Posted on: 2000

By Sami Rami

In August 15, 1929, militant Zionist groups paraded in the vicinity of Al-Buraq Muslim Wall, which Jews believed since long times to be their Wailing Wall, in the first political demonstration of its kind after the British occupation of Palestine in 1918. Under the British invaders, Palestine witnessed a process of mass Jewish immigration and colonization. The Mandate uthorities encouraged Zionists to build some 60 Jewish colonies in less than a dozen of years, from 1918 to 1929.

As a result of those grave developments, especially the Zionist political demonstration at Wailing Wall stirred Palestinian susceptibility and tolled the bills of an impending catastrophe.

Consequently the first Palestinian revolution erupted in the face of the Zionist attempt to mess with Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and its Western Wall, a Muslim property the seventh century when two Umayyad Caliphs, Abdul Melik and his son Walid built the magnificent Mosque of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, which both constitute Haram Sharif. The Ottomans and previous Muslim rulers allowed Jews to visit and practice their prayers at Walling Wall without changing the legal status of the Muslim holy places allowed Jews.

A British-appointed Commission of Inquiry, with the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, reported rightfully on Zionist instigated violence in the aftermath of the first political militant demonstration by Zionist groups of August 15, 1929 “ the Arabs have come to see in Jewish immigration not only a menace to their livelihood but a possible overlord of the future.”

The Commission concluded that the ownership of the Western Wall belonged solely to Muslims and it formed an integral part of Haram Sharif. Unfortunately, Israel occupation of Arab East Jerusalem in June 1967 encouraged extremist Jewish groups, as Faithfuls of the Temple, to blackmail Muslim worshippers from time to time, threatening to demolish al-Haram and build the third Temple. Moreover, occupation troops surround the Mosque of al-Aqsa every Friday, harassing Muslim worshippers and not letting in anyone who is under certain age or not holding Israeli ID.

Zionists used metaphysical religious myths and the holy places in Jerusalem as fig- leaf to hide their evil designs and insatiable appetite for devouring all the Arab lands in historic Palestine never mind how indigestible they are.

Posted on: 2006

By Saira W. Soufan

The destruction of the Maghrebi Quarter in Jerusalem was one of the first points of the Israeli campaign to change Jerusalem’s Arab character after the conquest of 1967.  On the 3rd day of the Six Day War, Israeli paratroopers entered the Old City of Jerusalem in order to conquer the Temple Mount, Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.  The Maghrebi  Quarter which dates back to 1320 a.d. was razed to the ground and it’s Arab inhabitants  evicted in order to enlarge the area in front of the Western or Wailing Wall.  Two ancient mosques, Al-Buraq and Al-Afdali were destroyed as well as the desecration of the historic Mumillah cemetery in which many famous Muslim heroes were entombed.

The loss of personal properties, homes, businesses, schools, and mosques cannot  be calculated.  Statistics, architectural planning, and urban layout information has been  wiped from text books and records as if the 647 years of the Maghrebi Quarter did not  exist.  For the Israeli occupiers, it is enough that the Western Wall was located a little too near the Maghrebi Quarter to warrant it’s destruction.  The Western Wall was expanded  from the original 22 meters to 60 meters due to the demolishing of the Arab area. The  Maghrebi Quarter of Jerusalem was the second smallest quarter located within the old city  walls, the smallest being the Jewish quarter until 1967.

A testimony from one of the displaced families of the Maghrebi Quarter sketches out some of the losses incurred.  The Abu Saud families were residents of Old Jerusalem until the destruction in 1967 of the Maghrebi quarter.  The Abu Saud residences consisted of 21 branches of their family living within villas and apartments.  Small businesses, a bookstore, the Abu Saud Mosque were demolished along with the rest of the quarter to make way for the Jewish expansion.  Due to the close proximity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock to the Maghrebi quarter, the Abu Saud families had set up a School for Islamic Studies.  This was also razed to the ground.  One of the elder occupants from the Abu Saud family, Um Musa, refused to move from her chair in her home on the day of destruction.  She was threatened by Israeli Occupation Authorities to leave otherwise they would bring the building down upon her head.  “Destroy my house but I will not leave my home, I remain here.”  The IOA proceeded to manhandle Um Musa and physically carried her outside to watch the annihilation of her home.

