Palestina Taussig

8/11/2019 Palestina Taussig

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Thursday June 17, 2013:I pretty well stopped eating in Palestine, not because I wasnt ofered ood at

every turn, but because the intensity ate me alive. It was like I was breathing diferent air on a diferent

planet where the customary laws o gravity and physics no longer existed. Except it wasnt ust the harsh

reality o physics!o land occupation and check"points and the permits re#uired or any and everything!but

the even harsher reality o things harder or me to pin down. Paranoia$ %es. &nxiety$ %es. 'ut these terms are

too obvious yet not #uite right, anyway. &bove all what threw me was the patience and calm in the midst o

choppy seas that in an instant could become a gale inside and outside. (as it that things seemed calm, but

shouldnt$ )r was it that people spent a lot o time making calm, i you see what I mean, and that this was a

sort o national pastime, a gargantuan cultural eat, *making calmness.+ -ompare with the agitated reny I

always hear about in Israel/ )r is it that no matter how bad a situation, people adapt and lie continues in its

steady and unsteady rhythms, as it must or the 01 year old man I met in the subterranean market in 2ebron

selling spices at the same stall all his lie and who has never seen the sea, holding my arm, eyes burning,

when I tell him I am rom 3ydney. &lthough it is #uite close, he has never seen the sea because he doesnt

have a permit to travel the necessary roads. 'ut the spices need to be gathered rom the dusty hillsides, the

customers expect it, and he has to live, sea"less as it may be. 4wenty meters away 5ewish settlers are said to

pour garbage and even urine down into the marketplace rom their houses which not so long ago were the

homes o Palestinians whom, by and large, Israelis insist on calling *arabs+ as i the very word P&6E34I7E

does not exist, is not allowed to exist, and yet or all o that non"existence very much exists!as a taboo word

threatening thought itsel and, indeed, the very writing o this diary. 7ever have I elt the use o names and

words to be so precarious.

Friday:In Palestine I was orever struck by the gul between violence and the manner by which it was

related, as with the seller o spices in 2ebron or a young man in 8amallah relating his arrest at the age o

seventeen by Israeli soldiers at his home early one morning. 7o lights. 7o sirens. & stone thrown through the

window shattering the glass two in the morning. )pening the door into that black night what seemed like

hundreds o Israeli soldiers aiming red laer beams on his chest through the scopes o their guns. & hooded

inormer pushed orth to identiy him. 'lindolded, hands and ankles cufed, beaten and tortured three days,

trussed to a chair with a strong light in ront o his ace. (hen he nodded of, a surveillance camera caught

him and he was once again woken up or #uestioning. 4en to a cell, one toilet which doubled up as a

*shower,+ and. thirteen hours a day studying. 2e learnt 2ebrew by reading the newspaper his uncle sent himeach day.

%ouve seen it all in the movies, Im sure. 9any times.

'ut not this, not the way he told it, sitting cross legged in the sot grass o the :halil 3akakini cultural center

in 8amallah mid aternoon beneath a dark ;g tree. &s he spoke, picking up a blade o grass now and again,

two kittens played as I peeled unripe ;gs on the ground.


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4ime stopped. 7o matter how many #uestions I asked!because everything he explained begged more

#uestions""he patiently answered in a careully articulated manner which, or all its lawyer"like cadence and

logic, endeared me to him, each link in the chain drawing out the next like a magician bringing colored

ribbons without end rom his mouth. 2is entire body was in that speech, taking me out o my own.

-ould this articulation o bodies through stories that lead to other stories be evidence o the wearing away o

spirit that people say is the basic strategy o )ccupation$ 2ardly.


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hence pass the baton o witnessing along to me, to pass on to you in the hope, vain as it may be, that

witnessing becomes something more than consumption. 6ike travel and anthropology, reading has not only

its passions but responsibilities, too.

