eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781908646514 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Eye Books |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2012 |
| Series: | Eye Classics |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 812 KB |
About the Author
Hilda Reilly is the author of Seeking Sanctuary.
Read an Excerpt
Prickly Pears of Palestine
By Hilda Reilly
Eye Books Ltd
Copyright © 2006 Hilda ReillyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-908646-51-4
CHAPTER 1
Having decided to spend some time living in Palestine, my first step was to find something to do there to give some structure to my stay. An internet search took me to An Najah University in Nablus, a city in the West Bank, where they wanted help in editing texts for a website. I emailed the university and got a reply from someone in the Public Relations department called Ala Yousuf saying they would be very pleased to have me. 'You can go ahead in order to join us,' he wrote, ending rather curiously with the words: 'Welcome home.'
The next step was to find out a bit more about practical and political issues. I contacted the London branch of the International Solidarity Movement, an organization which provides non-violent support for Palestinians in their struggle against the occupation, and arranged to attend one of their orientation weekends.
The orientation was held in a squat in Stoke Newington and was run by a Jewish man called Raph. This was the first surprise. In my naivety it hadn't occurred to me that any Jewish person would be an active supporter of Palestine. There were seven other participants: Emily, fresh out of university; Simon, a middle-aged business type; Sarah, an Islington Christian; Thomas, a French boy in his gap year; Samwa, a forceful Pakistani woman; Gilly, a New Zealander with dreadlocks who was a professional activist and had just spent two months living up a tree in Wales to stop a road being built; and Samia, a Pakistani woman who, like me, was going to work on a project not connected with ISM. We did a crash course on the history of Palestine, explored cultural issues, motivation and the concept of non-violence, did role plays of situations we would be likely to encounter, and discussed practicalities.
One of the role plays involved arrival at the airport. Raph impressed on us the importance of not giving any hint to the Israeli authorities that we were involved with ISM or any other volunteer project in Palestine. Although in theory foreign visitors are free to travel around the West Bank, in practice the Israelis try to prevent it, especially in the case of people who are there to support the Palestinians, even in the most neutral capacity. To hinder this, people arriving at Ben Gurion airport are subjected to extensive grilling and even searches. Anyone suspected of being on their way to work in the West Bank runs the risk of being refused entry. We each ran through our various cover stories: doing archaeological work, going on a pilgrimage, visiting friends, or just wanting to see the tourist sights of Israel. Raph warned us not to carry anything that indicated any connection with Arabs or Arab countries. For me that meant getting a new passport, leaving behind my diary and address book which were full of Arab names, changing my mobile phone because it had an Arabic keypad, and checking my handbag to get rid of the Sudanese coins still lurking at the bottom.
By the time I was ready to go it was early September 2004. I mentioned to a friend, Helen, what I was about to do.
'Hilda, you do realize, don't you, that I'm Jewish?' she said. I hadn't known. She told me that she had many family members in Israel and had been visiting the country regularly for about ten years. Her cousins were in the army and were robustly anti-Palestinian. One of them, a girl doing national service, had talked to her about seeing soldiers firing their rifles at the feet of a Palestinian prisoner at a checkpoint and laughing about it.
I was concerned that Helen might feel antagonistic about my plans but I was wrong. She was open to talking about it and willing to help in practical ways. 'This is the worst time of the year for anyone wanting to travel to Israel,' she told me. 'This month there are three Jewish festivals. The planes are all full and the prices shoot up. But I know a travel agent who specializes in flights to Tel Aviv. I'll give her a call right away.'
She phoned the agent who had one seat left on a charter flight in a few days' time, at a price even lower than I had been expecting to pay. I started to dither while Helen sat with the phone in her hand. 'You haven't got time to mess about, Hilda. You take this flight or you might not get another chance for weeks.'
I took out my credit card and booked the flight.
I hadn't had any more news from Ala Yousuf after our first exchange of emails. Two later emails I sent remained unanswered and I couldn't get through on his mobile. But I had decided to go ahead anyway. I was confident that if things didn't work out with An Najah University there would be plenty of other things to do.
I arrived in Jerusalem early one morning and checked into the Jaffa Gate Hostel in the Old City. A taxi driver I spoke with was pessimistic about my chances of being able to travel to Nablus, which lay about forty miles to the north. 'It's surrounded by the Israeli army,' he told me. 'They don't let foreigners through the checkpoints there, not for Nablus.'
I called in at the Faisal Hostel in East Jerusalem, the gathering point for ISMers, and heard much the same story. Nablus, I learned, was currently the most sensitive spot in the West Bank. Both the Old City in the centre of the town and the outlying refugee camps were believed to be hotbeds of militant activity, and movement in and out was rigidly controlled by the army. 'Even getting in by the back roads is difficult now,' said one ISMer who had been based there recently. He was referring to the routes taken by those who wanted to circumvent the checkpoints.
