by Sayed Kashua
5
The phone wakes me at six. I jump up, frightened. It takes a few seconds for me to calm down and realize it’s just the phone. “Hello,” I’m almost shouting, convinced there’s been an accident. Early morning phone calls have always frightened me.
“Are you asleep?” Father asks. “Turn on the TV, Channel Two.”
“What happened?”
“Just turn on the TV.”
“Is something wrong?” my wife asks. She’s sitting up in bed already.
“No,” I tell her. “No, nothing’s wrong. I guess they’re filming the village for TV. I’m going down to watch. Go back to sleep.”
It’s six o’clock now. Before I turn on the TV, I check to see if there’s water. The water is running. The Channel Two announcers are in the studio. The caption reads, “Special Broadcast,” and below, down on the right, is the logo, “Peace has arrived.” There are a few guests in the studio. No Arabs. Two of the senior announcers are sitting side by side. To the right is a large group of invited guests and to the left is our commentator on security affairs, Arabs, the economy. They’re interviewing the chairman of the Settlers’ Association.
“The association has issued unequivocal instructions to uphold the agreements. This is a heavy price for an agreement. We are giving up our homes. We spent years fighting for the right to those homes, and we shed precious blood in the process. I am convinced that most of the settlers of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will abide by the agreement and that the evacuation will be reasonably smooth. I condemn in advance any unruly behavior by extremists. They in no way represent the community of settlers,” the chairman says. He goes on to note that he is convinced the Palestinian Authority will not lose much time in breaking the agreements and that the government will then realize what a terrible mistake it made. Photos taken on the previous day or two appear in the background, with the dates underneath, showing the settlers loading up the trucks and leaving their homes.
The next person to be interviewed is a representative of the Israeli left. He sits there with a smile on his face. To tell the truth, they all seem pretty calm. “This is undoubtedly a historic step,” says the speaker, who is furthest to the left among the Jewish Members of Knesset. “A historic step in which we have stopped controlling, occupying and repressing an entire nation. This is a decisive and vital step for the democracy of the State of Israel. We have been freed of the curse of occupation and created clear boundaries for our tiny country. I congratulate the prime minister on these bold steps. Our party will do whatever it can to ensure that this peace agreement receives the long-lasting support of the members of the opposition too.” Then, the screen shows demonstrations of joy in the cities of the West Bank and Gaza. Lots of buses are unloading Palestinian prisoners, who are seen in the warm embrace of their loved ones. Veiled women are sprinkling candy on passersby, children are hoisting pictures of the Palestinian leader.
“At long last, the Zionist dream is coming true,” one well-known Israeli professor is telling the moderators. The caption gives the professor’s name and university affiliation, and in smaller print, “Demographer.” “The greatest threat confronting the State of Israel is no longer,” the professor explains. “The Jewish identity of the state has never been clearer. The wise step taken by the present government was overdue. Long overdue, in fact. According to the figures we have, in less than two years the Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean would have outnumbered the Jews. Now we can expect an overwhelming and permanent Jewish majority. In fact, the population of the State of Israel has now become almost one hundred percent Jewish. At long last, a truly Jewish state.”
The next image is that of the new map of Israel. What’s going on here damn it? I ask myself. The phone rings again. “Did you see that?” my father asks.
“Yes,” I answer, but I don’t know what he is referring to—the peace treaty that’s just been signed, the evacuation of the settlements or the map that we’re seeing on the screen. A list of the places that Israel has handed over to the Palestinian Authority appears on the screen in alphabetical order. Now I understand.
“What’s going on? The SOBs. It just can’t be,” my father says. I don’t answer. There’s nothing to say. “Look, our village is on the list,” Father says. I see it, I see it. The announcer can be heard reporting on the transfer of lands to the Palestinian Authority. Scenes from last night’s events appear on the screen—the tanks pulling out of the Arab towns and villages. There, I can see Um-el Fahm now, and Taybeh and Nazareth…. “With few exceptions,” the announcer says, “the transfer of authority to the Palestinians was relatively uneventful.”
“Anything wrong?” my wife asks as she comes down the stairs.
“I think we’re Palestinian now,” I tell her. “We’ve been transferred to the Palestinian Authority.”
“Does that mean we have school today?”
6
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What do we do now? It’s all over. My parents and my older brother are standing on the balcony, looking out over the street, over the village. Father’s face is that of a man in mourning. Mother is holding her cheek with her left hand, and doesn’t say a word. Only my younger brother is smiling and signaling to me, when nobody’s looking, that he’s dying for a cigarette. I don’t dare to laugh, because you’re not supposed to laugh when you’re in mourning. My older brother says it’s the will of Allah and he quotes a verse of the Koran to the effect that you should not hate anything because you do not know when it might turn out to be useful. “What do you mean, ‘useful’?” Father says. “Sometimes you’d do better to keep quiet.” This only broadens the smile on my younger brother’s face. Father is lashing out at him too. “Keep quiet,” he says. My brother clears his throat and tries to stifle his laughter.
