The refugee and the foreigner

I cannot know the nation of your memory; her history is occupied. Palestine is a name, a just fight, but a human name, ascribed to define not a boundary of earth, but the essence of a people and the home for which they long. There is injustice that I, a foreigner, retain my right to walk upon these sands, while a man expelled does not. Human rights cannot be given, only denied. I am not lucky to have my rights in hand, they are mine, by right, to live and die for. But as your rights are denied, I inherit the responsibility to live and die for them as well. I am a refugee in your Palestine. And like you, I am rooted to her and my blood was spilled into her soil. Perhaps I may come and go as I wish, and perhaps I am a fighter, bound within her memory. The zionist lays claim, binds her in razor wire and punctures her breast with mast and flag. But his presence cannot spoil what will outlast him, and us. When the last of the occupiers is gone, her wounds will heal and she will remember us not by name, but by deed when we were in the company of each other.

Shaden's son

We sipped our coffee and pondered the survived beauty of the city beneath us. Frank's foot rose above venturing ants, hovered undecided on their fate, though he had not begun to consider the implication of ending what he failed yet to recognize as a life. Sa'ed scolded him with the authority of an abrupt poet, the consequences crystalized in that instant. But the poet's voice, halted, could not belie the tenderness of its source.

Memory can scald, inwardly collapsing worlds that condense to unbearable weights bound impossibly within. Legacies are felt with hands, seen on the softened faces caressed by the individual who embodies them. They are carried by the collective, flags relieved in favor of what she gave a generation of sons.

'God willing' is not an expression of doubt, but the sounding of a promise we are being looked after. It is faith, not merely hope, that we will meet on this holy path again, to walk a few more steps together in a changed tomorrow.

-In loving memory of Shaden Abu Hijleh
killed October 11, 2002

The Olive Harvest

Hello! Hello!
Ya Haramiyye!
Allah hu Akbar!

A worn man rises swiftly from a recliner, its muted fabric dusted and torn in the dirt and soil shade of olive trees still alive amidst the discards of this broken city, a remnant orchard boxed in a Rockefeller project.

He’s upon the two women in an instant, pulling at the synthetic burlap of a bag not even half empty. Her old hands are impossibly strong. This woman banished, ventured from the camp. Her hands are rough, as rough as his. Such calluses never relinquish their utility.

He pulls with insistence,
but not violence, his anger tempered by her desperation. His case booms, right but not righteous, not framed within rules worth following. It’s a reverse mugging in Central Park East, after the sun has fallen to earth and burned our homes and skin, everything but the biblical, symbols of hope and promise.

He takes care not to offend this thief. His hands maneuver deftly around her staid grasp. He never touches her, not once, decorum beguiling, colors of our compassionate nature painting the summer faded.

They wind down. He sits and smokes. They sit and listen. In the refuge of stolen provision, his appeals steadily lose bite, a man drowned whose nervous impulses force desultory relent. Kick, spasm and twitch last appeals to the onlookers.

It’s over. He collapsed, defeated and redeemed in his recliner. They, with his scant harvest, up the slope and back to exile.

In returned silence, the police drive slowly past, obligated if not curious. They do not stop.

mourning

I am a concept

you desire

life outside pages

wandering sick streets

gasp smoke

to sear your lungs

cry still conception

to drown your delusion

a single drop will do

what want will not

form clay from stone

trace my contours

as we ponder my colors

beg

for truth

plead this image

this flat form sees

the shape of you

mourning the loss of me

that look that look

My mother once said that when a man most needs help, he is least able to accept it. I looked on as my parents went their separate ways along inevitably not so separate paths until a tolerable semblance of separateness overcame the ten little hands stretched inexorably across the void, fingers grasping, sweating, connecting, if only for parents’ desperate memories of what was best for them, that is to say, keeping it together for the kids’ sake, until finally, destiny and odds caught pace, content to release a mother determined to defy the old, “Babies having babies” addage, but not, as it came to pass, the father. Her path inclined up, but not gently, toward greener pastures, while his dropped sharply in another direction, jutting into a concrete maze of single room apartments for the forever single, cordially proximate to the local, not so friendly neighborhood liquor and lifestyle store. On my hilltop perch, squinting through the haze to the second of these paths, I watched as my father become a grandfather.