I tried again to call Ala. This time I got through.
'Hello, welcome,' he said when I introduced myself and told him where I was. 'Welcome home.'
He seemed unperturbed at my news about the transport problems. 'Someone will come and pick you up tomorrow,' he said. 'Phone this number.'
I called the number. The man I spoke to noted the address of the hostel I was staying in and said he would come for me at seven the next morning.
I spent the rest of the day in Jerusalem's Old City, visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which occupies the probable site of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and burial, and wandering along the cobbled alleyways of the souk, past shops bursting indiscriminately with souvenirs and knick-knacks connected with Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Stars of David and shofars shared shelf space with Koranic scrolls, pictures of Mecca, rosary beads and crucifixes. Vendors pestered passersby to come in and look. 'Only look, no need to buy,' they begged. I stopped to look at some T-shirts. The vendor put his arm round my waist, squeezing me. 'Just buy something small. Look at this cross. Only fifty shekels. OK, you don't want to buy so I give you something free. What do you want?'
'Nothing, thank you.'
'What's wrong with you? I offer you a present and you don't want it!'
He wheeled away in disgust and with the same spiel grabbed a couple of middle-aged European women. I tried on a pair of blue sandals in the shop next door before deciding that I didn't need them. The vendor followed me down the lane knocking ten shekels of his price with every step that he took. 'Business is very bad, no tourists. Just eighty shekels. OK, seventy shekels. Sixty then. Come back, please.' The voice trailed off in defeat.
I turned into the Via Dolorosa, the route which Christ took on his way to Calvary and which is marked out with the Stations of the Cross. Just past the fifth station, where Simon of Cyrene was co-opted to help carry the cross, I stopped short at a sign outside a perfume stall.
Happy September 11
Is the immune system anti-semitic for resisting disease?
USA dollars not honoured in this store
Jewish occupation is terrorism with a larger budget
Israel is America's only friend in the Middle East, however, before the 'state of Israel' America had no enemies in the Middle East.
The owner, a man with a bushy beard and an American accent, was talking angrily with a fat Russian man.
'I have two wives,' said the bearded man. 'Yes, we have multiple wives so that we can have multiple children so that we can drive the Jews into the sea.' He pointed to a photo on the counter. 'This is my family.'
'Your daughter looks sad,' said the Russian man.
'Yes, she is sad because of what is happening here.'
At seven the next morning a middle-aged Palestinian man called Yassir picked me up in a van. He offered me half of his breakfast, a sandwich of plump, moist falafel in pitta bread.
'Thank you. How long will it take to get to Nablus?' I asked.
'One hour and ten minutes.'
This seemed amazingly precise considering the stories about road blocks and delays. I asked Yassir what I should say if the soldiers asked where I was going.
'Say you're going to the Samaritan mountains. Say you've heard there are some interesting ruins there. You have the right to go. Don't worry.'
I did worry. 'You have a typical East European paranoia complex,' a Hungarian friend had once told me, remarking on my tendency to feel automatically in the wrong if I'm suspected of being so. It was kicking in now.
I'd never heard of the Samaritan mountains. I started flicking through my guide book for information but found nothing. My fears were fuelled by a news item broadcast a couple of weeks after the ISM session. Samia, along with two other Pakistani women, had already travelled to Israel and, despite their strict Islamic dress, had made it through the airport. A day or two later a twenty-strong squad of armed soldiers burst into their bedroom in a Jerusalem hotel in the middle of the night and arrested them. They had subsequently been deported, even though the judge at their hastily arranged hearing could find no reason to complain about them.
At the first checkpoint Yassir drove round a line of waiting cars. He explained that he was an Arab-Israeli, one of some one million Palestinians living in Israel. As such, he had an Israeli number plate and didn't have to queue up or be questioned. We made the same detour at the second checkpoint and then took a road up into the mountains. We stopped in a village where Yassir said he could take me no further because Nablus lay in Zone A. Seeing my mystified look, he told me that the Occupied Palestinian Territories were divided into three zones: A, where the Palestinian National Authority had full civilian and security jurisdiction, B, where the PNA controlled only civilian matters, and C, (about seventy-three per cent of the total) which was under full Israeli control. Israeli citizens (including Arab-Israelis) were only allowed to enter Zones B and C.
'Don't worry,' Yassir said. 'Another car is waiting for you further ahead, down the mountain.' He showed me where I should go and told me to leave my bag with him. It would be delivered to me in Nablus in about an hour, he said. How, I knew not, but nevertheless I handed it over. Right then, being separated from my toothbrush and a change of clothing was the least of my anxieties. I clambered over a wall, jumped over some clumps of barbed wire, ran down through some fields, all the time tensed for the sound of soldiers' shouts or, even worse, the whizzing of bullets past my ears, and found the waiting car.
