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Up Down
Ahdaf Soueif
In December 2000,
Egyptian-born Arab novelist Ahdaf Soueif travelled to Israel and the
occupied territories for the first time. Here she concludes her remarkable
account of the journey – Published in The Guardian (UK), Tuesday
December 19, 2000 [from Rick Rozoff]
Thursday For three nights now I have stayed up writing past 2am and
yet I have not recorded all I have heard and seen. I
have not even really thought about all I have heard and seen -
that will come later. For now the present facts are all I can
manage. We start early for Ram Allah and a couple of minutes from my hotel
I see two Israeli flags fixed to the flat roof of a house. Next to
them four boys in civilian clothes nurse machine guns. My driver,
Abu Karim, says these are four houses that have recently been taken from
their Arab residents. Out of Jerusalem, major roads are being built
to connect up with the settlements. The roadworks are
guarded by Israeli Army trucks. The road north to
Ramallah - the road that the Palestinians may use - will lead us
through the town of Bira and the news is that Bira was shelled last
night. Soon we see the concrete blocks, the waiting cars, the soldiers and
we swerve off to the right and drive through dirt
roads. Abu Karim points to a
rectangular crater in the middle of the road the size of a grave.
The army, he says, do this just to make life more difficult. A
bone-jolting 20 minutes later we rejoin the main road about one kilometre
up from where we had left it. An hour and a half later (and a
distance equivalent to, say, Chelsea to Kingston) we are sitting in
Rita Haniyya's living-room listening to her and her friend
Layla Qasim. The women, one Christian, the other Muslim,
are founders of the National Union of Palestinian Women (NUPW)
and worked hard to establish the Centre for
the Support of the Family in Ramallah, a day-centre
where children were taught music and encouraged to
draw: "The children are not allowed to see maps of Palestine or
learn their own history," they tell me. Eighteen
months ago the Israelis closed the centre down for
"inspiring sedition". "Sedition!" snorts Layla
Qasim. "We were trying to help
the mothers give their children a 'normal' childhood. You know
what the children sing? They sing: 'Papa bought me a trifle/A machine-gun
and a rifle'. "We were struggling to get them to sing normal
children's songs. But normal children's songs have nothing to do
with the reality of their lives. "When the children
said 'The Jews came and took my cousin/Mixed our rice with the flour and
the sugar', we would say don't say the Jews, it's the
Israelis, the Zionists. We were battling with the ethics of
language." "The media in Britain," I say,
"ask why mothers allow their children to go out and
throw stones at the army." "Allow?" says Rita Haniyya,
"You should see the quantities of Valium we've
dispensed to women in the camps simply to help them cope with their
lives: when their children go out to play they're playing under the guns
of the army observation post above them - these people
have been living under 'temporary emergency'
conditions for 33 years, and some since 1948. They
don't go looking for the army, the army is right on their
doorstep." "There isn't a child," says Layla,
"who doesn't have a father or a brother banished or jailed or killed.
When the soldiers come in and beat up a father - the kids see it - all
they've got is one room. They see their father being beaten. What do you
think it does to them? They ask us if people in the whole world live like
this. What can we tell them? A three year old comes in and tells me: 'The
Jews came and beat my father and his tummy fell out onto the floor but we
got him to hospital and they're going to mend him.'"
The names come thick and fast, Jihad Badr who was bringing up his
kid sisters and brothers after their mother died of cancer,
who survived an operation for a brain tumour but was killed
in the al-Aqsa demonstrations; Hania, 13, who was
shot in the leg, bundled into an army car and hit
repeatedly on the same leg: "I didn't scream," they
tell me she said, "not because I was feeling brave, just because I
was afraid they'd kill me." The Hammouri twins, 19, shot
on the same day. And on and on. The NUPW now trains women in first
aid nd civil defence, it organises vaccinations,
it gives counselling and advises on home economics (this
includes boycottinga Israeli and
American products). It is funded entirely by donations from its more well-
off members - many of them abroad. There are 2m Palestinians
in Israel and the occupied territories, 5m in the diaspora.