These activities were repeatedly condemned by international opinion as endangering Muslim holy sites and threatening their ancient foundations.  This led the UN General Assembly and Security Council to pass several resolutions condemning Israel’s  excavations and appealing to it to preserve Jerusalem’s historical heritage.  UNESCO has repeatedly called upon Israel to desist from altering the city’s cultural, structural and historical character, but to no avail.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, after his visit to  Jerusalem in 1971 remarked,” It is distressing indeed that the building program of the  present authorities is disfiguring the city and its surroundings in ways which wound the  feelings of those who care for its historic beauty and suggest an insensitive attempt to  reclaim as an Israeli city one which can never be other than the city of the three great  religions and their peoples.”

None of the large or small families of the Maghrebi Quarter took compensation for  their demolished properties.  The IOA offered to buy the properties for a nominal fee in  order to appease their guilt from the theft and destruction of Arab properties.  The Arab  families refused any sale or compensation to give validity to the fact that this was an illegal  and forced plementation by the Israelis. Till today the families of the Maghrebi Quarter visit the demolished sites of their  homes in order to remember the heritage of their fathers and forefathers.

I am here with you today to share my big unlimited dream, a dream of the hope of a total nation dispersed around the world.

We Palestinians are different than any other people around the world. We have been struggling for 58 years, clutching hope with all energy we have despite everything, despite the parents we lost, the sons who passed out, the lands taken, the old ladies overloaded by the barriers, we struggled. Despite the wall getting taller, despite the checkpoints for us to get home, despite the humiliation we live, and the disbelieve of the world of what we face. Despite what we are known for of terrorists, despite all the men who bombed their bodies out to get revenge, despite the lack of food, studies, money, despite children murdered, men assassinated by their trees, women thrown out of their homes, youths died by the effect of the dazzling sun as they stood waiting for release.

Despite the chains and the bars of jails we stood on our feet, our situation is old. With burse legs, just like a 58 year old man, our soul is fed by Palestinian youth.

We stood and said No!

We declared that this forever and for always will be our land, our mother, our dignity and our identity. We are not yet satisfied and will never be as long as that man is looking between the bars of the wall and at his piece of land. We will never be satisfied, as long as our children don’t have a place to play in.

No, never we will.

No, never we shall be satisfied as long as part of our family is there and we are here. No, we will never be satisfied as long as our sea is theirs, as long as their footprints are in our sand, as long as they are in our own homes, as long as they are consuming what is ours, and gaining profits while we are here suffering poverty, lack of education and health.

No. Still I can see the tendons of the sun from between the wall bars, I can see a smile on the children’s faces and still I can wake up..

I have a dream.

I have a dream of all Palestinians. I have the dream of Palestine.

I have a dream to be able to go with my friends to the Mediterranean Sea. I have a dream to be able to reach Akka. I have a dream to see the oranges of Jaffa, the beach of Haifa, the mountains of Safad and the grapes of Hebron. I have a dream to taste the fish of Gaza, live the nature of Toolkarm, and visit the mosque of Jerusalem.

I have a dream that all refugees will be able to put their keys in their locks and get back to where they came from. I have a dream to be able to see children playing a game rather than Israelis and Palestinians. I have a dream that all our children can have a better childhood and future than that of ours.

I have a dream to see one marrying another for pure love and not because they both have the same identity cover.

I have a dream to fly around and know exactly the meaning of being free.

I have a dream to go to Nablus to see my mother’s family and watch my newborn cousin grow not by pictures, but by my own eyes!

I have a dream to wake up calm and feel peace in the air.

I have a dream to see a smile on an old man’s face.

I have a dream that smiles will replace frowns. I have dream that tears would dry up and wounds would clot and sorrows will fade. I have a dream that memories be shared and free Palestine declared.

I have a dream to move round my country and see the nature, I was taught in geography books. I have dream to see Marg Ibn Amer green again.

I have a dream to see complete sunrise not blocked by the wall.

I have a dream that all disabled people by Intifada can leave their wheelchairs again.

I have a dream to believe that our martyrs’ blood is not in vain and feel that their souls would rest in peace and not worrying of their families.

I have a dream to see the Palestinian flag rising on my school’s building, to feel that my country does exist.

I have a dream to be able to run in my own country with no fear or peril to be the one to choose where to go, and not the checkpoints.

I have a dream to get my own land in my lifetime.

I have a dream that all people in camps, places sweltering with the sun of injustice, but cold of tragedy would flower again.

I have that all prisoners living under the darkness of torture will be able to see sunlight again and return to their homes, so the yellow faces of their mothers would shine up!

I have a dream that we Palestinians, are allowed to speak for once to the world and to feel that there is someone there caring for us, really wants helping us..

I have dream to see the wall, a gray gloomy monster filled with hatred and injustice, falling and torn apart like a piece of cloth.

I have dream that Eilat will be Um Rashrash, Tel Aviv will be Tal El Rabi and Shkeim will be Nablus again.