Saturday:Criving back to 8amallah early evening 3ameer mentioned that the song used or a man asking

or the hand o a woman is also sung collectively by people greeting the corpse o a person killed by Israeli

soldiers. It stopped me in my tracks. 2e was pretty well chain smoking as he drove with a beer in the other

hand, guiding the car through whiplash curves up and down the stony hillsides most o which have Israeli

settlements on the ridge as part o the now *natural+ landscape guarding the expansion each day deeper into

what is let o Palestine.

2e was reerring to what is called Daghareet, that spine"chilling sound we call ululation,pitching

reality into a wholly diferent register o being that eorges 'ataille, or one, would have no hesitation calling

*sacred.+ 6ater a riend explains that mothers are encouraged to sing when they ;nd out their son or

daughter has been killed by the Israeli soldiers. It is a way o expressing in almost religious terms that he has

not died in vain. 9any women do it especially the mothers/ or the catharsis o mourning, releasing shock

and pain. @nlike weddings with their songs relaying happy occasions and love, the women are sobbing!*a

contradiction so excessive so tremendous and so hard to watch, a prime example o the paradoxes and the

cray making you describe in your writing.+

&ter we dropped his mother of in 8amallah, and ater she had given me a bou#uet o the sweetest

smelling asmine to put under my pillow, a ragrance that drove us wild in the con;nes o the car, 3ameer

drove to the end o the street. 'eore us pitch black was a valley with a solitary light weaving its way slowly

through it. 4hat was Palestinian land, he said. 7ow its militaried and that, pointing to a nub o darkness

down below in the blackness, is a prison with about F11 political prisoners, orty o whom are on hunger

strike. )n top o the dark valley lights blaed. 6ookG 4hats 5erusalem, where I cannot go. )nly lookG

(e sat or what seemed an eternity looking at 5erusalem winking at us in the hot night as he lit

another cigarette.

8ight now, he said, there are some =011 political prisoners in the (est 'ank which seemed to me a

small number!and I was told it was unusually small/, but as I listened to Palestinians I elt prison was the

least important part o the Israeli choke hold because the whole o the (est 'ank is a prison and I guess aa

more so.HJ

It is a bewildering thing to be a prisoner in your own land. Imagine nobody resident in 'rooklyn is allowed

to go to 4imes 3#uare unless they have a special permit, something very ew people can ever get.

Imagine you cannot use 6a uardia, :ennedy, or 7ewark airports, but have to somehow ;nagle your way

with a myriad o permits and ICs to -anada by which I mean the airport in &mman, 5ordan, crossing the

&llenby 'ridge!note the name/ in order to board a plane. &nd o course many cannot even do that.

Imagine a straight line access between the cities o this tiny land. 4hen imagine a tortuous snake"like

twisting labyrinth o narrow and sometimes dangerous roads criss"crossing these immaculate straight roads

reserved or settlers racing rom their hill top redoubts to work or pick up their welare checks in 4el &viv or

5erusalem hal an hour away while you wait at check"points sometimes or hours, hoping it isnt closed that

day and that ate will be kind to you and let you through. I traveling by bus you disembark, then walk

through narrow chutes behind the person in ront!like cattle!pause or an arbitrary length o time beore

the turnstile clicks open thanks to an invisible or barely visible soldier in a sentry box gaing through a slit or
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at a computer screen. %ou show your papers then shuKe into another chute, and maybe a third one. &nd o

course some people never make it through. Imagine you are an adult living in 8amallah only a ew miles rom

5erusalem or the 9editerranean but have never once been able to visit 5erusalem or seen the sea ;g. =/.


