Earlier this month, the Guardian sent acclaimed novelist Ahdaf Soueif to Israel
and the occupied territories. This is the searing account of her journey.
Part two: 'Our world is upside down'
Monday December 18, 2000
I have never, to my knowledge, seen an Israeli except on television. I have never
spoken to one. I cannot say I have wanted to. My life, like the life of every
Egyptian of my generation, has been overcast by the shadow of Israel. I have longed
to go to Palestine, but have not wished to go to Israel. And now I am going there.
I have not felt such anticipation or such fear since I was a child. For the past two
months I have been following the news of the intifada. I have compared the images on
the BBC and CNN with those on al-Jazira and other Arab channels. I have unspun
stories, fumed at the American newspapers and been grateful for some of the
reporting in some of the British press. I have started and ended my days reading
appeals for help on the internet. And over and again I have asked myself: "What is
it that I can do?" Now at last I can do something; I can go see for myself, and
write. But going means going there.
Monday
It is the first day of Ramadan and we are on the road from Amman to the bridge and I
am staring out at the desert and thinking - as I always do - how much I miss it when
I'm in England: 10 minutes of rolling dunes, then rock formations rising like huge
chocolate gateaux followed by dunes again - but this time rippling as though having
a joke, then a bend in the road and a green valley opens up and suddenly a row of
bedouin women walking elegantly along a ridge, then sand again and we are at the
Jordanian terminal which seems almost empty. We unload and our driver makes
inquiries. The West Bank, al-Daffa, is closed. He points to a large, low building
and through the windows we see that it is crammed with people. "But Jerusalem?" the
woman with whom I've shared the taxi asks. Jerusalem, apparently, is open.
I know nothing of this woman except that the small daughter on the seat next to her
is called Malak - Angel. An orthodox priest in black robes and a grey braid comes
out of the room and takes a taxi back to Amman. We go to another part of the
terminal. Buses are waiting, loaded with people. Angel's mother decides to go VIP
for the sake of the child. I walk along behind her. We hand over our passports and
are ushered into a large room with sofas and Arabic newspapers. An exhausted woman
comes in. She says she sat in this room yesterday from 2pm till 8pm, then was told
Jerusalem was closed and had to go back to Amman. But an official comes in and waves
us out.
A van this time and when we get off - there it is: "al-Jisr," Umm Angel [Angel's
mother] says - the bridge. A wooden construction, just like in the pictures, with
wooden walls so you can't jump off and into the Jordan river. We walk across, two
women and a red-haired child and there, above our heads, are Israeli soldiers just
as I've seen them on television for four decades: their eyes behind shades, their
faces behind machine-guns and above them two crossed Israeli flags: one fluttering
in the breeze, the other caught in some spike of machinery and lying limp.
We stop at a kiosk and hand our passports in through a window to a young woman in
army uniform. She waves us on. Another van and on to another terminal building. Had
there been Jordanian soldiers and guns on the other side? I didn't see any, but
maybe I just didn't notice.
We are sitting in a smallish, brightly lit room with vividly blue armchairs. Serious
attempts at decor have been made: a cactus growing out of a half coconut shell tilts
on an Arab-style carved wooden table, rubber plants and plastic flowers droop from
dusty glass shelves, an empty drinks dispenser glows coldly in the corner. On the
walls are three reproductions: two are Kandinsky-like, but the third is a large
close-up of the two forefingers of God and Adam just failing to meet.
A polite young Israeli comes in and asks me in broken Arabic to fill out some forms.
Then he comes back to escort us to the passport window. I say: "I don't want my
passport stamped." He says: "I know."
2.30pm, Jerusalem
I head out of the hotel and start walking. Every car I pass I imagine exploding into
flames. How far away does one have to be not to be killed by an exploding car? But
the sun is shining as I head down Salah el-Din Street - and I am at home. The street
is lined with bakeries, haberdasheries, shoeshops, small grocers, hairdressers.
Girls in school uniform and headscarves walk in groups, chatting, laughing. Boys
loiter and watch them. The names on the shops and the doctors' signs are the
familiar mix of Muslim and Christian Arab, French and Armenian. The French cultural
centre has wide-open doors and an inviting garden; there is a smell of roasting
coffee. It's like a smaller, cleaner, uncrowded Cairo. But two buildings look
different from the others: they are modern, precise, their angles are sharp, they
fly the Israeli flag, and they are the only ones with closed gates that are made of
steel bars.