My dream is large, larger than the see, beyond what the eyes can see away from mine, myself and me

I have a dream to see on TV: Palestine’s free. Palestine’s free, Palestine’s free. No long lasts a crime, Palestine will someday shine

Palestine will always remain a star

Shining up my track.

Author’s name has been withheld due to the sensitive nature of this article. Edited by: Amber Halford and Christina Saenz

This article was first published in International Solidarity Movement 2006.

My family and I are on our way back to Gaza from the US. We flew in to Cairo last week, and from there embarked on a five hour taxi ride to the border town of al-Arish, 50 km from the border with Gaza.  

We rest in al-Arish for the night.  

We carried false hopes the night before last, hopes transmitted down the taxi driver’s grapevine, the ones who run the Cairo-Rafah circuit, that the border would open early that morning. So we kept our bags packed, slept early to the crashing of the Mediterranean – the same ones that just a few kilometers down, crashed down on Gaza’s besieged shores.  

But it is 4, then 5, then 6 AM, and the border does not open.  

And my heart begins to twinge, recalling the last time I tried to cross Rafah; recalling how I could not, for 55 days; 55 days during which my son learned to lift himself up into the world, during which he took his first fleeting steps, in a land which was not ours; 55 days of aloneness and displacement.  

The local convenience storeowner tells us he hears the border may open Thursday -“but you know how it is, all rumors.” No one can be certain. Even the Egyptian border officials admit that ultimately, the orders come from the Israeli side. 

It’s as though they take pleasure as we languish in the uncertainty. The perpetual never- knowing. As though they intend for us to sit and think and drive ourselves crazy with thought. I call an Israeli military spokesperson, then the Ministry of Defense, who direct me back to the spokesperson’s office, and they to another two offices; I learn nothing. 

As an Israeli friend put it, “uncertainty is used as part of the almost endless repertoire of occupation.” 

Even the Palestinian soccer team has been unable to leave Gaza because of the Rafah closure, to attend the Asian games. No one is exempt. Peasant or pro-football player, we are equally vulnerable.  

Long days  

It is now our fifth day in al-Arish. Rafah Crossing has been closed more or less for more than six months, opening only occasionally to let through thousands of stranded Palestinians. And then it closes again.  

Every night, it’s the same ritual. We pack all our things, sleep early, and wake up at 5 to call the border.   

We’ve rented a small beachside vacation flat here. They are cheap – cheaper than Cairo, and certainly cheaper than hotels, and are usually rented out to Palestinians like us, waiting for the border to open. Its low season now, and the going rate is a mere USD 12 a night.  

In the summer, when the border was closed, rates jumped to a minimum of USD 35 a night – and that’s if you could find an available flat. We can afford it. But for many Palestinians who come to Egypt for medical treatment, and without large amounts of savings, even this meager rental fee can begin to add up.  

Palestinian slum  

During times of extended closure, like this summer, and last year, al-Arish becomes a Palestinian slum. Thousands of penniless Palestinians, having finished their savings and never anticipating the length of the closure, end up on the streets.  

In response, the Egyptian police no longer allow Palestinians driving up from Cairo past the Egyptian port city of al-Qantara if the border is closed and al-Arish becomes too crowded.  

“They turn it into a ghetto. That and the Israelis didn’t want them blowing up holes in the border again to get through,” explains the taxi driver nonchalantly.  

Young Palestinian men on their way to Gaza have it worse off: They are confined to the Cairo Airport or the border itself, under military escort – and only after surrendering their passports.  

No one cares  

We go “downtown” today – all of one street – to buy some more food. We are buying in small rations, “just in the case the border opens tomorrow.” I feel like we’ve repeated that refrain a hundred times already. I go and check my email. I feel very alone; no one cares, no one knows, no one bothers to know. This is how Palestinian refugees must feel every day of their lives.  

I read the news, skimming every headline and searching for anything about Rafah. Nothing. One piece about the Palestinian soccer team; another about the European monitors renewing their posts for another six months. We do not exist.  

If you are “lucky” enough to be stuck here during times of extended closure, when things get really bad – when enough Palestinians die on the border waiting, or food and money are scarce enough for the Red Cross to get involved, then maybe, maybe you’ll get a mention.  

And people will remember there are human beings waiting to return home or get out and go about their daily lives and things we do in our daily lives – no matter how mundane or critical those things might be. Waiting to be possessed once again.  

But now, after six months, the closure is no longer newsworthy. Such is the state of the media – what is once abhorred becomes the status quo and effectively accepted.  