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7ext to the palm tree in the patio there was an old olive tree showering us in the delicate shade o its

silver greenery. -an a symbol be so ex#uisitely symbolic that is more than a symbol$ &long the road into

'ethlehem rom 8amallah I saw rows o black stumps about thirty centimeters high, the wounded remains o

Palestinian olive groves cut down by the Israeli state so as to prevent attacks on the road. &t least that was

what I was told. 'ut then what cover does an olive grove provide since the trees are generally bare two

meters up rom the ground and ofer no hiding place$

4hose blackened stumps, like so many amputated limbs, are more than wounded remains. 4hey seem

like gravestones aligned in neat rows and diagonals as the settlers rewrite history beginning with the

cultivated landscape itsel. In this make"over o history, the olive tree is prooundly implicated, the arche

symbol o Palestinian ownership o the land, *ownership+ in the organic sense o what 9arx, ollowing

&ristotle, called *use value.+

6ater I saw olive trees by the side o the road that had been torched by settlers. iven the oil in the

trees, it must be #uite a sight or the settlers to see an olive grove ablae, something biblical, you could say,

biblical and prophetic, suggesting the wrath o od smiting the in;del, wreaking destruction on all sides.

4hree things told meO

Lery ew settlers plant or cultivate the olive. 4hey do, however, steal Palestinian olive trees.

Cestroying olive trees means the land is not cultivated, which makes it state owned according

to military laws in the occupied territories.+

3ince 11F the olive tree is the national tree o Israel.

(hat are we to make o this$

Olive Tree = Nature= Palestinian Old = (hat ill be!o"e / #sraeli Old

Olive Tree = $r!hai! %&"bol ('un) = Diale!ti!al #"ae (*en+a"in)

4he Israeli state adores trees, does it not$ 4he Israeli state is reen, is it not, *making the desert bloom+

and all that, as i what the Dionists encountered was, as they say, *a land without people or a people without

land,+ an uncultivated *desert.+ 2ence the eal with which the 5ewish 7ational 0M, continuing the work o the 'ritish Empire planting ast growing pines!not native to the region!

especially on borders between Israeli settlements and Palestinian armland so as to conceal the prior

existence o Palestinian villages and extend Israeli settlement, so I am told by the peasants o 'attir village

near 'ethlehem which boasts a wonderully ecient irrigation system dating to beore 8oman times. 4odayeight clans share the water, one clan a day, making an eight day week. 2ow anyone could have thought o

this land as a desert is beyond me. Cespite the predations o settlers I see intricate terracing o the hillsides

in many places, meticulous and beautiul, existing thousands o years beore Dionism.HQJ
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9y guide tells me people tried to get these 'attir terraces and armland @7E3-) heritage status but the

Palestinian &uthority blocked that efort saying that in light o the 5ohn :erry visit *it would be an ofense to

Israel.+

Bottom of Form

)n the internet site or the 5ewish 7ational 0M/. It must be #uite a eat, I thought to mysel, to uproot a tree

that sie and that age with such care that it can be replanted.

(hat is the idea here$ 4hat with your newly purchased olive tree you, too, belong to history, like a tree$

'ut o course it has to be more than that. &ter all the tree is a transplant and ater all the tree is not only

stolen but taken by orce and set into a completely diferent context!the ront yard o a house, maybe!
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becoming more like a war trophy. 3o what sort o antasy are you rooting yoursel into with your ru"i olive

tree$ Is this not a orm o )ccupation too, not o the (est 'ank but o your 3el$

3hortly beore taking his own lie in =>01, (alter 'enamin, inamous or blending the :abbalah with

9arx and Proust, wrote that not even the dead are sae rom the struggle over the images that have the

capacity to open memory in novel ways so that the present might change. 4hese diale!ti!al i"aes, as he

called them, come and go with electriying speed and have to be grasped beore they disappear once again.

3uch is the olive tree, its actual reality and the reality o its disappearance. 4he tree bears the aura o the

very old read ru"i) as spiritual nimbus yet combines that with the harsh reality o todays secular"material

world. It is both pre"historical and historical.

'enamin took his own lie but never took up his riend 3cholems repeated invitation to emigrate to

'ritish occupied Palestine in the thirties. 7evertheless his last writing, penned in =>01, on the catastrophe

that is history, can now be read as i written or Palestine and Palestinians both then and now.

*onday:8e the olive tree and attempts against all manner o Israeli obstruction to export * entitled The akin o $ Hu"an *o"b.

