Well my friends, the nightmare on Ma’arif Street (my street) in Al-Bireh/Ramallah came to an end today at around 6pm. Ourunwanted and uninvited IDF ” guests ” left the house across the streetand took with them all the tanks, jeeps and armored personnelcarriers. I hope they also took away a valuable lesson, how easy it isto withdraw and yet live and let live!
Yesterday we had a never-ending coming and going of tanks andarmored personnel carriers (APC). The sound and diesel smell goton all of our nerves by nightfall. We were just starting to recognizethe faces of the soldiers. We started classifying them, he is good,he is mean, he is stupid, he hates us, he looks disgusted, and on.We would have liked to put names to the faces but that’s notpossible under occupation. Areen even had a few of the whiteprinted identification numbers on the tanks memorized (Areenstands behind me as I write and wants everyone to know that theleast disturbing group of soldiers came in a tank numbered 756689).
One new armored personnel carrier joined the group early yesterdaymorning and had a group of soldiers that took joy in being part of theoccupation. They were loud and one of them that had guard dutycame out in the middle of the street in full daylight and urinated in fullview of all. I was in another room at the time but my family had towitness this sophisticated form of humiliation. I’m not talking about asolider that just had to do it and hid his act. I’m talking about walkingout in middle of street, point to houses and let it all hang out. I guessit was only a Palestinian street and neighborhood! Disgusting, likethe orders that sent him here.
Today (and yesterday), the Israeli army lifted the curfew from 9am to2pm so people could shop and students could try to make up theiryear-end exams. I can’t even imagine how students are expected toconcentrate. My cousin Ammar used the curfew lifting to make it toBir Zeit University where he will stay for 20 days with the professors,at the request of the University, in order for college to finish thesemester. I have no idea where the University will house a fewthousand people. Ammar lives less than 10 minutes from thecampus but can’t travel every day due to closures and checkpoints.
Today, my father and I used the lifting to head to Tel Aviv to renewour visas to Jordan. I use to go to Tel Aviv, for business or pleasure,at least 3 times a week prior to the Intifada. Today was my third timein almost 2 years. We were lucky that the infamous Kalandiacheckpoint was not packed and the delay was minimal, unlike thehumiliation, which has reached a climax with every Palestinian. Thewhole trip took 4.5 hours. It should take less than 2.5. As I said,today was a ” good ” day at the checkpoint and we have US passportsthat allowed us to go in the first place. It could easily take 6-8. Non-foreign passport holders are not allowed out of Kalandia, i.e. my wifeand girls.
Driving to the Jordanian embassy today I noticed things I nevernoticed before in Tel Aviv. First, the number of times Areen calledmy mobile to make sure we were ok. In normal times I spend a lotof time out of the house and she never was so worried. On the wayto Tel Aviv we saw tens of bulldozers. Not the dark green,bulletproofed bulldozers destroying building in Palestinian cities,were bright yellowish-orange construction bulldozers buildingJewish-only settlements everywhere you turn your head. FromKalandia to the 1967 border (Latrun intersection), mountaintops andvalleys alike were being cut up, diced up, dug up, and every other upyou can think of. New illegal construction is proceeding as if nothingwas wrong. My father went into a minor trance.with every passingsettlement he kept rhetorically asking the taxi driver and me if theIsraelis thought they would get away with this. I was in my own littletrance and just kept shaking my head in puzzlement. The taxi driver,working on earning his tip, popped in a patriotic cassette thinking itwould help. It didn’t.
In Tel Aviv I saw people working and going about the business in anatural manner. For the last several months we rush during curfewliftings to by bread, food and medicines, like animals let out of ourcages. We forgot what normalcy is. People sat in restaurants andwere relaxed. I was someone who would eat out for whateverreason 3-4 times a week. My family and I have not been out to eatat a restaurant for over 5 months. The streets were so organized;light posts all in line, traffic lights all working. Most, if not all, ofRamallah’s traffic lights have been destroyed by tanks running overthem. Many of our street light posts lie on the roadside waiting forrepair number four. There was no dust and dirt in the streets.Ramallah’s paved streets have become dirt-buggy training courses.The Israeli army bulldozers have dug up the pavement on manymajor intersections to slow civilian traffic. Also, the several monthsof tank and APC’s and army bulldozers running wild in our streetshave created endless lines of tank track ripples – the kind a normalcountry will install on the sides of the road to wake up sleepy drivers.
