Border Justice

For a moment last week at a weed-grown point of their common border, Israelis and Jordanians pursued not war but justice. At issue was the identification of two scraggy black cows that had been stolen from a Jordanian Arab last February, taken into Israel and sold. The thief had been arrested by the Jordan police. After a complaint transmitted to Israel by the U.N. Mixed Armistice Commission, Israeli police found the stolen cows in a local barn and promptly arrested two Israeli Arabs for receiving stolen property. To give them a fair trial, the property had first to be identified.

With a flag-draped card table serving as the bar of justice, the Israeli court was called to order on the very edge of the line of rusting iron bars that mark the border. On one side, Israeli soldiers guarded the prisoners on trial. From the other, officers of Jordan's army approached with Mustafa Jela, the seamed and middle-aged owner of the cows. The first witness (from the Jordan side of the fence) was a tracker who followed the path of the cows to the border. The second was a character witness for Jela. "He is an upright man who does not know how to lie," he said. "If he says the cows are his, they are his." Then came Mustafa himself. Swearing his oath on a Koran (printed in Israel), he told the court: "I know those cows as I know my children." Could he describe them, asked the court? Yes, said Mustafa, one had a very large udder, the other a twisted horn. The prosecutor and the judge looked at each other with a nod of assent. The truck in which the cows lowed sorrowfully was opened and the beasts clomped out--one with an extra-large udder, the other with a twisted horn.

"Praise be to Allah and to Israeli justice," cried Mustafa. "Court adjourned," snapped the Israeli judge as the cows were led across the border into Jordan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.