Sieged  

It used to be that anyone with an Israeli-issued travel permit or visa could cross Rafah into Gaza – but never refugees of course. Since the Disengagement last year, all that has changed.  

With few exceptions (diplomats, UN and Red Cross staff, licensed journalists) no one besides residents of Gaza carrying Israeli-issued IDs can enter Gaza now. No foreigners, no Arabs, no West Bankers, not even spouses of Gaza residents, or Palestinian refugees.  

A few more days pass. They seem like years.  

For Palestinians, borders are a reminder – of our vulnerability and non-belonging, of our displacement and dispossession. It is a reminder – a painful one – of homeland lost. And of what could happen if what remains is lost again. When we are lost again, the way we lose a little bit of ourselves every time we cross and we wait to cross.  

We wait our entire lives, as Palestinians. If not for a border or checkpoint to open, for a permit to be issued, for an incursion to end, for a time when we don’t have to wait anymore.  

So it is here, 50 kilometers from Rafah’s border, that I am reminded once again of displacement. That I have become that “displaced stranger” to quote Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti. Displacement is meant to be something that happens to someone else, he says. How true. To refugees that the world cares to forget. Who have no right of return. Who return to nowhere and everywhere in their minds a million times. When the border closes, we are one day closer to become that.  

Of course, that refugee is Yassine, my husband, who cannot even get as far as Egypt to feel alone. Who cannot join me and Yousuf as we journey back and forth through Rafah.  

But the Palestinian never forgets his aloneness. He is always, always reminded of it on borders. That, above all, is why I hate Rafah Crossing. That is why I hate borders. They remind me that I, like all Palestinians, belong to everywhere and nowhere at once. They are the Borders of Dispossession  

We’ve packed and unpacked our bags a dozen times. My mother finally gave in and opened hers up in a gesture of frustration – or maybe, pragmatism. It seems like a bad omen, but sometimes things work in reverse here: last time we were stuck waiting for the border to open, when we decided to buy more than a daily portion of food, the border opened.  

Everyone is suddenly a credible source on the closure, and eager ears will listen to whatever information they provide.  

One local jeweler insisted it would open at 4 PM yesterday – a suggestion that the taxi drivers laughed off; they placed their bets on Thursday – but Thursday has come and gone, and the border is still closed.  

Atiya, our taxi driver, says he heard it wouldn’t open until the Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj), a few weeks from now. We’re inclined to believe him – taxi drivers have a vested interest in providing the most reliable information; their livelihood depends on it.  

In the end, “security” is all that matters and all that ever will. As Palestinians, we’ve come to despise that word: Security. It is has become a deity more sacred than life itself. In its name, even murder can become a justifiable act.  

We sleep, and wake up, and wait for the phone to ring for some news. Every time we receive a knock on the door we rush to see if the messenger brings good tidings. Today? Tomorrow? A week from now?  

No, it’s only the local deaf man. He remembers us from last time, offers to take out our trash for some money and food.  

We sit and watch the sunset. What does it know of waiting and anticipation and disappointment and hope – a million times in one day? 

* Laila al-Hadad is aPalestinian freelance journalist, author, blogger, and media activist from Gaza City. She is currently based in the United States. El-Haddad is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between (Just World Books, 2011) and co-author of the The Gaza Kitchen (Just World Books, 2012). She is also a contributing author of The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict and a policy advisor with al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. El-Haddad writes principally for the al-Jazeera English website and the Guardian.

This article was first published in Electronic Intifada 2007.

I have just found out that I studied in Jordan. I swear I did not know that. Well, that is not the only recent discovery I’ve made about myself. I have been learning many new things about myself as a Palestinian individual, all by coincidence. For instance, a few minutes ago I learnt that I took my BA degree from Jordan. No, I am not losing my mind. Or maybe I am.

It is funny how when we Palestinians are striving to prove and maintain our Palestinian identity others still perceive us as aliens. It is as if the concept of “Palestine” only exists in our heads. Well, that was actually a comment I heard by a Jewish American comedian several ago. I can never forget that show. It made me feel as an invisible entity although I was still in elementary school. But since then, lots of struggles to try to make our voices heard have materialized. Nevertheless, our attempts to make the world recognize us as Palestinians seem to be all in vain.

Two weeks ago, a colleague from work asked me for some help with a visa application. The place of origin was filled with the word “Jordan,” though he is purely Palestinian, and has never left Palestine. Apparently he noticed my astonished facial expressions, and before I uttered anything, he said, “all the travel agencies consider us Jordanians.” I did not spend much time thinking it through nor arguing it.

