‘Two Tribes in Conflict’ : Between Arab and Israeli, Gift of Life Costs Too Much

A Jewish man in Israel lay dying after failed heart surgery, and the only way to save him was to find a new heart.

There was a healthy organ available inside another dying patient at a hospital in East Jerusalem. But the heart beating insistently there was the heart of a Palestinian, a Muslim, hit in the brain by a single bullet fired from an Israeli army rifle.

Could the heart of an Arab shot by an Israeli in the midst of an uprising be given to another Israeli to save his life? The elements of that tragic question sent minds reeling in Israel and in the predominantly Arab lands it occupies.

The heart transplant never took place. Bitterness and a gap in understanding that is far wider than the 5 miles between the two hospitals where the men lay got in the way. In a few desperate hours, almost every emotional ill underlying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict played havoc with human impulse. Enemies who are neighbors remained enemies.

“Life itself is demonized in this struggle,” remarked Jewish philosopher David Hartman. “These are two tribes in conflict, and individuals are pushed aside. Natural sympathy gets submerged in politics.”

“There is too much anger in all this,” said Palestinian businessman Said Kanaan, a go-between in efforts to obtain the heart. “The idea of such kindness cannot be absorbed.”

Dede Zucker, a leftist Israeli politician and another go-between, put it this way: “I asked my wife what would she do in such a situation. She was disgusted. ‘We shoot them and then use them!’ she said. What would you do?”

‘Too Much to Ask’

Rostum Nammari, the director of Mokassed Hospital in East Jerusalem where the Arab was treated, said: “Under normal circumstances--if the Palestinian had been hit by a bus--the request would have been welcome. But under these conditions, when the Arab had become a martyr and we were to give his heart to the Israelis, it became too much to ask.”

A few weeks ago, it seemed unlikely that the fates of the two men--the Israeli and Palestinian--could be intertwined in such a drama; yet so intimate is the space in this land that such an event is far from impossible.

The Israeli, Yehiel Yisrael, 46, belonged to a prominent Jerusalem family that runs a well-known construction business. He lived with his wife in a comfortable apartment in the tree-lined and well-to-do neighborhood of Beit Hakarem.

The Palestinian, Mohammed Nasser, 20, lived in a jerry-built house clinging to a hillside above the casbah in the militantly anti-Israeli city of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, and he worked in a clothing factory running a sewing machine.

At least that was true until the Arab uprising began a year ago and Nasser joined the legions of stone-throwing Arab teen-agers and young men and women in the fight against Israeli authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

By the time Yisrael was wheeled into an operating room at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital on Dec. 18 for heart-valve surgery, Nasser’s life had all but ended.

Shot During Demonstration

Two days before, he had joined a funeral procession for a 14-year-old, another Nablus victim of a soldier’s bullet. As Nasser accompanied the coffin, he and several hundred militants chanted slogans hailing a future Palestinian homeland and threatening the hated Israelis. They boldly waved the outlawed red, white, black and green Palestinian flag.

Armed Israeli soldiers stationed in the city arrived on the scene. Did someone throw a rock? Did the troops simply open fire? As always, the accounts were irreconcilable.

In the end, Nasser and seven other Palestinians were shot to death. It was the biggest one-day death total in any single town or village since the beginning of the intifada, the Arabic name for the uprising.

Nasser, a short, stubby man with a mustache, fell on the road just 200 yards from his home, a plastic bullet lodged in the right side of his skull. He was rushed to Mokassed, an Arab hospital where sophisticated emergency equipment is available.

Another comrade shot in the head also arrived limp at the intensive-care unit and would die within a matter of hours. Word was broadcast on Israel Television of the Nablus shootings and of the victims lying in the Jerusalem hospital.

“We heard there were young men who were brain-dead, and we tried to get their hearts for Yehiel,” said Yehuda Yisrael, brother of the stricken contractor. Yehuda spoke to reporters at Yehiel’s home amid the traditional weeklong wake after the funeral. Friends came and went, offering whispered condolences, sharing the grief with the dead man’s wife and three children.

