A Street Divided Read Online Free PDF Page B

shot and killed by Jordanians hiding behind the archers’ arrow slits in the Old City’s stone ramparts. Jordanian soldiers were killed by Israeli snipers. Civilians on both sides who got too close to the borders were gunned down. Residents had to rush through Sniper’s Alleys in Jerusalem and hope that the hidden soldiers watching them through rifle scopes wouldn’t take aim as they ran for safety.
    Israel and Jordan argued incessantly over No Man’s Land. Israel suggested cutting the land in half and eliminating it entirely. Jordan refused.
    â€œJerusalem Is a Powder Keg”
    Problems along the border only got worse as the years dragged on with no agreement on what to do about the problem. Snipers from both sides kept shooting. Civilians kept dying. The United Nations kept holding emergency meetings to try to contain the violence. At one special emergency UN meeting, called on April 23, 1953, Lt. Gen. William Riley, a decorated American Marine running the Jordan-Israel MAC, warned both countries that the situation was getting out of hand. The night before, someone had opened fire along the Jerusalem border. It wasn’t clear who fired first, but the shooting quickly spread up and down the dividing line. Though there was now a cease-fire in place, Riley said an Israeli sniper had opened fire that morning. Riley was alarmed—and his frustration was evident as the meeting began.
    People on both sides “are living in a state of terror,” he told the Israeli and Jordanian officers. 3
    â€œWe have had casualties before, but in this case casualties of civilians living on both sides of the line were the worst I have ever seen in my time in this area,” he said. 4
    Riley chastised both sides for using the poorly drawn lines as an excuse for their deadly tit-for-tat arguments.
    â€œYou have the right to defend yourselves with fire, but the question of resorting to retaliatory fire if one side or the other opens fire is contrary to the letter and the spirit of the General Armistice Agreement,” he told them. “I have urged the parties on numerous occasions to eliminate the No Man’s Land. However, as this has not been done, the parties themselves must mutually agree on the steps that must be taken to eliminate some of the difficulties that face each side of this No Man’s Land.” 5
    The head of Israel’s delegation at the meeting, Lt. Col. Haim Gaon, rejected the American’s perspective as out of touch with reality. Israelis, he told Riley, were living in an “impossible situation.” Jordanian forces were killing civilians, and gangs were crossing the border into Israel to carry out unspeakable acts. He characterized the UN MAC as useless. 6
    Riley knew it was futile to argue over who started what. No matter what one side complained about, the other side would respond with a complaint of its own. There seemed to be no end to the kinds of things the Israelis and Jordanians could fight over. At that point, all the general was trying to do was to prevent the spiral of violence from getting worse.
    â€œI have always maintained that it was not a question of building a box score on votes or on decisions that affected one side or the other, but that the MAC was here for the purpose of finding ways and means of avoiding similar types of complaints in the future,” Riley told the two delegations. “Now, if your MAC is not doing that, then of course you defeat the purpose of the MAC itself and the parties must be held responsible for failure to raise the question of avoiding future types of complaints by getting together and finding a way to stop them.” 7
    The commission might not be ideal, he said, but it was the only hope Israel and Jordan had of settling their disputes.
    â€œIt is the only official contact between the parties whereby each party can talk to the other in attempting to maintain a status quo until somebody finds a solution to the