However, for the past month or so, I have been filling out some schools’ applications. Most of them are American. It gets easier by time to repeat what you first have trouble in articulating and then jotting down. All follow the same pattern, yet not when it comes to the nationality part. Of course, “Palestine” is never provided as an option. It crushes one’s feelings to find out that you are not considered what you believe you are. It is like hallucinating while the whole world mocks you.

For some schools, I have to select “Israel,” for others “the Palestinian Authority,” or “the Palestinian Territory.” Note that it is singular — territory rather than territories.

Anyhow, we have got used to those variations. And finding that the notion of “Palestinian,” whether authority, territory, or any other affix is provided, lightens us up. It still somehow reveals part of our identity, as long as it is declared. It entails that we are visible, and we Palestinians are accepted and respected as well. It brings back the feeling of being an internationally acknowledged national.

But what really struck me the most is this last joke: we are Jordanians. According to this last application in my hand, Birzeit University (my school) is in Jordan, and my BA degree is awarded, for that matter, from Jordan. For someone who has never been outside the West Bank, it makes me really wonder just how I got my degree from abroad.

The concept of being nameless and without an identity once sounded surreal to me when I was submerged in the world of literature and novels. It is like the classic English literature during Queen Elizabeth’s reign when women were nameless, or the African-American literature where human beings are alienated. I heard that history repeats itself, but didn’t realize that literature could be made literal.

This article was first published in The New York Times 2006.

I awoke to the persistent stammering of my 2-year-old son Yousuf: “I think today the crossing will open, Mama!” Yousuf’s prediction came true. After we had waited at the border for over two weeks, Israel finally opened the border for a few hours.

Amid chaotic crowds of thousands of stranded travelers, my son and I managed to squeeze through Gaza’s Rafah Crossing from Egypt to reach our home in the Gaza Strip.

The hardships persist, however, for thousands of Palestinians on both the Egyptian and Gaza sides of the passage who were unable to cross during those fleeting hours. They now must wait until the Israeli government temporarily opens the border again.

The Rafah Crossing, the gateway to the world for 1.4 million Gazans, was shut by Israel in late June after Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier. It has been open only for a few days since.

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the region in November, her visit coincided with the one- year anniversary of the Gaza Agreement on Movement and Access that she had brokered. The agreement aimed to facilitate the movement of Palestinian people and goods and to lead to Palestinian control over the Rafah Crossing after one year.

At the time, she proudly promised that it would “give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives.”

The year has passed, and all our crossings, our air, our water and our lives remain under Israeli control.

Israel began violating its commitments immediately, well before Hamas’s election victory, refusing to allow supervised bus convoys between Gaza and the West Bank, or to speed the flow of vital goods in and out of Gaza.

Israel had also agreed not to close Rafah and other crossings in response to security incidents unrelated to the crossing itself. For example, according to the agreement, Palestinian rocket fire into Israel does not constitute a valid reason for closing Rafah.

So why close Rafah? Countering Israeli accusations, senior European diplomats told both Israel’s Jerusalem Post and Ynet News that there have been no major Palestinian violations of the agreement, and that weapons are not smuggled through the crossing. The European Union has monitors stationed at the crossing pursuant to the border agreement.

An Israeli military document leaked to the Israeli daily Haaretz in August suggested that the closure was in fact calculated. It’s purpose was to “apply pressure” on Gaza’s residents to return the captured Israeli soldier. This action, says the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, constitutes collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population.

But instead of holding Israel accountable, Rice praised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel for taking steps likely to “advance the peace processes in the region.”

We wait day after day in the Egyptian town of Arish, when suddenly a rumor spreads that the crossing is about to open. We rush there along with thousands of other stranded Palestinians.

We waited for seven hours two days in a row, languishing in limbo, only to learn that the Israelis have closed the crossing again after a single hour. We stand in the sun packed together like cattle, penned in between steel barriers on one end and Egyptian riot police on the other.

“We’ve been waiting for 15 days. Only God knows when it will open — today, tomorrow, the day after?” 58- year-old Abu Yousuf Barghut tells me.

His wife weeps silently by his side. “We went to seek treatment for him. My four children are waiting for me in Gaza. We just want to return home now, that’s all.”

Nearby, a group of people try to comfort a young girl with muscular dystrophy, screaming uncontrollably in her wheelchair.

Providing Palestinians with their most basic rights — the right to move freely in and out of their own land — is critical to furthering peace and ensuring a viable Palestinian state.

Yet the world has remained relatively silent — even complicit — as Gaza has been turned into a prison.

Neither Israel, the U.S. government nor the rest of the world can imprison 1.4 million Palestinians and expect that somehow, some way, their “problem” will disappear.