Yehuda explained that family members went about the request for the heart in the best way they knew--through important friends, friends who knew people who knew Arabs. It never crossed anyone’s mind to make a personal appeal to the family of Mohammed Nasser. “There was never any direct communication with the Arabs,” Yehuda said quietly. “We would not have known how to go about it.”

They needed a heart in 72 hours.

Yehiel’s wife, Yehudit, commented on the Arab hospital’s rejection of their request: “I can’t understand why they wouldn’t give the man’s heart. It’s a humanitarian issue. It is not a problem of politics or religion. When someone is in need like this, all considerations of politics and religion should be put aside. An Arab father and a Jewish father are the same. It makes no difference. We are all human beings.

“Every family has the right to give or not to give,” the contractor’s widow continued. “We tried, and we failed. I can’t let myself think about why.”

An Israeli newspaper reported curtly that Arabs made efforts to secure a heart as a “good-will gesture” to Israel, “but there were no results from this attempt.”

Offered Money

The family offered money for Mohammed Nasser’s heart, a large sum, Yehuda said. Unknown to them, the offer of money helped ensure that the heart stayed in the lifeless Arab body.

Yehiel Yisrael died three days after the failed operation.

In Nablus, Nasser’s mourners sat at the traditional Muslim wake after his death Dec. 25. As at the Jewish wake, chairs for visitors were set along the walls. The family sat at one end of the room. Respectful condolences blended with Koranic chants on a tape recorder.

But, unlike Yisrael’s wake, this was as much a political meeting as a social rite. Pictures of Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization leader, festooned the main hall of the house. Palestinian flags adorned the walls. Messages of condolence--or triumph, in a sense, because the death of a martyr is considered a joyous occasion--were scrawled on poster paper.

The house was filled with youths who, like Mohammed, throw rocks at Israelis in hopes of driving them from Nablus. Badly focused photos of Mohammed posing behind a sewing machine were passed around the room. He was no longer just a tailor. He would live forever.

Outside the door, Israeli army jeeps patrolled, slowing down in front but not checking to see what went on inside.

“I was waiting at Mokassed Hospital to see if Mohammed got better, and someone called--I think an Israeli who spoke Arabic,” said Hassan, one of Mohammed’s eight brothers. “He asked if we were religious and if giving the heart would be a problem.”

Against Muslim Rules

Under Muslim rules, it is improper to give away an organ of a living person, and a person is considered alive as long as his heart is beating. “This was not all,” Hassan said stiffly. “I thought to myself, ‘They kill us, and then they ask for such a thing.’ I rejected it right away.”

Hassan’s rejection was not the last word. Arab dignitaries and Israeli politicians came to the hospital to beg for the heart. In comments to Nammari, the hospital director, they suggested that, with such a gesture, the family could contribute a historic step to peace.

In Nablus, old-time Arab notables with connections in Israel made entreaties. They tried to convince the family that the gift would aid the cause of Palestinian independence. The affair was taking on the look of an international peace conference.

But the more family members discussed it, the more heated the argument became, especially among the young, the stone throwers who have seen many of their comrades die--more than a dozen alone in Nablus during December.

“I thought it would be a gesture of peace,” recalled Kanaan, the prominent Palestinian businessman. “Now everyone is angry at me. I get death threats on the phone. I cannot even attend the wake. The question came down to: If we give them the heart, they will just go out and shoot some more of us down.”

The offer of money was made--$500,000, according to the Arabs. Instead of being persuasive, it had the opposite effect.

At the wake, Jamal Nasser, Mohammed’s father, who is an out-of-work plasterer, remembered his decision: “From a human standpoint, it was possible to consider giving the heart. But the way they came--with money. That, after the soldiers shot him! We could not give the heart up.”

“He is a hero to us,” said a fierce-eyed youth standing nearby. “Money cannot buy that.”

Mohammed was buried secretly the night of Dec. 25.