A green jeep drives by, bearing the emblem of an eagle and a Palestinian flag. The neighbors follow it with their eyes. Nobody goes out into the streets, as if there were a curfew. “Long live Palestine. Long live Palestine.” The slogan reverberates throughout the neighborhood, and everyone knows it’s from Thurmus’s tape recorder. Everyone knows the words. Thurmus is touting his wares with his cart, his music and his vat full of thurmus. “This is a holiday,” he shouts. “Thurmus, ya wallad, salted thurmus.” My younger brother thinks this is hysterically funny. “I didn’t realize Thurmus was still alive,” he says. Now everyone is smiling a little.
So what now? Nobody really knows. Is there school? Are we allowed out of the village? Just what do we do now? Very slowly, people begin venturing outside, some of them still not comprehending what has happened. They’re chatting. “The Jews have sold us down the river,” I hear the grocery store owner shout. From time to time we see a white jeep with a blue UN flag. It’s the first time anyone from the UN has been through this village. They look at the inhabitants and wave at us, apparently assuming that we’re supposed to be happy now just like people in cities on the West Bank.
Nobody really grasps the new reality yet. It seems like the overriding feeling is one of joy over the renewed electricity and water supply, and relief at the disappearance of the sense of imminent danger. The workers haven’t cleared out the garbage today. A group of them can be seen marching up the road, near the mosque. Their laughter can be heard here too. Another jeep passes by, full of Palestinian policemen in blue uniforms. They stop next to the workers, who are cheering and applauding.
“Look at those Daffawiyya shitheads,” one of the neighbors yells. His wife silences him at once, and it dawns on him that there is no point cursing this way under the new rulers.
My father has left the TV on, and I hear the special peace broadcast. It’s a commercial break, advertising a new brand of Strauss ice cream. “The Israeli Arabs,” I can hear someone say after the commercial, “never felt part of the State of Israel. They’re really Palestinians, whose relatives live on the West Bank and in Gaza. The transfer of lands to the Palestinian Authority has spared Israel
the enormous danger of a rising Islamic Movement and other nationalist movements from within. They should be pleased that we are enabling them to reunite. They’ve always complained about being discriminated against and about their minority status, and we should be pleased that our democracy will finally have real meaning. I hope the Palestinian population that was previously referred to as Israeli Arabs can serve as a bridge between the Arab world and Israel. They know us well, after all, they know Israeli society, our language and our democracy. They will play an important role in the democratic changes that will take place, if at all, in the Palestinian state.”
“Democracy?” Father says. “If anyone dares to open his mouth now…they’ll swallow us alive. To begin with, they’ve always said we sold ourselves to the Jews. But that’s what all sorts of MKs and sheikhs wanted around here, right? Well, they got what they wanted, didn’t they? Let’s hear any of them say anything about his new government.”
“It’s better than the Jewish shit,” my younger brother blurts out. He sounds militant.
My father looks at him, his eyes ablaze. “Shut up, you. You don’t have a clue. And I don’t know what even gives you the right to talk.” My father is shouting now. He seems very tense. “Have you asked yourself what’s going to happen to your studies? Where will you continue studying? Where will you work anyhow? Have you given it any thought? That’s assuming your new state has courts to begin with.”
“At least we won’t have every dog thinking he’s king,” my younger brother says. “At least when the police come in and enforce the law, those heroes with their weapons will see what law and order is all about. Just wait till those big-shot delinquents get a taste of the security forces now. We’ll see what happens to all their machismo.”
“Shut up,” Father tells him. “Shut your trap.”
My younger brother shuts up.
“What about the banks?” my older brother asks.
They’re saying on TV that about one hundred thousand Israeli Arabs living in Haifa, in Jaffa and in other mixed cities will remain in Israel, but with Palestinian papers, and they’ll vote in the Palestinian Authority elections. They’ll be like temporary residents, like foreign workers. There’s talk of reparations too, and of how the new Palestinians will be received in the warm embrace of their mother state.
My mobile phone rings. It’s my editor-in-chief. “Congratulations,” he says. “Well, are you people happy now? You’ve got a state of your own. Just kidding…. Listen, I’d like you to write something for us.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Actually, I’d like you to be our man in Palestine. You’ve got excellent Hebrew, and we need someone to report back to us from there now.”
“Okay.”
“In any case, I’d like a story for tomorrow. Even a thousand words, about the transfer of authority. You know, until two hours ago there was a gag order, so today’s papers have nothing. Feel free to tell it all, including maybe a few lines of your private take on this. Give it a personal touch, maybe in the lead-in, or else at the end.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll be in touch with you later. I’ll let you know what happens at the meeting. I think it ought to work out. Listen, there might be a bit of a problem with the pay, because we’re into drastic budget cuts, so it won’t be the way it was before, but your cost of living is going to be much lower now anyway, isn’t it?”