"We've compromised," Rita Haniyya
says, "they have West Jerusalem,
the Carmel, Yafa and Haifa and so on.
They have Israel. But they want everything, it's their nature.
They attack us - physically - in three ways: through the army,
the settlers, and the Mustaribs (agents who pretend to be
Arab)." The Mustaribs, she says,
mingle with the people during
demonstrations: "They choose a child, grab
him, throw their keffiyehs over their faces (so
they can mingle again without being identified)
whip out their yarmulkes and a gun and rush with
the child over to an army car." "You know the worst of it
is," they say, "that they keep you
guessing. You never know if a road is to be open or closed. When
they're going to shut off your
water or turn off your electricity.
Whether they're going to permit a burial. Whether
they're going to give you a permit to travel. You can never ever
plan. They create conditions to keep you spinning." At Oslo,
Israel agreed to hand over some major Arab towns to the Palestinian
Authority. Israel, however, retained all the areas
surrounding the towns, so that to get from one to
another the Palestinians had to carry permits which were
checked at Israeli checkpoints. With the intifada the Israeli
army simply encircled the towns, preventing the residents
from leaving or entering. Critics of Oslo at
the time said this was a
blueprint for disaster. No one understands why the Palestinian
Authority agreed to it. Some say they simply didn't have
maps. It is at the soldiers encircling their towns
that the youths and children of the intifada throw stones.
There are some good Israelis, Rita says, people of
conscience. "Look at what Amira Hass writes in Ha'aretz. And Uri
Avnery. But they're marginalised." Are you in touch with
them? "Not any more. We realised they would go so far and no
further. The best of them balks at the right of return for the
refugees. Even Leah Rabin wanted East Jerusalem. At the
beginning of the intifadah when they got in touch we said
you've been talking to us for years, now it's time for you to
talk to your government." Back in Jerusalem I break my fast at
a small cafe outside al-Zahra Gate. On the
street outside is the army car
and the soldiers. At the table behind me three elderly men are
extolling the days of Gamal Abdul Naser and the idea of
pan-Arabism. They end up singing popular
Egyptian songs of the 60s:
"Ya Gamal/Beloved of millions" and "We said we'd build and
now we've built/the Hi-i-gh Dam". The owner, recognising
my Egyptian dialect, gives me a tamarind juice and pudding on
the house. He asks if I'm OK at my hotel. His family
would have been glad to take me in but they're in al-Khalil
(Hebron). He used to commute, it's only half an hour, but now with
the closures he can only manage to sneak in to see them once a week.
A silent candle-lit demonstration outside the New Gate of the old
city. Sixty candles flickered in the hands of
60 Palestinian women just outside the Gate. Opposite them, on the
other side of the road 15 Israeli women dressed in black held 15
candles. Friday This is the first Friday of Ramadan and Barak, in a
move designed to "achieve quiet during the month of Ramadan",
has repealed the ban on men under 45 praying at the al-Aqsa mosque.
Israeli mounted police, armed and dressed in riot gear, guard the
gates of the old city as though we were
armed and dangerous football hooligans. We pass through
al-Zahra Gate in single file between two rows of soldiers with machine
guns. Each man has to stop and show his identity papers. The women,
if they keep their heads bowed and their eyes on the ground, are left
alone. At Bab Hutta, the actual gate to al-Haram al-Sharif,
there are more soldiers with guns. Inside, the men head for
al-Aqsa, the women for that choice jewel, the Dome of the
Rock. Because the Israeli amnesty does not extend to the people of
the West Bank, there are maybe 20,000-25,000 people here today instead of
the 500,000 you would normally expect. At the Dome I
squeeze in through Bab al-Janna (the
Gate of Paradise). In straight lines, shoulder-to-shoulder, we pray
then sit to listen to the sermon.
