharon had acted out of purely political motives. “He does it to score political points in his own party,� she said.

Protester Omar Nassar, 26, an Arab student at Hebrew University, said: “It’s not just a Jew living in an Arab area. Sharon is hated by the Arabs because he expresses fascist ideas.�

Praise From Right

The political right praised Sharon for taking a stand.

“We think that every Jew has a right to live where he wants to,� said Noam Federman, an 18-year-old activist in the Kach Party of right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane. “We don’t think the Arabs have that right.�

Federman was with about 20 other Kahane followers who put on a demonstration to counter Peace Now’s.

The Knesset (Parliament) faction of the Likud Bloc, to which Shamir and Sharon belong, sent a congratulatory cable to the newest Old City resident.

“The dedication of a new home in such a crucial location,� it said, “is the best proof of all that the people of Israel have come to remain in the land for all eternity.�

Sharon rents the apartment from Ateret Cohanim, a Jewish theological academy in the Muslim Quarter.

According to recent articles in the Israeli press, the additional police protection required by his presence will cost somewhere between $45,000 to $650,000 a year.