I’ve seen the look of a man in desperate need but lacking the requisite of request, eyes sunken beneath wrinkles and time and reality, the betrayal of his faded former self, too tired to grasp at the edges of the socket and pull to freedom. The body distended and bleeding inside. The wilted strength of a man both young and old. The steps faltering more than once on that long, lonely walk to the other side. The quiet, reflective sort of sadness hiding in those deep eyes, chaos boiling behind but never boiling over.

A prisoner can slam his fists into white painted walls until they streak crimson, but when his voice ceases to resonate and fails to echo even unto itself, when the guards fall silent beyond the limits of doubt they remain at all, when the prisoner knows he is alone, when crimson becomes oxblood becomes black, only the look, that look that look remains.

I see it reflected in eyes that dig into me and ask without asking what’s wrong, where have you been, you look tired, are you ok, what’s the matter what’s the matter. I was asked twice today why Balata. Why would I pick that place, those nights, those sleepless nights, the gunfire that can’t startle a response no matter how hard it tries, the soldiers, the spotlights, the burning homes, the listless, the shadeless, the steel bars over shattered glass, the look my eyes earned there, the price they paid.

My first answer was automatic. I have to try harder, have to live harder to have the right to speak about this life I’m only visiting when I decide finally to leave it. I have to bleed and burn. I have to earn it. The hills of this valley are too close. I’d see the flash, count the seconds, curse the thunder.

My second answer was quieter. This city is a grandfather, he breathes and laughs and mourns. If you stay the winter, you will admire his best suit, a pressed starched shirt and tie, enjoy his knaffe and Turkish bath, smile to the smile of an unassuming man obliged to welcome a guest and shelter him from the rain.

Stay the spring, and between the city’s mountains adorned white, against backdrops of deep green and birth, you will hear the crack and scream of his enemy’s bullets. You will see the balaclava clad stalk its ancient seams. You will leave a wise man.

Stay the summer and you will know his grandsons’ rage. A hot wind will drape Gulf dust across the city. Stare to the gale and it will pull your tears from their corners, evaporate and abscond with them before they are called upon to fall. His family will reveal itself to be families, the colors of their masks will emerge blue and red and black. As habibis become malak zelemehs and welcomes become where have you beens, your eyes will begin their retreat. Slowly, steadily, defensively, instinctively, less sure of the for sures.

You will stand halted on a path that was so recently familiar so recently rising, as he sets you off his shoulders and acends to your own. His handshake will become an embrace, a gift and curse. His shaking arms will tighten as you lay hot against his woolen jacket of patchwork and torn, empty pockets. Pass the threshhold of cologne and the sweet and sour odor of a tired man will soak through your salt and rust skin. Feel the weight of his love and know you are family and family is forever. Relent as he pulls tighter. That is the choice you made. This is the changing of the season. To accept him is to accept his past and his father’s past, his children, their tragedies, their graves, his enemy, his dreams, his shattered dreams. Quiet your voice, silence your objection. Put your head to his frail, undying chest and listen, listen for the first time, to his heart still beating within.

This city heaves with collective strength. Breathes in as one, exhales as one. The air is shared between so many, the weight, the weight. It closes in on the pharaoh, unstoppable, unyielding. Quiet your voice, silence your objection. Listen to his heart, still beating within. Do not leave him alone. The fall is near.

Untitled

The sea rounded stones of Tiberia
refused to release me.
I fell to my knees in pain.
I could have drowned there.

Why could I not stand
where He stood?
Why could I not believe
the way he believed?

God is a secret.

I know the smell of plastic and flesh
burning.
I know the taste of blood and spent shells
on pavement.

I could have drowned there.

