Where the Line is Drawn

by Raja Shehadeh

  After he was dropped off he took a wrong turn and lost his way. He walked on, anxious and afraid, until he reached a café. It was off the beaten track. Sitting outside, resting on a white plastic chair, was a woman who worked as a waitress. She was smoking a cigarette in the sun. She saw him, a handsome man with large beautiful eyes, and winked at him. He was so surprised by her gesture that he found himself walking toward her. She wasn’t like the Israelis he was expecting to find, hateful people who deserved to die. She was a friendly sort, and offered him a cigarette. He badly wanted one, but told himself that he had not come to smoke with an Israeli. He had given up on pleasure; to live he first had to die. Still, she bid him to come to her. His confusion and vulnerability must have endeared him to her. She was insisting that he come over. The explosive belt around his abdomen made him feel hot. I’m not going to go to her, he thought, but how can I communicate this to her? Running toward her he tore open his shirt, exposing the dynamite sticks. She ran from him screaming, calling for help. He could see that there was someone running toward him. He made a run into the empty café and pulled the string.

  That evening the proprietor described what happened:

  ‘My café is in shambles,’ he said. ‘It was quite a scene. On the only table in the middle of my café that remained standing, the head of the terrorist rested on its side: fair hair smeared with blood, an open mouth, nose, eyes, and one ear.’

  Israelis were not the only victims of the shootings and suicide bombings. In one terribly sad incident George, the son of a friend and colleague, Elias Khoury, was killed while jogging near his home in East Jerusalem on 19 March 2004. George was a third-year law student. Someone in a passing car shot and killed him. The Aqsa Brigade later apologised and declared him a martyr. Just imagine the gall, I thought, to kill such a promising young man and then honour him, to act as though they had the power to decide a person’s afterlife on God’s behalf. It saddened me to think of Elias, who had also lost his father in a bombing at the Mehna Yehuda Market in West Jerusalem in the 1970s. First his father, now his son.

  I will never forget the film Arna’s Children by Juliano Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother, Arna Mer Khamis, and a Palestinian father, Saliba Khamis, which I saw in 2004 in Ramallah. It was about five children from the Jenin refugee camp who all took part in a children’s theatre project organised by the director’s mother in 1980. A member of the Communist Party at the time, Arna had belonged to Palmach, the underground fighting force of the Haganah under the British Mandate in Palestine, and she didn’t regret it. In the film she described the sense of pride and power that came from that association and her work. Her work at the refugee camp was not to prove there were good Jews. It was not to help the Palestinians build their state – she did not believe in nationalism. It was her way of resisting Zionist colonialism. ‘The intifada, for us and for our children,’ she said, her head completely bald from cancer treatment, ‘is a struggle for freedom.’

  The film, which was shot over a number of years, followed the lives of some of the children who took leading roles in the Freedom Theatre, a community-based Palestinian theatre located in the Jenin refugee camp. A scene at the beginning of the film showed Arna surrounded by children from the camp. The Israeli army had just demolished one boy’s family home and we saw him sitting on the ruins, bristling with anger. Arna encouraged the boy to express his feelings. She told him to hit her, but he couldn’t at first. She continued to work with him until he went at her with all his strength, his clenched fists striking her over and over again until he collapsed with exhaustion.

  At a later point in the film we saw two of the children, now in their late teens, preparing to engage the Israeli army in a nocturnal gun battle during the second intifada. As the soldiers drove their armoured tanks through the narrow, misty lanes of the camp, the young men armed themselves with guns, improvised explosives and their own untrained ideas of combat.

  In a separate incident, one of the children ended up taking a machine gun and firing haphazardly at passers-by in the Israeli town of Khudeira. The immediate cause was the bombing of a school by the Israeli army. He was the first to enter the school, where he saw the dismembered body of a ten-year-old girl. He collected her body parts in his shirt. His friends said that after this he seemed ‘to go into himself. He became quiet and religious and kept to himself.’ His mother described the last day before the shooting. He asked to take a bath and then asked her to join him for breakfast. He moved around the house looking at it carefully, as though memorising everything there. A friend who was asked what he thought of his actions pointed to the miserable life at the camp. It was like death and, he said, ‘if one is going anyway, at least go one’s own way with a bang’.