The Imam preaches patience, steadfastness and
opposition. He reminds us of the Prophet's
saying that there are those who fast and gain
nothing except hunger; to fast is to renounce falsehood, hypocrisy
and all bad deeds. He lists the crimes of the
Israeli military occupation against the people. He lists the
demands of the people: an end to the occupation, the implementation of UN
resolution 242 and the return to the borders of June 4 1967, an
independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the West
Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem,
the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli
jails, the right of return to the homeland of all
Palestinian refugees. He repeats God's promise
that the righteous shall prevail, then he prays for al- Aqsa
itself. Again and again he implores God to protect it from the
plots being woven against it, again and again the
women's voices from the Dome and the men's voices
from al-Aqsa rise: Amen. The al-Aqsa, where the men
pray, is close to Bab el-Magharba (the Gate of the Moroccans) which is
close to the Wailing Wall. As prayers end, groups
of young men and boys start gathering there. But there the army and
police are solidly waiting and everyone knows that if one
stone hits that wall someone will be shot. But the shabab [youth]
are in the grip of fervour and a man who some say is a "Fatah
element" starts yelling Hamas slogans
and, playing Pied Piper, leads them away from the certain
danger of Bab el-Magharba and through the terraces
of al-Haram to the relative safety of Bab el-Sabbat.
There they stop. Outside the gateway is a police station that they
had set fire to a while back. The administrators of the
mosque rush to place wooden barriers between the shabab
and the small army of soldiers and police taking up positions
outside with guns aimed. The shabab chant of the
Prophet's victory against the Jews at Khaybar in the 7th century, some of
them rush back into the Haram and try to break down the iron door leading
to the stairs of the minaret. It will not break. One young man
climbs a wall and tries to open a higher door into the
minaret. On the walls of the terraces hundreds of women
and older men stand and watch. The atmosphere is almost one of
carnival. Maybe a thousand shabab are facing the soldiers, but the
gate is narrow so it's not too hard for the elders to hold
them back. On the steps just opposite the gate, the
steps leading up to the top of the city wall, the
photographers stand with their cameras, helmets
and bullet-proof vests. Something happens outside and the shabab
scatter for a moment then regroup. A
woman in an embroidered bedouin dress
pushes forward into their midst, yelling along
with them and a man tries to hold her back: "They might
shoot you!" "Let them shoot
me. Am I worth more than any
of these youngsters?" A woman in horn-rimmed
spectacles waves her arms at the soldiers from the wall where she's
standing: "Get out!" she shouts, "Get out!
You've strangled us, may God strangle you." One young man
is ordering his little brother to go home. "Let me stay,"
the kid begs. "Just for a few minutes. Let me
stay." It takes a cuff on the side of the head to send him
home. A couple of smallish stones are pitched across the wall.
"Bet that landed on our car," a very well-dressed,
slim young man says to his
companion. A well-built youth picks up a large rock and throws
it to the ground to smash it. It doesn't smash and he picks it
up again. As he raises it a mosque caretaker runs up and takes
it from him, quietly, without a word. He places it carefully
under a tree and the young man walks away. An argument is
breaking out on the side: "They shouldn't make
trouble," a tall, fair man shouts. "The
Israelis will close it down. Let people pray." A
bystander laughs: "You've been praying for 50 years. What good
has it done you?" A dimunitive sheikh in a very
trim costume and brand-new red cleric's hat
is marching measuredly up and down
beside the yelling demonstrators with a
megaphone: "Your presence here incites them.