Worst of all I saw a population that is operating, albeit with anincreased security presence, as nothing is wrong. Mothersshopping, not seemingly worried that their countries boys arehumiliating an entire foreign nation. I looked in the eyes of each manin the street wondering how he will act when he pts on the uniform ofoccupation. Anyway, the trip went ok and we were back at theKalandia checkpoint at 1PM, with an hour to spare before beingconfined to our homes once again, for the umpteenth time.
At around 5pm Areen came running into my computer room andelatedly informed me ” they are leaving! ” Her sister Nadine, hardlyable to speak full sentences, repeated the breaking news in theabsolutely cutest manner possible. When I asked Areen why shewas taking so much interest, she said ” I know I said I’m not scaredof them anymore and that’s true but I’m glad they are leaving. ” Iunderstood all too well. We proceeded to watch as over 20 soldiersslowly exited our neighbors home, each carrying boxes, mattresses,bags and the like. I went back to my computer and was workingaway when I heard Areen and my wife, Abeer, yell out, ” They starteda fire. ” I jumped to find that about 10-15 Israeli soldiers werestanding around the boxes they were bringing down and a small firewas gushing out of the pile. I thought one of the flares they hadmight have gone off, but later found that it was a box of tear gascanisters. As my wife closed all our windows, I had to smile as theseoccupation soldiers chocked on their own tear gas. It was all out in afew minutes and no one was hurt, physically at least. My smile soondropped away when two more soldiers came out of the house with aPalestinian, handcuffed with a plastic strip and blindfolded with awhite piece of cloth with blue stripes. We had not seen this personbeing brought to the house and seeing him emerge made this sagaall to real – we were watching an illegal occupation, live in our frontyard.
A few minutes later, like the Indy-500, they all started their engines, 8monster machines in all, and rolled down our street over the alreadytorn up pavement. One APC quietly stayed behind on the side of thestreet. As I stood at the window, all of my neighbors opened theirwindows and yelled out, ” Are they gone? ” I gestured that it was notover yet. People were itching to step outside, even though we areunder full curfew. After the last APC finally rolled away like the rest,it wasn’t 2 minutes, the kids were in the street and some adults, meincluded, converged on Um Khaled’s house. The house had nophysical damage other than a broken front door (and a stuffy odor).We will not know if the contents were toyed with until the owner, UmKhaled, returns from her vacation in Egypt. I took Areen’s bicyclechain and lock and we secured the house as we joked withneighbors that this lock was going to do a lot of good in our situation.The reality of our personal and collective insecurity is so sad, itforces us to joke about it or explode.
One of my neighbors whose porch looks down on the West side ofthe occupied house revealed something that made us all angry.That detained Palestinian that was taken away in the APC was therefor 2 days and 2 nights! He was forced to stay outside in thewalkway that led to the staircase of the occupied home. I could notsee it from my vantage point, but my neighbor spoke to him from thewindow when soldiers were not around to give him strength. Thesolders gave him a cardboard box to sleep on and there he was, aprisoner of war in a world that cares less about political prisonersand defines war to fit its personal needs, as if it was buying apersonal garment. As I close this sage on our street, I apologize of Ioverloaded your inbox with details of our situation. But I felt that thiswas a way to get past the word occupation that many use but fewunderstand. Well, I know that Areen will sleep better tonight withoutthe roar of tanks under her window. We will make it sound better forher than it is, for we know better. The occupation is alive and welland, as we still remain under curfew, the boiling point of a nation islong past. We pray the next boil over will be the last, for all oursakes.
Still under curfew,
Sam