  Every member of the group except one was killed by the Israelis. Two died in suicide missions.

  Arna’s project gave these children a stronger sense of themselves. It lifted them above the rest, giving them ambition and hope. Then came the Israeli invasion of 2002 and they felt a greater sense of responsibility to take action on behalf of others who were not acting for themselves. The camp was not protected by the Palestinian Authority. It fell to them to do something and in the process they sacrificed their lives.

  After the film, the director addressed the audience. Juliano, strikingly handsome and talented, told us he had served in the Israeli army as a paratrooper but that he had soon rebelled after he saw the mistreatment of a Palestinian man at a checkpoint. He resented the discrimination and refused to obey an order. As a result he was imprisoned and discharged from the army. He told the Palestinian audience that he felt ‘100 per cent Palestinian and 100 per cent Jewish’, then added, ‘The Israeli army is not a congenial place for those like me who feel that way.’ But Juliano’s rebellion went beyond the rejection of army discipline. His insistence that ‘there is no religion, no identity, nothing, we are just human beings’ struck at the very heart of a social and political structure in Israel that exploits religion as the basis for determining a human being’s place in its hierarchy of privileges and rights. As an artist, Juliano believed that when people of different cultures and backgrounds worked together to create something they were able to overcome the intolerance that isolated them and made them enemies intent on killing each other. This was why he revived the Freedom Theatre that his mother had established in Jenin refugee camp in 1992, when it was called Stone Theatre. Arna’s Children was made by a director who knew what anger and hate could lead to and yet he chose to live and work in Jenin, one of the most volatile cities in the West Bank. This was because he recognised the workshops in which he trained young children to be actors as a solution to the conflict.

  I saw the film as a condemnation of our society and our leadership. I thought that any Palestinian watching it should be ashamed. There was a discussion afterwards in which several people spoke. None of them pointed to the tragedy at the centre of the film, that the defence of Palestinians during the Israeli invasion was left in the hands of teenagers. Sylvie, a psychologist who joined us watching the film, was the only person to point this out when, after the discussion, we met at a café for dinner. She suggested that Arna’s tragedy was that she failed to ‘protect’ her children. Of course, by the time they grew up to be fighters she was dead, but she had started something, lighting a torch, and certain tragic consequences followed.

  For some, Juliano’s work was too subversive. There were those on both sides of the divide who saw a threat in his ‘solution to war’ and wanted him gone. Whether it was for this or some other motive – it never became clear – one afternoon as he was leaving the Freedom Theatre a masked gunman emptied seven bullets into his body, killing him on the spot. It remains unknown who the killer was. Even though Juliano was an Israeli citizen, Israel must not have considered him enough of a Jew because, unlike other cases in which a Jew was killed, this heinous crime remained unsolved. Whoever was behind it intended not only to murder Juliano but also to destroy the vision for which he stood.


  Just before he died Juliano had directed a superb production of Death and the Maiden by the Chilean artist Ariel Dorfman about a victim of torture who meets the man she believes was her torturer. The play was presented at the Qasaba Theatre in Ramallah days after his murder. I was in the audience and Juliano’s portrait was projected on to the walls of the theatre where he had often directed plays. The audience was in tears. Juliano was primarily an artist who used the very stuff of his complicated life in his acting and directing, one of the few who crossed borders and embodied in his work and person the ideal of a binational reality. Yet this artist’s path was doomed. The divide between Israelis and Palestinians was too wide to be bridged by a single brave heart.

  There was a time when it was possible for Jews and Arabs to live together peacefully in Palestine and to intermarry, as Juliano’s parents had done. Both groups are Semites and share more similarities than they are now willing to acknowledge. Those who try to cross the line these days have to pay a heavy price.