Disperse. Disperse." No one pays any attention to him
except one man who says to his neighbour: "He does this
every Friday." There are women and girls
sitting chatting under the trees. Eventually the
shabab start to drift away. It has taken two hours but this time, here,
the Palestinians have no martyrs. Saturday Noon, Ramallah The
great hall of Our Lady of the Gospels independent school in
Ramallah is filling up with students. Hundreds of girls and boys
crowd into the seats talking and laughing. On
the stage the principal, Mrs Samira,
and the guest speaker, Dr Mustafa
Barghouti are setting up the overhead projector. Dr Barghouti is one
of the triumvirate heading the People's Party of Palestine,
and - more importantly - he has been organising all the
medical aid work for the intifada. This talk is part of the
independent schools of Ramallah's joint initiative to
"document the truth and demand
our legitimate rights before the world". This group of kids is
in economic band A, their parents can afford to educate them
privately, can stop them going to the barricades. Their hair
is glossy, their teeth are good. As Mrs Samira lists
the names of the participating schools they cheer
and stamp and she outlaws whistling. They all want to know how
they can contribute. They ask why the Authority has not
declared Oslo dead? Why it arrests members of Hamas? What is
the Authority doing to protect civilians from the attacks of the
settlers? Why does the Authority continue to try to coordinate
security with the Israelis? They want a programme to support the thousands
of workers who've lost their jobs inside Israel. They want the leadership
to pull together and an end to the factions. They want to talk to
the world. They want independence and they want to know what they
can do. Dr Barghouti tells them they can join the NGO across
the road. They can be trained in first aid and primary care,
in crisis management. They can do media work, monitor the net,
respond to articles ... They crowd around to put their names down before
they rush off to be picked up by parents at 2.30pm sharp. 3pm,
Ramallah Another Barghouti (it's a massive family), Marwan Barghouti,
is mostly on the move. He is 41, the chief
executive officer of Fatah. Since the intifada he's
been on the streets with the shabab and he
has formed the People's Watch, groups
in each village that try to defend the villagers against
the settlers. Everybody says he is targeted by the Israelis (Ma'ariv
called him one of the "triangle of terror: Arafat, Barghouti
and Raggoub, head of Palestinian intelligence"). Some say he's
targeted by the Palestinian Authority - for being too popular.
In his office, against a huge poster of al-Aqsa, he repeats that the
intifada and negotiations do not preclude each other;
that the intifada is the only way the people have of projecting
their own voice, their own will into the negotiations. He points
at a poster of Muhammad al-Durra and says: "We need to
get away from the image of the Palestinian as
a victim. This is a better poster,"
pointing at a poster of a child confronting a tank. I say:
"That kid was killed two days later." He says: "Yes."
I wonder whether there is space to get out
of the "victim" frying-pan without falling into the
"fanatical Islamic terrorist" fire. The margin is terribly
narrow. Then a man sitting with us - clearly an old friend - says:
"But I hear Qassam [Barghouti's 16-year-old son] is down at the
barricades. Why don't you stop him?" Barghouti waves the question
away. The man insists: "You have to stop him." And for a
moment the militia leader looks helpless: "I can't," he says.
"How can I?" 3.45pm Abu Karim is getting restless.
He wants to be home in Jerusalem before sunset, but I have asked to see
the barricades and now we examine them. An area of desolation at the
edge of the town - which means 10 minutes from the
centre. After sunset this will turn into a battleground.
Concrete blocks, stones, burn marks, some shattered glass. Two Israeli
army cars on the other side of the concrete. A woman appears
from nowhere. Fortyish, poor, dressed in black, she is an
Egyptian who has married a Palestinian and lived here for 25
years. Umm Basim, I have heard of her, heard that she lost her eldest son
in the previous intifada and that she is in the thick of
the action at the barricades every night. Is it because of your son,
I ask, that you come here? "No. I have four more, and they are with
me here. I come because this situation has to end. We can't live
like this." I ask if I may take her photo. She hesitates:
"It won't appear in any Egyptian newspapers? I wouldn't want my
mother to know what I'm doing. She'd worry." As I take
the photo she turns to the man who brought us here: "I've seen Qassam
here. Tell his father to keep him away."