(ater is a problem or the Palestinian armers in the 5enin area and elsewhere because the Israeli state

prohibits their tapping into sub"surace water. )nly Israeli armers and settlers can do that. 4hat is why

Palestinian armers make canals o plastic material running between greenhouses to catch rain water of the

roos which is then channeled into ponds. 2ow long beore the Israeli state makes it necessary to have a

permit to use the rain$

&ter all, is there any nature anymore even in!especially in!Palestine, where unstinting military

occupation surely aims to control all o nature$ (hy not claim the rain as state property$ 4he greenhouses,

too, they are a novelty, an arti;cial means or intensiying production in an increasingly capital and chemical

based agriculture such that nature #ua nature disappears, or exists in complicated usions with technology. &

young man in a rented greenhouse shows me with the precision o a watchmaker how he has become a

human bee. Cetly he transers pollen rom male to emale plants by hand, a delicate and sensuous sexual

act that leaves me slightly disturbed. 7ever did I think I would see mimesis on this intimate scale. *7o bees

anymore,+ this human bee tells me, and he blames their absence on Israeli armers spraying cotton with

insecticides.

7ot to worry, however, not too much, because now you or a mere hundred dollars you can buy rom an

Israeli kibbut a small cardboard box with in"portals and exit"portals containing a ew bumblebees. 4hese little

tykes dwar your ordinary bee and can battle their ways through strong headwinds i youve had enough o

manual pollination.

Tuesday:In a caT in 8amallah I ask a young perormance artist whether she has worked with Israeli artists$

Is there much collaboration$ 3he winces, then tells me she was recently asked to contribute an essay to a


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book being put together by Israeli artists and she responded she might, but would preer to write instead on

why she was being asked. 2er ofer was reected. )r was it that she never heard back$ &nother writer, a

poet, writes *that I am very uncomortable raming the situation as two people who ust need to get along

and who ust dont understand each other. I have ound that, unortunately, the reality o a military

occupation becomes clouded when the message o Ubridging gaps o understanding between two people who

ust dont get alongUis perpetuated. It is like having to sit down with my rapist and understand his pain

while he is still penetrating me.+

/ednesday:It seemed we were never #uite sure i we were legal when driving in the (est 'ank. 4hrough

some vagrant desire or reedom or genuine bewilderment or simple derring do, she would push the car onto

a settler road and hope or the best. Israelis drive cars with yellow plates, Palestinians white ones, so its

pretty obvious i you are in the wrong place. )nce at night we hit a trac am which looked like there might

be a police or army check point up ront and she immediately turned the car around and sought out the sae

road, meaning the Palestinian road, meaning a longer, curvy, and perhaps dangerous road due to poor

upkeep, especially at night.

3pace in the (est 'ank is divided in three. 4here is the & area Palestinian &uthority administration and

security/, the ' area P& admin but IC< security/, and the - area IC< admin andsecurity/, by ar the largest.

'ut it seemed there was another area as well, the *grey area+ and thats the one most Palestinians are

caught in because the colonial *system+ created by the Israeli state keeps evolving overlapping and

contradictory rules ensuring uncertainty and arbitrariness as the tools o )ccupation or like all systems it has

its holes, opacities, and contradictions, what I elsewhere call *the 7ervous 3ystem+ adrit on an asymptotic

curve ever closer to sel"destruction.

In this regard &bu 7idal struck me as one o those almost natural phenomena another human bee$/

that bureaucracy and bullying can neither cope with nor comprehend. I say *natural+ because he not only had

a story to tell but he was the story!as 'enamin describes in his essay on the storyteller being the

embodiment o the tale, like Primo 6evi with his tale o survival in &uschwit, which is where many o my

relatives perished. 4he original title in Italian is something like # This #s a an, suggesting, to me at least,

that all o us are included and none o us innocent or know how we will behave when the chips are down.

