Letters from Palestine: Babies and Blockades

By Jehad Al-Iweiwi

Yesterday was June 6, 2003, the 36th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine. It was a day like any other day. Despite 36 years of occupation, the people have not forgotten. They are well informed about everything. Iraq and Palestine are the topic of the hour.

Everyone has an opinion. Since I arrived here, I have been listening to people’s analysis of the situation and what will become of Palestine. Discussions are numerous, fierce, and very funny. Humor peppers all political discussion.

However, it seems it is only me who laughs.

I spent the first few nights laughing before realizing no one else was. People are tired and angry.

Their demand now is to remove the roadblocks. No matter how I, or many others, explain the horror of the roadblocks and road closures, one must experience it to realize the level of humiliation that Israel visits on Palestinians.

The Aqaba meeting between Abu Mazen, Sharon and Bush has inspired many jokes. One said it best. Before the meeting we used to get searched one way; after the conference, it’s both ways.

I have not left Khalil (Hebron) since I got here. No time to go anywhere and no way to go anywhere. Traveling to Halhoul, which is the town adjacent to Khalil, is impossible. A huge concrete block ensures that no cars or donkeys are able to go through. You have to take a car to one side of the rubble, then walk to the other side and take a car until the next roadblock. A whole impressive new industry has emerged to move people around road closures.

To make the picture closer to home, imagine you are in North York and want to go to Scarborough. That should not take you more than a couple of hours even if you had to take every side way and backyard you can think of. However, all roads are barred to Palestinians and only accessible if you are a Jew. How Jews can live with this apartheid baffles me! Somehow, people are unstoppable; they go back and forth, build homes and markets, get married and have babies. Lots of beautiful little babies are everywhere.

Babies--the indestructible weapon of the Palestinians.

My cousin Alla' was released as a result of the Aqaba meeting. He had four days left in his sentence. All of those who were released except for one, Abu Sukar, had less than 10 days left to serve. People feel the Aqaba meeting was just another funny joke at their expense.

All roadblocks are intact. Not a single Palestinian village, town, or city is accessible to the one next to it. I am not talking about going to Tel Aviv or Haifa--this is the reality within the West Bank. As for Gaza, you have a better chance of going to Pakistan from Khalil than going to Gaza. Gaza is less than 80 km from where my family lives. The West Bank is no more than 200km from north to south. If you want to cross it today, it would take one week. Yet, people go to Nablus from Khalil and from Jenin to Bethlehem.

If the Israelis were to experience for only 36 days what the Palestinians have been going through for the past 36 years, I am not sure how they will react. Seeing the reality on the ground, it is a fact that Israel has lost all morality, and its practices are crimes against humanity. Every Palestinian has a story of humiliation, pain, and loss. The state of Israel clearly takes pride and joy in its horrific policy of collective punishment.

I was taken to see a 7-story building where Israeli occupation forces blew up the left side of the second floor. All 100 residents of the building are without homes. Thank God for our large families. They are living with relatives now.

All shops on roads connecting the five Jewish enclaves in the city of Hebron are closed. Palestinians can use these roads whenever the Israeli occupation forces allow them and when the settlers do not throw eggs and stones at them, which is rare. This is the middle of the most populous city in the West Bank; again, this is not Haifa or Tel Aviv. The road connecting the Jewish settlements in the city includes the ones leading to the once bustling central bus station, the fruit and vegetable market, and the city's two large cemeteries. As a result, the bus station had to relocate to a different part of the city, creating sheer chaos in the city streets. Buses do not go further than 10-15 km in any direction.

The food market also moved to different parts of the city resulting in equal havoc. This reality creates crowded streets and short tempers, a disastrous mix. The once crowded and lively historic old city is nearly empty. In Hebron, almost everything is valued by its ability to create wealth. Shops in the old city including one of ours, were sold for more than 100,000 Jordanian Dinars (about $140,000); today its worth is not even one-tenth of that. One of my fondest memories growing up in Khalil is going shopping with my late grandfather in the old city market. The market is said to be more than 800 years-old. The old city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. I remember it beautiful, crowded, chaotic and warm. The merchants' chants selling their products were poetic.

In fact, I still remember a few of them (can’t translate them). Today, it’s sad, gloomy, and abandoned except for soldiers, settlers and defiant old men who still drink at Badran Coffee Shop (their sign says it’s the oldest coffee house in the world—I believe it). My family (the larger Aliweiwi clan) is from Al-Qazazeen section of the old city. My Israeli occupation issued ID card listed my address as that many years after my family left the old city and spread all over the city, Palestine, and the world. All family legends are from places in the old city and characters who lived there. In fact, one still lives there, and the other goes and opens his shop, until today. Both were at my brothers' weddings.

They look great and their stories are delicious treats. I do not like to go to the old city anymore. I cannot find Fakhouri's Falafel any more nor the tasty puddings that Abu Nazmi sold at the market entrance. It saddens me the most. I seek the sweet memories of a place that shaped me and where my roots are firmly planted. I don’t want to see it gloomy and ugly. Jewish settlers do not see any problem with re-arranging the lives of more than 40,000 Palestinians to accommodate the 500 of them. This is the height of immorality and criminality. I know I will go to the market and try to find familiar things.

Love from Palestine.

This is the second in a series of letters from Palestine by Jehad Al-Iweiwi, a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

Letter 1: A Canadian Comes Home to Hebron