Sunday 10.30am Psagot. ("Bascot," the students at Bir Zeit
University had said, "biscuits. Think American
cookies.") Psagot is a settlement built 10
years ago on a hilltop just outside Ramallah
and Birah. The Palestinians say it was built by the government (like
other settlements) on land expropriated from Birah. They say it
was positioned strategically to halt
thenatural expansion of the town and to control the Arab population. They
say the settlers are armed and the army itself can move into the
settlement at very short notice. For the past
two months Birah and Ramallah have been shelled every night from
Psagot. My calls to the Yesha council have paid off and they have
sent me here to meet Chaim Bloch. A western journalist connects me
to a taxi driver who will go to a settlement (but charges triple), and
from the start the journey is unlike any other I've made here. Smooth,
wide roads, speeding cars, no roadblocks. And Psagot, like almost
every settlement, on the top of a hill like a look-out, like the spooky
small town of Edward Scissorhands. Barak's proposed budget for the
coming year would spend $300m on settlements. Chaim Bloch is
courteously waiting for us outside his house. He is dressed in
a suit with a buttoned-up shirt and no tie. He has a longish
light-brown beard and speaks softly and carefully. His father, a
textile engineer, was offered a job in Israel 31 years ago
and within two weeks the family
had moved over from Baltimore. I work out that Mr Bloch
is 39. I had thought him older. In
Israel, if you choose to do religious studies you are exempt
from military service. For the young men who want
to do both special yeshivas exist. There are 30 of them
round the country. Bloch is a graduate of one and, until
recently, he had always taught at another. Now he
teaches Jewish law as it relates to monetary
management as a kind of "continuing education"
course. He has been in Psagot nine years. Why Psagot? "Because this
is the land of Judea and Samaria. It is here that the Israeli
destiny is to be decided." The people across the valley, in
Ramallah and Birah say this land was expropriated from them. How do you
feel about that? "The government of Israel never takes land
without paying for it. The Arabs tried to bring a court case against us
and in the end they begged us to allow them to drop it because
they were going to be ruined." [Full details and facts of
how Israel confiscates land, and what it allegedly "pays", is
available from Peace Now and B'Tselem and other Israeli and
Palestinian sources-InfoPal.] There are UN resolutions stating that
the West Bank and Gaza are illegally occupied. "Israel is a
law-abiding nation but there can be differences in the
interpretation of the law. What we are doing here
is notagainst international law." Then, without pause:
"Even if I was100% sure that international law was
against me it would not change my views. Just
because international law says something does not make
it so." But if not the law, what is your reference?
"God promised us this land. The state of Israel was
here 2,000 years ago and God promised this land to our
forefathers 37,000 years ago. There was never a state of Palestine
here." The one thought that I have is that I am not afraid any
more, not even uneasy. I feel nothing. I am conducting an interview.
Well, I say, there was never Syria or Lebanon or Jordan or
Iraq. As states. It was all part of the Ottoman empire and was
carved up by the British and the French. "This is the land
promised to us by God." OK. You say this land is yours because
you were here 2,000 years ago. Across the valley there is a man who says
this land is his because he has been here for 2,000 years. If
- just for a moment - you put yourself in his position ...
"I do not put myself in his position. You do that for
a friend,on a personal matter. This is a question
of nations. And my business is to look after the
interests of the Jewish nation." So you have no individual moral
responsibility in this matter? "No." Well, from your point
of view, what should the Palestinians do? "They can go on living
here. No-one will throw them out. But they have to understand that they
are living in a Jewish state. If they do not like
that there are many places where they can go." But if they live here,
in a Jewish state, they don't have the same rights
as the Jews. "Yes. It is a Jewish state and they live as a
minority." Believe me, 90% of Palestinians admire us and want
to live in the state of Israel." I know that a poll
among young Palestinians found that they
admired Israeli democracy as it was applied to the Jews. But it is
not applied to the Arabs. "Ninety per cent of Palestinians
would be happy to live in the state of Israel. I know
this." You know that 90% of Palestinians would
be happy to live as second-class citizens forever?
"This is what my Palestinian friends tell me." You
have Palestinian friends? "Yes." Forgive me but -
who are they? Silence. I don't want to know their names, just
- where did you meet them, for example? "One is a mechanic. He
had to fix something for my car. And the other - he knows him.