7ow as the wall approaches, he and his daughter are being orced of this, their second arm, to

which, via a reugee camp, they relocated ater the village in which they previously lived, on the hillside

opposite, was demolished by the Israeli state to make way or a national park o pine trees. -ould the pine

trees have come rom a bumper crop o -hildrens


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2is red cap had a conspicuous white rectangle where he had removed the /o!a /ola logo. 2e described

himsel as a communist, then corrected himsel, saying with a laugh that he was *an organic communist,+

explaining that0erestroika was a terrible idea. @ncomortable serving tea upstairs in the ormal lounge room,

he took us downstairs where, surrounded by construction e#uipment, he liked to talk and set the world in

motion. Cown there he makes his own cigarettes which look actory made with little gold crowns on the shat,

and down there he eeds his newborn birds, the sie o a thumb nail. 2e had recently broken his arm but

instead o going to hospital set it himsel.

4he situation cannot last long, he says. 7o colonial power has ever lasted, and when the people in all

those ridiculous &rab states around us really rise up and overthrow the corrupt systems dominating them,

then all will change here too. 7o state based on religion can last because it is inherently racist.

(hat a surprise to hear that his amily includes people o 8ussian, Italian, and 5apanese descent. Images

o *ethnicity+ and purity crumble. &nd here he was, the *organic communist,+ more worthy as a role model

and 7obel Peace Prie than any politician with a 7ational Park named in their honor.

2is *park+ is a little smaller. 3urrounded by an electri;ed ence and with a tunnel under the wall to the

grave o his ancestors resting in the peace o an Israeli surveillance camera, should it not receive recognition,

too$ I can imagine Israeli kids and Palestinian kids camping there in the summers within the sae con;nes o

the ence gathering walnuts in the &bu 7idal )rganic -ommunist Park.

Thursday:In Palestine more than anywhere else Ive been, dates are critical bench marks in time that sculpt

present realityO the =>0M war, the =>QF war, the ;rst intiada, =>MF"=>>?, the )slo accords o =>>?, the

second intiada 111"11N!along with the demise o marriages and communism. & riend tells o how as a

kid she experienced the ;rst intiada in 8amallah with its roilling enthusiasm and excitement, the way people

in the (est today recall =>QM. 4he ront and back doors o the houses were kept unlocked so people could run

through and escape the soldiers in the street. 4hese doors were open in all households, or else. -hildhood

memories o being awoken by strangers running through the corridor. 4otal boycott o Israeli goods in allstores, or else. 3chool held in peoples homes. 4he university closed, classes in the street. -ontinuous

presence o Israel soldiers. 'ut the second intiada$ & arce, she says. & eeble copy o the ;rst because )slo,

meaning the Palestinian &uthority, compromised everything. It was not a *popular intiada+ but part o a

larger political game that had to do with &raats machinations with Israel. 4he world plummetedO the @338

collapsed =>>=/, 4he ul (ar took place =>>=/, )slo =>>?/, parents leave the communist party, parents

divorce, and ailure o the ;rst intiada.

Friday: * 3hall I continue$ 3hall I go on$+ It was a moment in which everything changes into the

timelessness o *this cant be real.+ (e were on a ridge outside o 'ethlehem. & white sedan was diagonally

stationed in ront o us across the narrow road with tall trees either side. 5ust beyond were two humvee"like

vehicles with soldiers clambering out, opening the back, seiing trumpet shaped riBes. 4hen they stood stillpaying no attention to us. *'order soldiers,+ she said. *4he worst.+ 3ilence. *3hall I go on$+ 4he car in ront

nosed its way between the two military vehicles and we ollowed it. 4here was a loud ka-thu"0, the sound o

tear gas guns ;ring one hundred yards behind us and a canister came awully close. *8oll up the windowG+

7ot even enough time or ear. &round the corner peered a group o kids like in a cartoon, only it wasnt, girls

leading the boys, some with stones in their hands. 4hey were rom eight to twelve years o age. (e sped on.