But then appearing in front of me are the walls of the Old City. Closer in I see the
ancient gateway and beside it an Israeli army car and five soldiers armed with
machine-guns. I tie a scarf under my chin and walk past them, through al-Zahra Gate,
and I am in a medieval Arab city: Orshalim al-Quds, Jerusalem the Sacred, a city
made of rose-hued stone. The streets are paved with it; like cobbles, only larger,
the stones are worn smooth and shine in the light. Down steps, round bends and
another rosy alley stretches ahead. The houses seem to grow out of the street. Their
green iron doors are closed and around many of them are the decorations that
proclaim the resident has made the pilgrimage to Makkah. You see these in any
Egyptian village but here, instead of the representations of the pilgrim and his/her
transport, you get delicate drawings of flowers and birds.
A small handwritten sign on the wall points to al-Aqsa. I walk down Mojahedin (Holy
Warriors) Street. A small boy, maybe four years old, skips along chanting "ya
Saddam, ya Saddam, come and blow up Tel Abeeb". A few steps behind him his mother
smiles at me. And now I am in front of the gateway to al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble
Sanctuary). Inside the gateway, sitting at a wooden table are three armed soldiers.
One stands up and blocks my path: "Papers." I don't like the look of them. I'm one
and they are three. My passport is British but it says born in Cairo. Egypt has just
recalled its ambassador. But a couple of local men from the administration of the
mosque are standing just inside the gateway. I hand over my passport. The soldier
flicks through it. "In England, you live?" He has a heavy, east European accent.
"Yes."
I've been told don't explain, don't justify, don't be defensive. Minimal response.
"What town?"
"London."
"Why you are going in?"
I decide: "To pray."
"You are Muslim?"
"Yes."
The Israelis have closed the Haram to all Palestinian Muslims, except residents of
Jerusalem. And the men have to be above 45. The soldier goes through my bag which I
have emptied of everything except purse, tissues and comb. His mates look into the
bag, too. He motions me on with his head.
A few steps and I am in the vast enclosure of the Haram. Brown earth with shrubs,
patches of grass, trees. To my left, the city walls; to my right, the Sanctuary wall
is the back of houses and churches, and ahead of me the path rises to meet a wide
set of white steps leading to a great stone terrace and out of that rises the golden
Dome of the Rock. I sit on a low stone wall under the open sky surrounded by small
Mameluke structures and sense utter peace.
Later the women come out of prayers. They look at me with open curiosity:
"Salamu aleikum!"
I return the greeting.
"From where, sister?"
"From Egypt."
They want to know if I have somewhere to stay, otherwise any one of them will take
me home. They all live in the old city, the Dome of the Rock is their local mosque;
they nip down every day to pray.
Two minutes takes me round a corner, up some stairs and into Umm Yaser's home. Her
two young daughters-in-law are both students. They whisper and laugh together over
their books.
"She got married three days ago," Umm Yasir says, pointing to one of the girls.
"Just over a cup of coffee. Who can have a wedding now when people are being killed
every day?"
"Does the situation affect you here, in the Old City?"
"Look!" Umm Yaser says taking me to her door, pointing at the shuttered house across
the lane: "The settlers took it over. They put chairs out here in the lane and pick
quarrels with the young people coming and going." But how did they take it over?
"Since Ariel Sharon bought two houses here he's made it easy for them."
But how? Who would sell to Sharon?
"Awwad Abu Sneina. Everybody knew he was a spy. He vanished from the neighbourhood
and next thing we knew the Israeli flag went up on the house and Sharon had bought
it. But when Abu Sneina died there wasn't a burial ground that would take him. That
day my son was playing football and the ball hit one of them [the settlers], they
grabbed him and said they'd call the police. We said call the police. But they
called some other settlers instead. Two hundred of them came from Atarot Cohunim,
hit us with everything they had - even their walkie-talkies. The people praying in
the mosque heard the noise and came to our help and it was a battle. The police said
we were the aggressors. At the Hadasa hospital they would not treat us under the
insurance. They made us pay 450 shekels. Affect us? They do what they like to us."
She talks of tear gas pumped into houses, of rubber bullets which the Palestinian
children peel to extract the steel marble within, which they then aim back at the
soldiers with their slingshots. She talks of the threat to her mosque, of an
ambulance bringing a 78-year-old neighbour back from hospital, how soldiers searched
it and stripped it down to the cooling unit: "they've grown afraid of the air
itself." I feel dizzy with the detail piling up in my head and leave before I can be
made to stay and eat.
