Symbolic Act

The animosities of Arabs and Israelis are exacerbated by a continuing war on each other's religious, historic and sentimental symbols. Arabs destroyed or damaged 80 places of Jewish worship when they controlled Jerusalem, turning two synagogues into public lavatories. Last week the Israelis in turn gave their enemies cause for offense, though on a lesser and more personal level. They demolished the childhood home of Yasser Arafat (TIME cover, Dec. 13), leader of Al-Fatah, the largest group of Arab fedayeen commandos.

The five-story stone-and-plaster house stood in Jerusalem's Abu Saud quarter, named for Arafat's maternal ancestors, who bore the title Maqib el-Ashraf, or scions of the nobles. It was one of a small cluster of homes located close to the Wailing Wall. Since occupying the city in 1967, the Israelis have bulldozed one Arab section to create a broad plaza, and their archaeologists have made extensive excavations to uncover more of the wall, dating from the Herodian period. Recently, the excavating reached the foundations of the Abu Saud house.

Inch-thick cracks appeared in its walls, conveniently enabling the Israelis to label the building dangerous to public safety. They marked it for demolition, thus allowing the excavations to proceed. The occupants, two Abu Saud sisters, declined offers of compensation and refused to move, asserting that the property was jointly owned with a Moslem religious foundation. Last week Israeli workmen moved them anyway, and bulldozed the house. The Israelis insist that the demolition had nothing to do with the fact that Arafat once lived there.

The Arab press raged, but Arafat himself was silent, apparently not wanting to show more concern for his own house than for other Arab homes blown up by the Israelis because their occupants collaborated with Al-Fatah. But on the following Sabbath eve, three bombs exploded in a side street 300 yards from the Wailing Wall, wounding three Arab civilians and an Israeli soldier.

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