Saturday:I receive an email rom a young woman!the anthropologist &mahl 'ishara!involved in the youth

center in the camp in 'ethlehem. *4he sad news rom here,+ she writes, *is that 9ohammad &l"&a, the man

who took you around and who was inured in the ace, was ust arrested in the middle o the night yesterday


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by the Israeli army. It was an especially violent raid, with doens o soldiers in their house. 9ohammadUs

parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins were all beaten!three went to the hospital!and he was beaten as well. It

looks like the arrest is because o his photography work, though we wonUt hear ocial charges or a ew days.

7o one can be in touch with him now except that one meeting wV the lawyer, which I think he was lucky to

get/. 3o that is rough.+H>J

3o that is rough.+ I rack my brains trying to think o what I can do, paralyed by anger, dismay, and

no options. )nly yesterday, or was it the day beore, I was sitting with this man drinking cofee with the

snipers tower visible above his let shoulder as i we were on a stage set with the cameras ready to roll. )nly

it was no stage set. It was magical realism or sure, only the magic was very sinister.

& riend in the @3& who works a lot with photographers responds to an email I write him, asking me

what do I have in mind when I suggest some response. It is an unanswerable #uestion. 2e says that the story

*is all over the internet+ and that it is well known that the IC< targets media people. I eel impotent. 'eing *all

over the internet+ seems in todays world not only the best way o removing something rom sight but instant

death o the spirit and imagination as the images disappear into that vortex o plastic said to be the sie o

4exas Boating in the Paci;c )cean, which reminds me o the many emails I have received, ending with *2ave

a great time in Palestine.+

&nother riend suggests I check out aan, a Palestinian news agency online that amongst other

things documents the many depredations o the )ccupation. I scroll down and down and down some more

until the acts become lost in white noise.

I try to place mysel in the shoes o people back home in the @3& dealing with everyday issues, the

heat, buying groceries, ob anxieties, amily rituals, whatever!like 9arlow in Heart o Darkness vainly trying

to get across to his listeners in England how impossible it is to convey the reality o the -ongo. *%ou cant

understand,+ he says. *2ow could you$!with solid pavement under your eet, surrounded by kind neighbours

ready to cheer you on or to all on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman . . .+H=1J

&nd the radicals are the worst, i only because they have their boxes into which to slot shit. Even

worse are the *missionaries,+ pleading their cause.

Sunday:In the hills above a Palestinian village near the university o 'ireit, thirty minutes rom 8amallah by

car, there is a huge Israeli settlement on the ridge lying opposite a huge Palestinian reugee camp spreading

down the slope. &ll the contradictions are here piled on top o each other, a stones throw apart. 3ameers

riends parents live lower down the hillside in a two story modest home o concrete and stone painted a sot

brown which they built a ew years back, now surrounded by almond trees, ;g trees, plum trees, Bowering

aubergine, tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables. It was late aternoon. 4he ather was on his knees

tending his plants and the publisher mom was lying in a tiny pool not much bigger than a bath tub watching

him. 3ameer explained that the ather had been a militant years back but since then has dedicated himsel to

this precious garden. 4he mom published childrens books but gave up because the Israeli state made it toodicult to export books out o the (est 'ank, which has too small a market to sustain publishing. 3he tried to

set up publication o her books in 'eirut and &mman, but the costs were prohibitive and she eventually ound

a ob with an 7) in -airo. (ith that salary they were able to build this little house. Lisiting rom 6ondon was

her daughter with her husband who works there in 2uman 8ights and is in Palestine investigating the killing

o a thirteen year old boy shot in the back by Israeli soldiers or breaking through the inamous wall. 3oldiers

are instructed to ;re with real bullets i their lives are deemed at risk. 3hooting a kid in the back suggests

something else.
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&s the sun set around MO?1 we walked up the hillside with a Bashlight to inspect a newly ound ancient

grave, unearthed by bulldoers digging the oundation or a neighboring home.