  But there was hope. The murder was not attributed to any Palestinian political faction and it was condemned by most sectors of Palestinian society in the strongest possible terms. One of the tributes took the form of projecting Arna’s Children on to a large screen in the main square in Ramallah. Numerous symbolic funeral processions took place in most of the major Palestinian cities. It showed how much more favoured Juliano’s ‘solution to war’ was than many believed to be the case.

  After the film we went to eat at a new restaurant in Ramallah where we saw two members of the Palestinian cabinet. One of them had written about the 2002 invasion of the West Bank without criticising the Palestinian Authority. Always well dressed and with their assured presence, they would never feel any guilt or, God forbid, responsibility. To feel this you would have had to have an active populace ready to hold you accountable. They didn’t – or didn’t believe that they did. They were there by virtue of having placed themselves in the higher ranks and they had managed to remain where they were – on top.

  At home I wondered who was to blame for the death of the young men in Jenin. Israel and its brutal policies, of course, but also the Palestinian leadership for its failure to lead. If it couldn’t assume responsibility for its own people, its failure was criminal.

  11

  Forbidden Roads*

  Jerusalem, 2004

  It was April 2004. I was preparing to leave the house to pay a condolence visit to Elias Khoury on the first Greek Orthodox Easter after the death of his son, as is the habit here, but I was feeling anxious. It had become increasingly harder to leave the house. This was another feature of our imprisoned state. We had become too attached to life behind bars. We were afraid that if we left we would not be allowed back. I was becoming like a dear relative for whom every farewell was an ordeal: whenever he came to visit, he had to be forced to leave. Ever since I heard of how my father had left the office that evening before he was murdered, how he had lingered, spoken individually to everyone, started to leave, then returned, I had begun to pay attention to farewells, as though it was necessary to memorise every detail and gesture lest it be the last.

  After the visit to Elias I felt as I usually do when confronted with death. I wanted to live and enjoy life, and so Penny and I decided to continue to Jerusalem and have dinner there.

  Whether or not it was prudent to stay late in Jerusalem and risk the return journey to Ramallah through the back roads at night, where several motorists had recently been shot, was questionable. But neither of us was in the mood to be prudent.

  We dined and visited friends we had not seen since the West Bank had been sealed off. I was amazed how quickly you can forget about the occupation and all the restrictions Israel had imposed on us, because when I looked at my watch it was already nine thirty. Our respite was over. We had only half an hour to get to the Qalandia checkpoint before it closed. We drove as though demons were pursuing us. When we got there we found two other cars ahead of us. One was allowed through – we didn’t know why – while the other was forced to turn back. When our turn came we were apprehensive.

  ‘We live in Ramallah,’ I said. ‘We want to get back home.’

  ‘I can’t let you. It is past ten o’clock. This checkpoint closes at ten.’

  I looked at the clock on the dashboard. ‘But it isn’t ten yet,’ I said.

  ‘It is ten forty-nine,’ the soldier said.

  I remembered that Israel had already changed to summer time. The Arafat-run Palestinian Authority had decided to delay turning forward the clock for no apparent reason except perhaps to distinguish ‘Palestine’ from Israel.

  ‘But you’ve just let that car through,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, because he had a pregnant woman.’

  ‘It’s not a big deal to let us pass. We’re tired and we just want to get home.’

  But the soldier would not budge and we were not in the mood for pleading or tall stories about sick family members.

  ‘You could go through Surda,’ the soldier said, suggesting that we use the back roads.

  ‘But it wouldn’t be safe at this hour.’

  ‘For you it would. You’re not Israeli,’ the soldier said, as though cars in the dark blinked their ethnic origins.

  Then I thought of my lawyer’s card and presented this to the soldier. He had a pleasant face and was wearing dark glasses even though it was night. He examined it, then looked at me and said, ‘But it wouldn’t be fair to let you through just because you’re a lawyer and not to allow the others now, would it?’