Human Shields

Apr 14, 2007 – Nablus

During a recent raid on the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) operating in the Sheikh Munis neighborhood surrounded a house and began demolishing it, though the man they had come to arrest was not present. Below the scene, on the main road from Huwarra Checkpoint toward Balata Refugee Camp, soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled in an effort to prevent residents and journalists from accessing the area. Soldiers fired tear gas, percussion grenades and rubber-coated ammunition as local youths responded to the incursion by throwing stones.

As a young man passed a military humvee, soldiers reached out and began attempting to pull him into the vehicle. The boy protested and was soon joined by second man who spoke with the soldiers in an effort to secure his release. Subsequently, both men were made to stand in front of the humvee to discourage the stone throwers. The incident was caught on tape by a human rights activist and has set off a fresh round of intense media scrutiny into the use of human shields by the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Sam Neil, of the Research Journalism Initiative, a human rights organization based in the West Bank, filmed the incident and was shocked by the international reaction.

“I’m surprised by the debate this footage has sparked,” said Neil. “The international community is treating this as if there is a chance the Israeli military might be using human shields. There is no doubt they use human shields, and have as a standard practice for a very long time.”

The use of human shields has long been forbidden by international law under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the practice was even banned by Israel’s own supreme court in an Oct, 2005 ruling. The decision forbids using civilians for military purposes even if they have agreed to do so, as the dramatic imbalance of power in such situations renders genuine consent impossible to obtain. In an affidavit presented by Adallah, an Arab Israeli human rights organization, an Israeli reservist admitted, "No civilian would refuse a 'request' presented to him at 0300 by a group of soldiers aiming their cocked rifles at him." Despite the clear requirements of the court rulings, Israeli forces have routinely violated human rights law and continue to employ civilians during military operations.

Often, the practice can be far subtler than firing over the shoulders of a captive. By confiscating Palestinians’ identity cards, Israeli soldiers are able to detain civilians at length during military incursions. Palestinians accosted by soldiers without ID are immediately arrested. Said Neil, “I’ve personally witnessed Israeli soldiers using human shields in various capacities nearly a dozen times since 2003. I’ve seen soldiers detain adults with their children for hours, forcing them to sit beside military vehicles for their IDs to be returned while soldiers conduct house searches and other operations.”

“One of the fundamental problems is the requirement for video proof of such activities. The West dismisses victims’ testimony immediately. The dismissal is racist and endemic.”

During Israel’s February 2007 invasion into Nablus, human rights organizations documented several incidents in which the IOF forced Palestinian civilians, including children, to serve as human shields during search operations. The Research Journalism Initiative submitted a filmed interview with eleven-year-old Jihan Tahdush to the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem, in which she recounted how soldiers had kidnapped her and forced her to lead them into neighboring homes.

In her testimony to B’Tselem, Tahdush said, “I went down the steps leading to the neighborhood. The soldiers walked behind me. The soldier had his weapon aimed in front of him. He said to me, "Slowly, slowly, don't be scared, we're with you."

During the invasion, an Associated Press television crew managed to film Israeli soldiers forcing 24-year-old Sameh Amira to lead them into homes of suspected resistance fighters. The rare footage ignited widespread international outrage over the practice. The Israeli military says it has launched an inquiry, though without a thorough, independent investigation, such an inquiry is inadequate.

“The army launching its own investigation is equivalent to a company conducting its own IRS tax audit,” said Neil. “It is time that the international community hold Israel responsible for its disregard of human rights law.”

For its part, the IOF has released a statement that it will investigate the most recent incident, and that the commanding officer, whose name was not released, has been suspended from operational duties. Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti dismissed the announcement.

"They are treating it as an isolated incident," he said. "The problem is systematic and ... they (troops) continued the practice despite the (Supreme) Court order," he said.

Sam Neil is an activist with the Research Journalism Initiative in Nablus. He can be contacted at ripplescross@yahoo.com.

www.ResearchJournalismInitiative.net