4hree meters above the ground, suspended on stones, was a huge stone slab about ;ve meters long

and thirty centimeters thick. &t ground level was a s#uare opening barely large enough to allow a human

body get through. 3ome adorable puppies were playing by it.


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4he second is my community

4he third is the Palestinian &uthority

4he ourth is the Israeli )ccupation

4he ;th occupation is the swarm o 7)s in the (est 'ank

&nd the sixth is global capital.

/ednesday: -aro insisted we visit 2ebron because she had such searing memories o the place rom a visit

the year beore. &la nodded, as i he knew what she meant. *9icro"ethnic cleansing,+ he said.

3tanding on the roo o a Palestinian oce building in the )ld -ity o 2ebron, we could see the stony

hills surrounding. )n each there was an Israeli military base, three in all, and, in addition to the standard

Israeli strategy carving up the (est 'ank into three areas &, ', and -, I was told there were additional sub"

divisions operating within the city itsel, 2= under Palestinian &uthority control, M1S o the city, and 2, the

remaining 1S under Israeli control, reBecting its divided and tense character as a religious center o

staggering importance or 9uslims and or 5ews and thus a microcosm o the conBict as a whole.

(hy is this city o such sacred importance$ In part because o its oundational role or both 9uslims and 5ews

in the ;gure o &braham, who is buried here. In part it is also sacred because o massacres. In =>> sixty

seven 5ews were massacred and in =>>0 a 7ew %ork born Israeli"&merican settler, Cr. 'aruch oldstein,

stormed the mos#ue during 8amadan killing twenty nine people at prayer with a machine gun and wounding

some =N1 others. 4he crowd killed him.H==J

3ince =>QF the mos#ue housing &brahams grave has been divided into a mos#ue and a synagogue. 4he

centerpiece is the replica o the tomb o &braham. -overed with a green cloth with gold embroidery it is

visible through iron grates on its mos#ue side and also rom the synagogue side, although that view is

partially obscured by a sheet o bulletproo glass.

Inside the mos#ue is dark, high ceilinged, and relaxed, with deep cool shadows. :ids play in it while in a

corner some doen women sit in a circle, taking instruction rom a woman teacher. )n what$ )h, marriage

and men and women . . .

4o get to the synagogue section o what beore was all mos#ue, I have to walk past concrete barriers and

soldiers. 4he synagogue is brightly lit and overBowing with books in 2ebrew. & veritable library. 9en in black

suits and black hats sit isolated rom one another reading as i their lives depend on it, as I guess it does,

nervously rocking the upper body orwards and backwards while others seem to be praying as they read, thesot whispered voice giving bodily expression to the primacy o the printed word. 4here are ew children. 4he

women stand in the back and as a group rock back and orth while praying, each one with her own book.

I see a text on the wall which I take to be stunningly, i unintentionally, allegorical, purporting to document

the stealthy transgression into the mos#ue by Israelis searching or the holy o holies, the cave deep in the

earth containing the remains o &braham and that sweet sot ragrance o the arden o Eden itsel. It reads

like a dream, a most disturbing dream, surreal and cinematic.
http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/two_weeks_in_palestine/#_ftn11http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/two_weeks_in_palestine/#_ftn11http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/two_weeks_in_palestine/#_ftn11


13/15

nterin# the cae o *achppela y oa& rnon

1olloin the return to Hebron, 'es desired to rea!h the a!tual !aves o a!h00ela, buried dee0

beneath the hue Herodian stru!ture.

Deense inister oshe Da&an, an a"ateur ar!haeoloist, tried to seek inor"ation !on!ernin the

underround !averns. Within the lare hall, !alled the 2Yit3hak Hall,4 under a bron "onu"ent, there is a

hole in the 5oor. This as ru"ored to be an entran!e into the /aves o the a!h00ela the"elves. Hoever,

the dia"eter o the hole as e6tre"el& narro789 !enti"eters. No adult !ould 0ossibl& t throuh this

o0enin, but Da&an ound a solution. $ telve-&ear-old irl na"ed i!hal, &oun but !ouraeous, areed to

be loered into the underround roo".