Through Bab el-Silsila I see several young Jewish men in black clothes hurrying
along and into the tunnel that - I assume - leads to the Wailing Wall. Further along
a mild-looking man wearing a yarmulke and leading two children steps out of a
building. From within I hear the sound of children chanting in Hebrew. The sun has
set and it is time to break my fast.
In Bab el-Amoud a man at a stall fills me a pitta bread with falafel, salad and
tahina. He finds a chair for me and places a glass of water on the ground at my
side. I sit inside the ancient gateway and eat - within sight of the army car and
the soldiers and beyond them a beautiful, Indian-looking building standing alone.
Two young men lean against a wall discussing what the Arab states can reasonably be
expected to do. If only Egypt and Jordan would open the borders, they say, so we're
not mice in a trap like this.
Back at the hotel I phone a journalist contact. An American I think. I ask a few
questions then my enthusiasm for the city bursts forth - and is met with silence.
"What? You don't agree?"
"Well, yes," she says. "It's just that I think everything would be so much easier if
it wasn't there."
I go out to the grocery next door. I want to buy some yoghurt and dates for my
pre-dawn meal. The TV set on the wall is tuned into a Palestinian channel showing
the news. Every pot of yoghurt I pick up is labelled in Hebrew only. "Don't you have
any Palestinian yoghurt?" I ask and the man ushers me to another refrigerator.
The news comes through of five workers killed by settlers. A sixth man had managed
to get away. The ambulances had raced to the scene but been stopped by the army.
Everybody in the shop has stopped in mid-motion and is watching the set. The tears
roll down my face as someone's wife wails on the screen but everybody else is
impassive. When the item is over they go back to what they were doing.
The key to my hotel room will not lock from the inside. From the outside its fine,
but not from the inside. I try and try. I feel uneasy about alerting people to the
fact that my door does not lock. I decide that I'm safe enough here. I sit down to
write today's notes.
Soon I will have to try to meet some Israelis.
Tuesday
Abraham, Ibrahim al-Khalil, the Friend of God, father of the Arabs through Ismael
son of Hager, and of the Jews through Isaac son of Sarah. At midday I am in the city
that bears his name and houses his magnificent mosque. We have circuited two
roadblocks to get here, turning a journey of half an hour into one of an hour and a
half. Our car has Israeli licence plates and so - as we pass the Uruba refugee
camp - my driver puts a large sign saying "Press" in Arabic against the windscreen
to prevent us being pelted with stones. When we pass the giant settlement of Kiryat
Araba, my driver turns the Arabic sign over to display the English. "They came in
1969. They pretended they were a group of Swedish tourists and stayed in a hotel.
Their leader was Moshe Levinger. Then they started clashing with the people and they
were backed by the military governor, they took the land and built the settlement."
Think of al-Khalil (or Hebron) as two parts: the old city surrounding the mosque,
and the new suburbs that have grown out of it. The main square of the new part is
teeming with people. Vegetable and fruit stalls teeter on the edges of pavements and
on traffic islands. The Israelis have expropriated the old marketplace and bulldozed
it. Raise your eyes from the bustle and you see the evidence of shells and mortars
on the building surrounding the square. A gaping hole where the offices of al-Ayyam
(the Days) newspaper used to be. Doctor's clinics, toyshops, a hairdresser: rubble,
soot, shattered glass and pockmarks. Raise your eyes further and you see the Israeli
army sandbagged on people's rooftops, their guns trained on the throng below.
"Twelve tonnes of equipment on my roof," a man tells me, "and they urinate in our
water-tanks."
Al-Shuhada (The Martyrs) Street leads into the old city. It is empty and the shops
are shuttered. At its end I see concrete road blocks and as I watch I see a soldier
emerge from behind a building beyond the roadblocks, he surveys us, his machine-gun
aimed. When he disappears I start walking down the road. My guide pulls me back:
"No. There's already been shooting today." The soldier reappears, followed by
another. There are maybe 20 metres between us. A young man comes out of a building
and says: "You don't need to be scared of them. Look!" He runs a few paces towards
them, jumps up and down stamps his feet waves his arms and yells out the Arabic
equivalent of "Boo!" The soldiers duck behind the wall. "See! They're cowards!" he
laughs and saunters off.