  I wasn’t sure whether I heard him right. ‘Did you say fair?’ I asked.

  The soldier’s only response was to motion with his little finger for us to turn the car around and leave.

  I stayed put. The soldier was annoyed and he startled us by pounding on the bonnet of our car with the full force of his hand. We could have yelled back, but we didn’t. Confronted by a claim of fairness from an Israeli soldier, a member of an army that had been in occupation of our land for over thirty-seven years, who had destroyed our lives and brought us to the point of having to beg to be allowed to get back home in the evening after dinner, we were speechless.

  Silently, I turned the car around and left.

  We drove first down a new settler road towards the junction known as Eun el Haramieh (the Eyes of the Bandits), where travellers in Ottoman times used frequently to be waylaid and robbed. It was a long, straight road that bisected the countryside and rearranged it. The road signs indicated Israeli settlements: Shilo, Ofra, Dolev. There was hardly any mention of Arab towns, nor could any be seen. There was nothing to indicate to an Israeli driving along this road that there was an Arab presence on this land. It was as if these Israeli settlers had painted a reality for themselves, shielding all other realities from sight. It was what Israel had done to its Arab citizens, confining them to small ghettos and giving most of their land to their Jewish neighbours.

  For safety, the whole road was lit up as though we were in a major city. It must have been phenomenally expensive to build these roads and keep them lit.

  There were no other cars on the road. It was entirely desolate. That these roads had been built for people now too scared to use them was an oddly comforting thought. Most of the time, as I drove, I was not sure where I was. I couldn’t see the landmarks I usually used to navigate my way back home. All I could see was the long road cutting through the darkness.

  Then we saw a turn to the west, which we assumed was the road to Ramallah. We took it. Soon enough we came upon a mound of earth blocking our way. The road had been closed by the army. We could see the village of Silwad ahead of us. It was only a few kilometres north of Ramallah but we could not reach it. This road was not intended for the Palestinian residents of Silwad, nor were we expected to be on it. We backed up and continued along the main road. Finally we found what we assumed was the Atarah intersection. If this was it we would be just north of Birzeit, from where we could drive south to Ramallah.
‘Halamish,’ Penny said in triumph, reading the road sign, ‘this is our crossroad.’ Our new road markers were now Israeli settlements.

  The road we took was no longer straight and it was unlit. The bushes at the sides were ominously high, thick and dark, and I was wondering more than ever whether we were wise to be driving at night along this road. What if a group of armed men should emerge from the bushes? There was nothing to distinguish our car at night from a settler’s car. If we were shot it would be our fault for being so frivolous as to go to dinner in Jerusalem.

  The fact that this road was unlit must have meant that it was not used by settlers. That was a comfort. But Penny remained silent. She told me later that it was there, on that stretch of road, that the friend of a driver we knew was killed.

  As we drove uncertainly in the dark I wondered if we would come across an Israeli army jeep. We would be all alone with potentially murderous soldiers on this dark and empty road. My agitated mind revived the memory of the death of a relative soon after the occupation. He had been driving alone near the Latrun salient, close to the border with Israel. He was stopped by an army jeep and killed. The soldiers took his black-and-white-checked keffiyeh, dipped it in petrol from his car and set his corpse on fire. A few days later his burnt remains were found by a shepherd.

  Fortunately we were spared any more meetings with the army. We drove slowly, unsure whether this road was ever going to get us home. I saw a yellow taxi approaching. I blinked my lights and called on him to stop before asking for directions. ‘Continue straight until after the bridge and then take a dirt road to your right. That will get you to Birzeit,’ the driver said, and sped away. We eventually found ourselves driving through the Arab town and, despite the lateness of the hour, the town’s market was still open and young college couples from the university there were strolling in the tree-lined streets. We had come upon the people whose presence was shielded from the view of the colonisers, for whom they do not exist.