We certainly aren’t going anywhere.

*Laila M. el-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist, mother and blogger who divides her time between Gaza and the United States

This testimony was taken from the journal Education under Occupation published by The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign  2006.

Twelve year-old Hamaam Ismael sits down leaning against a massive tree that died after it was uprooted by an Israeli bulldozer to prepare the land for the footprint of the Apartheid Wall. The young boy wonders about his and his family’s future.

He shares these burning questions with some 250 students in his school. Each day they go home worried about the fate of their school, houses, and village – Beit Ur. The village is being isolated from neighbouring villages by the Wall. Hamaam says: “Our daily suffering is great but it becomes worse every winter. We are forced to walk on foot for half an hour to reach school. The new road opened by the village council is sandy but at least allows us to reach our goal: Education”.

The school in Beit Ur is totally surrounded – by the Apartheid Wall on one side and the walled-in settler-only Road No. 443 on the other. Further, the settlement of Beit Horon encroaches on the western part of the school. The “alien” infrastructure of Zionist colonization creates fear, trauma and suffering for the villagers and the students.

The students are regularly chased by settlers or Occupation Forces stationed along the Wall, the apartheid road or the settlement. The path to school has become dangerous and the education system in the village is threatened.

Students from a nearby village called Tira attend the same school. These students suffer also every morning from the same illegal Apartheid Wall.

Occupation Forces have forbidden Tira students from crossing the settler by-pass road. If any of them try, he or she will be arrested. Therefore, the students use a drainage hole below the Wall to reach school. This hole was built to prevent rain water from flooding the area and, in winter, crossing under the Wall becomes a real life threatening operation.

Issa Ali Issa, the administrative manager of the school, said: “First, the Wall was built around our school then the Occupation Forces imposed restrictive rules upon the students. The students are no longer allowed to come to school or go back home, so they are forced to move in big groups with a teacher accompanying them.”

The situation escalates when the Occupation Forces learn that a group of students went home from school without the company of teachers. “At that point, the military comes and starts interrogating the teachers and threatening the administration,” he explains. He adds that “the walkway through the drainage hole that the students use is not even suitable for animals to pass. In winter, the water rises up to 30 cm high. That is very dangerous.”

“The Occupation Forces once came and destroyed the pole where the Palestinian flag is raised. Now it is forbidden to hoist the flag. In addition, they closed all the school gates other than one small opening for the students to enter.”

Every now and then, additional “procedures” are taken against the school. Sometimes the Occupation Forces cut the water supply to the school. Recently, they narrowed the sand road that buses previously used to bring children to school. Now no bus can reach the school.

The school administration has decided to attempt to minimize the threats that the students and the entire educational system are facing in the area. Lessons for basic levels (until grade 6) have been moved to a new building further away from the Wall. High school levels remain in the old building. This solves part of the problem, at least for the younger students, and hopefully will help to secure their education.

However, the villagers are not willing to give in to threats by the Occupation Forces to close the school and take away the land. The area where the school is located has been slated for settlement expansion. Thus, the Occupation has tried its best to persuade the school administration and the villagers to give up the school and the land around it. Once, they even offered to buy the land for a large sum of money and another time they offered to build a new school for the village in an area far away from the old school.

The school was built in the early fifties. It has a longer history than the occupation of the West Bank itself. In 1955, the school even ranked first in an honorary certificate awarded by the Ministry of Education of the Hashemite Kingdom for the care that they took in gardening and beautifying the surroundings of the school. Now the green has become the grey of the Wall. Visitors to the school will only be able to see the cement towering over the school and the barren land from which all trees have been uprooted.

This was first published in Maán News Agency 2007.

Palestinian Circus was started by a man named Shadi Zmorrod and seeks to enlighten people about Palestinian suffering, whilst also entertaining the Palestinian people. When I contacted Shadi to learn more about his creation, he insisted that I come and experience life with the circus first-hand. The day I arrived, Shadi had just secured funding from the French Consulate, which had enabled him to hire a room in which the circus’ performers could practice. Previously, the circus had been forced to make-do with limited resources; they practiced in the street, used toilet brushes as juggling batons and relied on the generosity of local restaurants to feed the performers. The funding will also facilitate a tour of Europe for the Palestinian circus students. As Shadi announced the news to his students he was met with cheers and joyous bursts of laughter.

