Local residents want to see the Jewish festival at the shrine of Abu Hasira in Damanhour stopped, writes Mohamed El-Sayed The residents of Damatiuh, five kilometres away from the Delta city of Damanhour, are accustomed to the fleet of coaches that turns up annually in the heart of the small village. They are used, too, to the security that accompanies the sudden influx of visitors. Everyone entering the village is searched, the media is turned away, and the roofs of houses are commandeered by the police for Damatiuh is the site of the moulid of Abu Hasira, a Moroccan rabbi who is believed to have died in the village while en route to Jerusalem in the 1880s. The visitors are Jewish, the majority from Israel. The annual event has become a source of irritation for villagers. "The Jewish visitors perform rituals that are alien to our rural traditions, drinking heavily and weeping noisily before the walls of the shrine," says one. Moved by daily scenes of violence in the occupied territories, and by stories of attempts by Israel to undermine Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, many residents question why they should continue to host a Jewish festival when so many sacred sites are being violated in Palestine. Villagers report that pilgrims have attempted to buy land surrounding the 8,400 square metre shrine, and there are rumours that up to LE5 million has been offered for a single feddan. "If we sold our land to them, they would buy the entire village and turn it into a Jewish settlement inside our country," complained one resident. A suit brought by a group of lawyers in an attempt to stop the festival and remove the shrine was heard in September 2001. The Alexandria Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the festival be cancelled and the Ministry of Culture's listing of the shrine as a monument revoked. "The rituals practised by Jewish visitors contradict with the sacredness of religious rituals as well as Islamic traditions and local customs... at a time when Islamic and Christian sacred sites are violated in Jerusalem," the ruling stated. The 2001 ruling has never been enforced, leading to an outcry that reached a crescendo in recent weeks when 13 members of the People's Assembly called upon the government to cancel the festival. The MPs argued that safeguarding the pilgrims and the shrine was a waste of public money. "It's unreasonable that we let the Zionists celebrate this fake [event] at a time when Palestinians are suffering at the Zionists' hands," Zakaria El-Ganaini, Muslim Brotherhood MP for Beheira, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The flocking of Jews from all over the world to the site of the shrine provokes the villagers because of the siege imposed by security forces during the festival. I wonder how it is that the government respects the will of the Zionists while failing to respect an Egyptian court ruling." Last month a group of bloggers joined forces with the MPs to call for the moulid to be cancelled. They have set up blog ( http://noabohasera.blogspot.com ) calling upon the government to implement the court ruling. "The problem is that the Egyptian government didn't respect the court ruling... that ordered the cancellation of the festival," wrote one blogger. "We want to exempt the government, which cannot say no to Israel, from embarrassment by calling for the cancellation of the festival." The bloggers argue that continuing with the festival is a politically driven decision and have threatened to stage peaceful protests to force the authorities to cancel it. They have also begun a petition, and hope to collect up to a million signatures, which will be forwarded to the speaker of the People's Assembly, Fathi Sorour, demanding the event be cancelled. Government and security bodies approached by the Weekly declined to comment on the government's failure to abide by the court ruling or yield to public demands. "I think the government will refuse to uphold the court ruling. It seems there is an item in the Camp David treaty between Egypt and Israel that gives the Jews the right to hold this festival annually," says El-Ganaini. He has called on the government to hold a referendum to see whether the public wants the festival to continue.
