Letters from Palestine: Cell Phones, Cyber-Dating, and “Explosions of the Heart”

By Jehad Al-Iweiwi

Yesterday was the third day of the curfew. It's starting to get to me. I spend my time entertaining the kids and cooking "strange" food for the family. Yesterday I brought North America to Palestine; I made cheesecake. The kids hated it; the grown ups could not get enough of it.

One major advantage to a curfew is having everyone around. Yesterday was eventful, entertaining and long. During the daytime I was at my brother Ali's apartment. He had a bunch of his friends over. They were charming, young and articulate. Some of them are at least 10 years younger, and more experienced, than I am. Many of them are my cousins. Most of them, including Ali, are newly married and excited.

All of them have at least one Jawwal; one of the Arabic words for mobile phone.

The phones are constantly ringing or receiving text messages. The most popular mode of communications among young Palestinian men and women is the use of the cell phone technology of text messaging, known as "sms."

One can receive a breaking news story, racy jokes or juicy gossip. However, the mother of all usage is, you guessed it, dating.

The messages range from sweet and innocent to high tech courting and cajoling. The cell phone has become the messenger of love in a place where occupation and tradition make young people's life, at best, challenging. Boys share their messages with each other; so do girls. Their worlds are separate yet well connected.

Other useful application of the cell phone is the monitoring of tanks and soldiers' movements. My brother Kifah, the one family member with the most experience in Israeli jails and the only brother to visit me in Canada, got forewarned about the troop movements toward our house and his and my other brother’s imminent arrest. He got dressed appropriately. He was ready.

No more than 10 minutes later more than 50 soldiers were around and inside the house. When they left they took Omar, Ali and Kifah. Today, my mother hesitantly laughs about it, as she does about all the previous times the soldiers came and arrested one of her children.

Yesterday the boys allowed me into their fascinating and sophisticated world. They shared with me their jokes, gossip and news. Though fascinating and immensely entertaining, I was more interested in something else. I was praying for a moment's entry into their world of cyber-dating.

I was finally granted a delightful invite to a world I thought, wrongly, I knew something about.

The messages that these young, romantic and revolutionary lovers exchange are equally creative, romantic and certainly revolutionary. All these lovers seem to intently follow the famed Arab poet Nizar Qabbani when he said, "I do not believe in a love that bears no revolutionary character."

Neither do they.

I was writing some of the messages down as they read them for me. They are sweet, funny and express raw devotion and loyalty. They are crushingly romantic and hopelessly flirtatious. The flexibility of the Arabic language helps create really beautiful phrases. They are poetic with creative rhymes, descriptive and explicitly suggestive. Virtual advances that would be unimaginable and, perhaps, unwelcomed by the opposite sex, in the real world.

Translation of these priceless lines makes it difficult to remain true to their poetic intentions. In Arabic, love has at least a dozen words describing various forms and degrees of it. I really like the ones that combine the political reality with deep feelings.

“You are the embodiment of beauty, love, romance and infatuation.”

“There is a huge explosion in my heart and your love claimed responsibility".

"I will send love missiles and destroy the towers of your heart if you forget me.” (Signed by “A terrorist lover.”)

In Arabic, they sound fierce and fabulous. Sometimes, one of the boys gets a hold of another boy's girlfriend’s number. The outcome is funny and sometimes disastrous.

My cousin Wasim is a creative rascal and a handsome devil. Pretending he is my other cousin Husam, he sent Husam's fiancée a message that included a picture of a monkey and underneath it a message that read, “Everything between us is over. This is your picture--take it.”

Needless to say the young woman was furious and threw her engagement ring in his face. The fight lasted four hours. This is apparently a long fight. Wasim offered the routine explanation followed by a heartfelt apology.

Of course, not all messages are brilliant. In fact some are cheesy and uninventive. Some are very funny though. One message says: “You have my life, you have my heart, you have my world--do you have $100 to lend me?” I think its funny.

All the young men exchanging these messages are products of the first Intifada. Most of them spent times in Israeli jails. I love their stories, devotion and intense passion for their lovers, Palestine and girlfriends.