Children will be children

Shadi explained his motives for setting up the Palestinian circus school. He said that his goal was to, “redraw the smiles on the faces of the children.” Children are born every day into an oppressive, conflictual situation and Shadi is here to enable them, despite their surroundings, to just be children. Shadi described how Palestinians had lost their trust; how it had been systematically destroyed by the occupation. He said that the first exercises the circus does with children in the workshops are trust exercises. Circus is based on trust and working together and it is necessary for acrobats to trust one another in order to perform together. He explained that anything built on trust stands in stark contrast to the Israeli occupation. Shadi told us how he intends to put trust back into Palestinians through the circus. The circus has very grand aims; it also seeks to build unity and solidarity in people who, in the face of the current crisis, have become divided. Shadi explained how the circus is not only about learning techniques; it also has a wider pedagogical purpose.

Breaking down boundaries, domestically and abroad

Fresh in my mind when I went to meet Shadi was an incident when a group of activists were held at Allenby Bridge crossing into Israel by Israeli border control who were suspicious of their purpose in traveling to the occupied territory. Bored by 8 hours of waiting, the activists began to entertain themselves by clowning around and juggling. The border control soon realized that this group of people were harmless and allowed their passage. Shadi spoke of how Palestinians are internationally known as terrorists, he seeks to promote circus as an alternative to violence and rectify the reputation of Palestinians. But the circus has come up against barriers domestically. When Shadi first told people about his idea to set up a circus, they said, “So what, you’re going to put a girl wearing a bikini on a trapeze?” The circus is a truly unfamiliar art in Palestine. Despite this, the performances of the Palestinian Circus not only sold out, but far outnumbered the capacity of the venues they had booked, meaning the circus had to move to larger and larger venues to meet overwhelming demand. The circus maintained respect for Arabic traditions and culture; there is nothing sexual in their performances, no performers are scantily clad. When people witnessed the innocent, yet ground-breaking nature of the circus, they came in droves and brought their children.

 A unique goal

Through the Palestinian circus, Shadi is spreading a Brechtian message, his circus, he claims, is the first circus group which has focused on human suffering. The circus props include a makeshift separation wall, and the aim of the circus is to illustrate the suffering of the Palestinian people. Shadi said he wants to take the tour around the world to highlight the problems encountered by Palestinian people, but that it would be even better if people from around the world came to the occupied territory, to see for themselves. However, he does not always intend to put on a circus based on suffering; he would like to do a show unrelated to politics in the coming years and hopes that this will represent the future and a marked change in the Palestinian situation.

The first circus workshop in a Palestinian refugee camp

We were lucky enough to witness the first ever circus workshop in a Palestinian refugee camp, which took place in one of the poorest refugee camps in the occupied territories, Amari refugee camp, in Ramallah, in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. A school in the camp filled with wide-eyed, expectant children; and they would not be disappointed. The show began with a clown, bringing an element of the absurd to the children of the camp. I watched as the amazed children’s mouths gaped open for the entirety of the show. The show began with the clown obstructing the warm-up of the performers and soon turned to a kind of deliberate chaos, with several intended mistakes, which served to demonstrate that anyone can be involved in circus, and slip-ups on the stage really do not matter. Through the circus, a message of inclusivity and solidarity is spread to the Palestinian people. Following the performance, the performers held a workshop, in which they taught the children to do acrobatics and juggle. The children were divided by gender and I watched as the boys formed an orderly queue, each excitedly awaiting their turn to roll down a row of gym mats. The girls stood in a circle learning to juggle with brightly-coloured juggling balls.

The future of the circus

Shadi intends to work with people with special needs in the circus in the future. He has written a circus production entitled, ‘Dreamer Kid,’ in which 50% of performers will be people with disabilities. The story is about a kid who wanted to join a circus group, but he jumped on a trapeze and injured himself on his first day of practicing, then he went to hospital and discovered that the hospital waiting room was full of other injured circus performers. Shadi and his lively group of performers will also be taking the workshops to other refugee camps within the Palestinian occupied West Bank. The Palestinian circus is an all-encompassing, far-reaching group, led by a dynamic, charismatic individual who has charged himself with reaching out to the whole of the Palestinian people as well as illustrating the Palestinian situation to the rest of the world, and he is certainly on the way to achieving his goal!

This article was published in This Week in Palestine 2007.

While Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza are scrambling to come up with a new national Palestinian vision, Israeli Arabs are looking for ways to wrest equal citizenship rights for themselves as non-Jews in a state whose reason for existence is to nurture Jewish identity and culture.

According to a recent New York Times news item, “A group of prominent Israeli Arabs [in a report issued in December 2006] has called on Israel to stop defining itself as a Jewish State and become a ‘consensual democracy for both Arabs and Jews,’ prompting consternation and debate across the country.” The report is called “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel” and the strategies in the report will be implemented by The National Committee of the Local Arab Authorities in Israel.