"Could I just ask you how life
on the settlement works - economically?
"How do you mean?" Well, I've heard that settlements
get government help. "Barak's government has cut back on
most of what we got from Netanyahu. We get
hardly anything." (My companion Judy Blanc ascertains that the
house he lives in was bought for a fifth of the
market value. For a settler to travel to and
from his or her settlement the government provides an armoured
bus and two army car escorts.
Water, the main resource under government control, is
divided between the Arab population and the Israeli
settler: each settler is allocated 1,450 cubic
meters of water per year. Each Palestinian is allowed to use 83 cubic
meters. Electricity is regularly shut down in the Palestinian towns while
the settlements are lit up.) Mr Bloch, you have Israel. If you do
not allow the Palestinians their own state in the West Bank
this conflict will never end. "Not everything has to be solved
now." You are happy that your children should inherit this
conflict? "Happy?" His voice rises, but only slightly.
"My sister was on the bus that they blew up. The
woman sitting next to her was killed.
Children had to have their limbs amputated. I
am not happy." But you believe your children should
inherit this situation? "Those children on the bus - I pray
that God will never ask me to pay such a terrible price. But if He does, I
shall pay it." As we drive away from Psagot I feel empty. I
look at my notes and realise that I have no impression of what the living
room we had been in looked like - except that it was bare and
functional and sunny - and looked out on Ramallah. The taxi
driver (even with $100 in his pocket) is speeding and
angry and has an argument with a speeding young
Israeli. Through the window I hear: "Kess ikhtak!"
(Your sister's c***) Is that the same in Hebrew? I ask. No,
that was Arabic, Judy says. "I see a terrible fire," Mme
Haniyya had said to me, "a terrible fire coming to swallow us
all, Israelis and Palestinians – unless the Palestinian people are freed
from their bondage." 1.30pm n the way back to the bridge I
see that the army has dug a
brand-new trench between the road and
the town of Ariha (Jericho). After xhaustion
hits me the minute I get to London. This conflict has been part of
my life all my life. But seeing it there, on the
ground, is different. What can I do except bear witness? I am
angrier than before I went. And more incredulous that what is
happening in Palestine - every day -
to men, women and children, should be allowed by the
world to continue. The choices are in the hands of Israel. They
can hand over the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem and
live within their borders as a nation among nations. There are no
choices for the people of Palestine. Ilan Halevi, a Jew who fought
with the PLO, says it's a question of macho image: "Israel does
not want to be seen as 'the fat boy of the Middle East'."
Others say Israel does not want to be a "nation
among nations". It wants the beleaguered, plucky image - and
the moral indulgence and trillions of dollars worth of aid that goes with
it. If that is so then the Israeli government has joined others of
the region who are not working in the interests of their own people.
Awad Awad [two of whose photos were in the Guardian on
Saturday]says the Israelis have declared they will not renew the
licences of any Palestinian photographers working with the
international media. What will you do? "Just carry
on taking photograhs. I'm a photographer." I have seen women
pushing their sons behind them, shoving them to run away, screaming at the
soldiers: "Get out of our faces. Stop baiting the kids."
I have heard a man say: "I have four sons and no work.
I cannot feed them. Let them go out and die if it will help
our country; if it will end this state of things." I have
seen children calmly watch yet another shooting, another
funeral. And when I have wept they've said: "She's new to this."
I have listened to everybody predict that the leadership would do a
deal. "But if they don't bring us independence and the right of
return the streets will catch fire." Palestinian weddings are
celebrated over coffee, but when a young man is killed his mother is held
up over his grave. "Trill out your zaghrouda
[ululation], mother," his friends say, the shabab who might die
tomorrow. A mother says to me: "Our joy-cries now
only ring out in the face of death. Our world is upside
down."
(c) Ahdaf Soueif * Some names in this piece have been changed.
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