As we stand talking a tall man appears carrying a camera and wearing a white helmet
and a white bullet-proof vest with "Press" written in black across it. Awad Awad
works for Agence France Presse. He stops to talk and my guide tells him I'm writing
an article for the Guardian. "You want to go in?" he asks.
I follow him through the roadblock and round the corner. Now I can see the soldiers
grouped behind the wall at the end of al-Shuhada Street. Behind a building at the
other side of the street are a journalist and three more photographers. We walk past
the soldiers, then Awad says "Run!" and we run across the street and join the posse
of cameras on the other side. We introduce ourselves and shake hands. "What are they
doing?" a man asks nodding towards the seven soldiers huddled behind the wall.
"Making a plan," another laughs.
The soldiers break up and three of them run across the road towards us. They crouch
behind the concrete blocks, their guns aimed at the empty street. If I stretch out
my hand I can touch their backpacks. After a moment a stone crashes into one of the
concrete blocks and splinters off. A boy dances across the street. A shot is fired.
It is alarmingly loud. The same event is repeated six times in the next half hour.
Twice, in the silence following a shot a woman walks quickly across the street.
Three people in blue dungarees and helmets with IPIF written in red across their
bullet-proof vests [international observers] stand across the road. I cannot make
out if they are men or women. They carry clip-boards and timers and seem to be
recording the times of the shots. The photographers tell me that when there is going
to be any real action the soldiers simply shoo away the IPIF people. A mobile rings
and it is my guide begging me to come back.
I want to go into the old city but my guide and driver are fearful and reluctant. As
we argue in the street an imposing man in a grey cashmere overcoat appears. They
seem awed by him. I later learn that he is a Palestinian journalist who has been
shot in five separate incidents. He says "Come on chaps. It's your duty to take her
in. You've got Israeli licence plates. She's got a British passport. Take her in."
Reluctantly they make a detour and try to drive into the old city. Forty thousand
people live here under curfew. 12,000 children cannot go to school. Fifteen mosques
are closed. In the centre, armed, live what Israel says are 400 settlers and the
Palestinians say are 100. All this is for their benefit.
"If the army were to go away," I ask, "and the settlers were content to live here
among you, would you let them?"
"They would go away."
"But if they wanted to stay, could they?"
"But they've taken people's homes. If you could go into the centre you would see
families camped by their homes, refusing to leave, and the settlers throw rubbish on
them and beat them up. They're not even proper settlers; they are religious
students, mostly from the US, volunteering to come for one or two years to do their
religious duty by being here."
The city is beautiful. Like old Jerusalem it is made of pink stone. The narrow
streets wind up and down like the streets of an Etruscan town. The houses lean
against each other, one house's roof forming the other's patio. Ornate stone
balconies look out on to the empty street. The sun shines, the air is clean and
fresh, the light is so perfect we could be on a film set. A dark green patrol car
passes and does not stop us. The microphone blares out in accented Arabic: "O people
of al-Khalil. Beware breaking the curfew." Round the next bend a yellow taxi is at a
stop in the middle of the road, leaning to one side. A group of children has
gathered round it watching, hushed and still. We pull in by a wall and park. A woman
leans against the taxi with a baby in her arms. "I know it's a curfew," the driver
says, "but she has just come out of hospital, and she had the baby, so I drove her.
Look what they've done." A soldier had taken out a knife and slashed the two tyres
on the driver's side. Naturally he only has one spare tyre. With the curfew how is
he going to get another one? Two boys are helping him change one wheel. The other
children look on in silence. The woman starts walking off slowly.
We carry on, on foot. Up some steps leading down to the centre an old man is
climbing. "Can we get to the centre?"
"No. They've blocked it off."
"Is there somewhere from where I can at least see the centre and the mosque?"
"Yes, from my house," and he turns back to lead the way.
Through a green iron door I step into paradise. Terrace after terrace of pink stone,
green plants and flowers growing out of tin cans, trellises with vines, doorways
that the old man opens with big keys and that lead into vaulted chambers where
ancient Sufis meditated and prayed to be vouchsafed a vision. Some of the chambers
have Mameluke niches where I imagine the Sufis kept their jars of water and bundles
of dates. I emerge from a chamber to find myself looking at a wall with wire-mesh
windows and above them the Israeli flag. "Yes. They are here," he says. They are
looking at us and we keep our eyes averted. "They occupied the building next door
and they tried to get me out of this. I said I would bring out my sword and kill the
first man to step over my threshold."