We zigzagged down the slopes of Mount Gerizim and into the outskirts of Nablus. I was entering one of the oldest cities in the world, and one with an intimate historical link to the present conflict. Genesis chapter 12 reports that it was in Shechem – the former name of the city – that God made the first of his promises to Abraham that the land would be gifted to his descendants. The Jewish Talmud speaks of it more darkly as 'a place where bad things happen'.
We drove on past tier upon tier of apartment blocks, bonewhite in the blazing sun and stacked up on the mountainsides like a wedding cake conjured out of Lego cubes. The driver took me to the university, a stylish modern campus high above the downtown area. A security guard showed me up to the PR department and introduced me to Ala, a man in his midthirties, lean, taut and springy.
'You are welcome,' he said. 'Welcome home.'
The project I was to work on was Ala's brainchild, born of an incident involving a refugee. In 1937 the man in question had given a family photograph to a friend. In 1969 he asked the friend to give it back to him as he had lost everything he possessed in the Nakba. But the friend too had lost everything, including the photo. The day after hearing about this Ala started work on a website for the documentation of all aspects of Palestinian life. His aim was to ensure that the stories of his people would be recorded for posterity and made freely available through the internet. He worked with an urgency and single-mindedness fired not only by his sense of Palestinian identity but also by his personal experiences of the Israeli occupation, and by a fear of people dying or things being lost before they could be documented.
Ala lived with his extended family in a house in the Old City area of Nablus. In 2002, during an Israeli invasion, the house was taken over by the army and turned into a military headquarters. All seventeen family members were herded into two rooms and held there for a week. The soldiers brought in weapons, rockets and bombs and fired them from the house, which was in turn shot at by the Palestinian militants returning fire. Arrested Palestinians were taken to Ala's house where they were interrogated and beaten. They lay piled up on the stairs, tied and blindfolded. One of the prisoners who refused to was shot in the stomach. Ala and his brothers were forced to carry him out to a tank, the soldiers being unwilling to expose themselves to enemy fire. Ala's younger brother was taken by the Israelis and used as a human shield. Pushing him ahead, the soldiers shot from behind him, resting their guns on his shoulders. They propelled him into a house to protect their own entry, dropping him in from the roof. When he shouted out to warn the occupants, the soldiers beat him. They returned him to the house the next day, unconscious.
I was to learn these and many other stories later. In the meantime we talked about security issues.
'You've come to the hottest place in Palestine,' Ala told me and warned me to be careful about going to the Old City where the Israeli army made regular incursions to root out suspected militants. He warned me particularly against looking at anyone I saw with a gun. 'If you do and he's assassinated by the Israelis the next day, you'll be blamed.'
The university, I learned, had a reputation as a hotbed of terrorism. Of the many Palestinian militants killed and arrested, a fair number, as well as several suicide bombers, had been students at An Najah, which was reviled in the international media as a training camp for this sort of thing.
'This is the university of terror, the university of death, the university of Hamas,' Ala said. He was quoting opinions expressed in some of the anti-Palestinian internet sources. 'We would sue the people who say these things but we're up against publications like The New York Times and The Jerusalem Post. What can we do?'
In answer to his own question he was doing what he could with his website, providing an information service to counterbalance the negative images projected about both Palestine and An Najah University. This was what I was to work on and I would start the next morning.
Ala called over Falastine, one of the students who helped with the website, and asked her to go with me to the flat I'd be living in. Falastine was a tall, stout girl with a pleasant round face. She was studying English and spoke it remarkably well although she was only eighteen. It was thanks to Celine Dion, she told me as a university car took us back up the hillside. 'I love her songs. I learned a lot of my English from them.'
Falastine's four brothers had all been sent abroad to study for safety reasons. She too had wanted to study abroad but, as her brothers were already away from home, she didn't think it would be right to leave her parents.
I asked her how she felt about studying at An Najah University.
'I think it's beautiful. Everything is nice.'
'What about the reputation that An Najah has outside Palestine?'
'I think it's wrong. It's all lies. They're very normal students. The students come here to study, to live their lives normally in the right way. You are here and you will see the situation. It's very peaceful. If there's any problem it's from the Israeli military.'
The car stopped at a block of flats set well off the road. My flat was on the ground floor, tucked away at the back. It had a small kitchen/living room, a bedroom and bathroom. Falastine took me to a nearby grocery store to stock up on a few essentials and went back to the university.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Prickly Pears of Palestine by Hilda Reilly. Copyright © 2006 Hilda Reilly. Excerpted by permission of Eye Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
What People are Saying About This
"Gives a human face to the terrible suffering caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and makes thought-provoking reading for all who are concerned." —New Statesman