One niht in O!tober, ;, the usli" reliious trust, let and ent to slee0. %eein this e brouht

ith us a bi !hisel to the "idniht 0ra&er servi!e. #n the "iddle o the servi!e, e bean to sin and dan!e.

Durin the dan!in, so"e o us "ade our a& to the $rab 0ra&er-rus, lited the", and revealed the stone. #t

as held in 0la!e b& "etal bars . . . %uddenl& e elt a bree3e, the !ave dee0 in the earth. We ound bones

and 0otter&7dated about 8,


14/15

Cays later I was told by a new riend that she had spent the day with villagers whose ;elds had been

swamped by sewage rom an Israeli settlement.

Thursday:Every night that I went to sleep in 'ethlehem, knowing that a brilliant sun would wake me early,

pouring through the blindless windows into my large white bedroom, I thought o the owners who must have

slept in this very same bed beore Beeing to the @3& during the second intiada111"11N/.H=J7obodylived in this large house on a steep hill except or one o the daughters. 4he high"ceilinged rooms downstairs

were dark with the shutters closed all the time, emitting a sad empty eeling o absence you could cut with a

knie were it not or the grace o the daughter like a Bame illuminating the shadows, the shadows o exile.

(ashing lay in piles on couches upstairs as i the ;nal task o storing them in closets was ust too much. 7ext

to the closet in my room were two bullet holes rom the intiada, the others having been covered over.

4hank you or connecting to the invisible!or not sleeping in a room without honoring the spirit o

those who lived in it, or not looking at my abandoned laundry as mere reBection o neglect!yes!it is a task

too much to do... to put away everything in the closet, to declare in such an action that all is well, that

everything is organied, that the people are coming home... I donUt think anyone is coming home anytime

soon... and that is perhaps the hardest reality to digest and why this wash is still laying here weeks ater your

departure.+

9y guide had a preternaturally keen eye or birds Bying high in the sky, dots disappearing into the blue.

(hat do you call them in &rabic, I asked.$busaad, she said,


15/15

days and days about the Q prisoners who should be released in the ;rst installment, and about how my

brother in law was on a list published in an Israeli paper and republished widely/. 'ut no one ever said that

list was organied by when the prisoners would be released W it was organied in terms o date o arrestX 'ut

what else is there to think about, aside rom these numbers$ )ther numbersO he has been in prison or

years, and my mother"in"laws riends son has been in or > years, and the longest serving political prisoner

o the group has been behind bars or ?1 years. &s we wait to hear about my brother"in"law, the amily has

installed new lighting in the house they built or him, repainted the walls in ashionable textured beige paint,

put in granite countertops in the kitchenX+

H?J7asser &buarha, The akin o a Hu"an *o"b CurhamO Cuke @niversity Press/, 11>O ==0"=N

H0J9ost o the people I met spoke English which seems widespread in the (est 'ank.

HNJ3ee the article by &hmal 'ishara on his shooting in

&prilOhttpOVVphotography.adaliyya.comVpagesVindexV==0NVa"cameraSESM1S>>s"view";nder"conronts"a"

gun"sight

HQJ)n the internet I read that in 3eptember 11F the olive was elected as the national tree o the 3tate o

Israel. &lso that the national emblem is a shield which contains a 9enorah in its center, two olive branches on

both sides o the 9enorah and at the bottom the label YIsraelY. 4he emblem was designed by the

brothersabriel and 9axim 3hamir,and was ocially chosen on =1 0> rom among many other

proposals submitted as part o a design competition held in =>0M.

HFJI discover that the name u"i was applied in medieval &sia 9inor to the lands o what was the Eastern

8oman empire. -emal :aadar, *eteen To Worlds: The /onstru!tion o the Otto"an %tate 'erkely, etcO

@niversity o -aliornia Press/, =>>N, pp. ="

HMJ3ee Livien 3ansour, *Exhuming 2ope

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Palestina Taussig