The term “Israeli Arabs”, as used above by the New York Times, is widespread inside and outside Israel, both in the media and in scholarly articles. The emphasis is on the second word — “Arabs” rather than on the qualifier “Israeli”. The alternative term “Palestinian Israelis” would come as a rude shock to many Israelis, even secular nationalists, conditioned as they are to think of the Palestinians amongst them (20 percent of the population) as a people who had no hand in the agrarian or industrial building of the Zionist State. These people are tolerated at best, so long as they submit themselves to the Zionist ideal. Arab Israelis, for example, must acknowledge “the existence of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people” before they can even participate in the political process (1992 Basic Law).

In one way, the subtext for this usage emphasizes the Zionist narrative: Jews (the majority of whom come from outside Israel) have a God given right to live in historic Palestine, but the indigenous Palestinian is a generic Arab with only a tenuous sense of belonging to a specific geographic area. The term “Israeli Arabs” includes Muslim and Christian Arabs, the remnant of indigenous Palestinians that had escaped the ethnic cleansing of 1948, now numbering 1.3 million strong. Significantly, it does not include Jewish Arabs, who are referred to, instead, as “oriental Jews”. Nor does it include the dispossessed Bedouins (about 100,000), who are denied legal recognition and herded in the arid northeastern part of the Negev (the western and fertile part having been reserved for Jewish settlers).

But the term also accurately reflects the sense of schizophrenia as well as exclusion that Palestinians with Israeli IDs feel. As people residing in a State formed against their will, they are not Israelis, but “Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the indigenous peoples, the residents of the State of Israel, and an integral part of the Palestinian People and the Arab and Muslim and human Nation.” In their own words, they are simply “in Israel” and must now resolve their identity and take responsibility for themselves: “who are we and what do we want for our society?”

The rising national consciousness among Palestinians in Israel is both courageous and thorny. Such consciousness aspires to counteract intangibles such as “intellectual and emotional transfer” and distancing from their Arab culture, as well as tangibles such as land, planning, and housing policies and economic strategies.

The predictable Israeli assault on this new consciousness will be ferocious, especially from the Jewish religious nationalist camp, but no less from the Israeli legal apparatus, which has already legitimatized the denial of equal citizenship rights for non-Jewish citizens. Israeli “consternation” will come from every corner, because Zionism, whether in its secular or religious variant, is basically about a nation of Jews (even though the majority is made up of foreigners to Israel) and for Jews. The various segments of Israeli society may differ regarding ways of achieving “security” and “peace”, but there has been no significant practical difference, as far as Palestinians in Israel are concerned, between left and right Israeli governments. The emphasis of both has been on the Jewish nature of the State and so in compromising the rights of Israeli Arabs.

Israeli Arabs have plenty of reasons to deny Israel moral legitimacy and to fight for their rights: “we have been suffering from extreme structural discrimination policies, national oppression, military rule that lasted till 1966, land confiscation policy, unequal budget and resources allocation, rights discrimination and threats of transfer. The State has also abused and killed its own Arab citizens, as in the Kufr Qassem massacre, the land day in 1976 and Al-Aqsa Intifada back in 2000.”

The new Israeli Arab strategies strike a reasonable balance between preservation of Arab identity and values (through institutional self rule in education, culture and religion) and achieving full citizenship and equality with the Jewish majority. Israeli Arabs are proposing a “consensual democracy” for Israel similar to the Belgian model. (Belgium is made up of communities of Dutch, French and German speakers, with each group being able to elect its own parliament that governs such things as culture, education and language).

Israeli consternation notwithstanding, the vision that Israeli Arabs are putting forward is consonant with the vision of the founder of Zionism, Theodor Hertzl, as described by the Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua. Hertzl envisioned an Israel where “The rabbis didn’t get involved in politics, the Arabs had full rights, the cities all had rapid transit, the workers had social benefits undreamed of in Europe, the choice of theater and opera rivaled … Vienna. Its people did not die violent deaths and the whole world exalted in its contribution to humankind.” It is a vision, unfortunately, that is good only for outside consumption, not for Israeli governments that are driven by a mentality of greed, fear, and paranoia untempered by guilt.

The journey of Israeli Arabs towards freedom will be long and arduous, not least because the Israelis have perfected the art of using bureaucratic procedures to block the implementation of legal advances when these do take place. But articulating their vision is a major step forward and an inspiration to Palestinians everywhere. Equality for Palestinians in Israel will never happen unless they themselves make it happen.

* Rima Merriman is a Palestinian-American living in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.