"What happened?"
"They put iron doors on the street openings between my house and the mosque - and
they set up this surveillance camera up there."
"And now they leave you alone?" as I take a photo of the camera.
"I have no children now or young men to make trouble. There is just me and my wife.
The (Palestinian) authority came and said: Give us the biggest vault. We'll make it
into a museum.'"And?
"I threatened them too with my sword. They would have turned it over to the
Israelis."
An old woman appears on a balcony and calls to him to bring the guests into the
house. On the patio outside the house two very old Singer sewing machines sit side
by side. "I just oiled them yesterday," he spins the wheel to prove that they work
beautifully.
In the living-room there is another sewing-machine. "But this one can do
embroidery," he says, and pulls out a rag to show us the different stitches. "I
don't know what he wants with all these old machines," his wife says. On the wall
there are the three young men. On each there is written a name prefaced by "The
Martyr".
"My nephews," the old woman says. Come, you can see the mosque from the kitchen
window." I see the rose-pink walls of Ibrahim's Sanctuary and beyond them, in the
central town square, the army camp with the sandbags, the guns, the soldiers and the
white flag with blue star. My guide tells me that Saturday is the worst day here
because the settlers have more time to walk around upturning vegetable stalls and
kicking people. The army protects them, he says. My driver loses patience: "We've
gone down the road of 'peace' as we were asked to. Meetings and summits without end.
And what's the result? Is this right? That a wronged population should be punished?
In 94 Baruch Goldstein murders the worshippers and this is what we get? The mosque
is divided and now with the curfew this old man who has prayed in it every day of
his life cannot set foot in it?"
"The unjust will be visited with retribution," the old man says gently, "and I pray
on my terrace within sight of the Sanctuary walls."
I think of the decisive battle, in 1517, when Mameluke Egypt fell to the Ottoman
Turks. When the dashing Mameluke knights, until then the finest fighting force in
the world, rode out to do battle, they found themselves with the modern technology
of Ottoman guns in front of them and treachery at their backs.
Back on the road the taxi is still there. We drive out of al-Khalil, negotiate
roadblocks and go on to the motorway. Ahead of us is an army truck. He drives slowly
and we are not allowed to pass him. In the back three young soldiers watch us. It is
getting near to sunset and breaking the fast. A roadblock near Bethlehem and we are
pulled over. My driver opens his window and hands over his papers. I stare ahead but
suddenly my door is flung open. A rather plump young soldier bends down, smiling:
"What did they thay today? The Tanthim? That they would thtop the shooting?"
Somehow the lisp reassures me.
"Who?" I ask.
"The Tanthim."
When I look blankly at him he says: "Fatah. What did they thay today?"
"I'm frightfully sorry," I say, speaking posh. "I don't know. I've been out all day
and haven't seen the news."
"But you have a radio in the car?"
My driver leans over and speaks in Hebrew: "What would she know? Can't you see she's
foreign?"
They wave us on. My driver is convinced the soldier's questions were a trap. "Son of
a bitch," he laughs, "they don't miss a trick."
Maybe there are cafes in West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv where intellectuals, artists,
people, sit around and debate the condition of the country and the "Palestinian
problem". Maybe they debate the ethics of an army of occupation holding a population
hostage, or the civil rights of an Arab population in a zionist state, but these
places - the places that are lit up at night - how do I find them? In the
entertainment guide I look at the listings: films, recitals, cabarets. I consider
taking a taxi and simply buying a ticket. But even the thought makes me uneasy.
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 Ramallah 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 and civil defence, it organises vaccinations,
it gives counselling and advises on home economics (this includes boycotting 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 center. 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
the natural 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."
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 not against international law." Then, without
pause: "Even if I was 100% 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
On 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
Exhaustion 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."
) Ahdaf Soueif
Some names in this piece have been changed. Ahdaf Soueif will be reading at
Visions of Palestine at the Royal Geographic Society at 7pm on February 14. For
further information call Chris Doyle on 020 7373 8414.
Useful links
Yasser Arafat's office
Ehud Barak's office
Palestinian National Authority
Israeli government
Zo Artzeinu (Israeli settlers' group)
Hamas
Guardian Unlimited ) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
_______________________________________________
Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
