I went to a party last night for a new book called Palestinian Walks, by lawyer Raja Shehadeh. It was at Mariam Said’s apartment in New York, the widow of Edward Said. There is his piano, there are his many books. A world figure, who lived in New York. Very moving.
Everyone was talking about Obama’s speech, his promise not to divide Jerusalem. There was great anguish over this declaration, a feeling of disenfranchisement. I felt an idiot for actually being at AIPAC when he said it, and not understanding this collapse at the time, nor the speed with which those comments traveled 'round the world.
I saw a group of ladies and went to talk to them. They reminded me of a group of fashionable older Jewish ladies at a party, so I felt comfortable.
It turned out one of them, Rima, was born in Jaffa. I told her of my interest in the destruction of Jaffa, the capital of
Palestinian Arab culture pre Israel. I have a story for you, Rima said.
Her brother was born in August 1946. A year later her mother prepared
his birthday party. A big affair. She bought sweets and foods. She
decorated the house. An hour or two before the
party, there were urgent knocks on the door. You must leave now. Leave
at once! British authorities demanded it. A camel stood in the street
outside. A Zionist disguised in Arab clothing had brought the camel
into town, they believed that the box on the camel was full of
explosives wired to go off. The house must be evacuated now. The family
left for a day. When they came back the windows were all broken and
doors were blown off their hinges. The camel had been detonated,
destroyed. “That was my first knowledge ever, of this word terrorism,”
Rima said.
“The Irgun,” I said. And another lady said that her uncle had died a year earlier, in the King David Hotel bombing that killed 92.
And remember–this was all before Partition, after which Jaffa was ethnically cleansed.
The women were all upset by the Obama speech. The feelings of powerless were somewhat frightening to me. What can we do? What can we do? they cried, with wide-open eyes as if I had answers. Do you know that Moslems and Jews lived side by side for centuries, said Rima. I said that John Mearsheimer had made this point on Israeli radio, and that Rabbi Weiss of Neturei Karta—and these women knew all about Neturei Karta— had said this standing outside AIPAC just the other day, in this speech captured on youtube. We have lived with the Muslims without problems for centuries, Weiss says. It is the Christians who destroyed us, in the Inquisition, and in Germany…
I met the author. Shehadeh is a small delicate man. A founder of the human rights group Al-Haq, in Ramallah, he wore an artist’s glasses and a blue blazer over a dark jersey. Might have walked into a literary party anywhere in NYC, obviously from Palestinian elite. He said the heart of his book is geographical (and that it has been cited on National Geographic). He loves to walk, to study the terrain. What has happened to his walks over 30 years, as the Israelis have gobbled the land of the West Bank, that was his purpose.
What has happened to the old structures and springs and wadis and rock formations and qasrs and flowers?
On the cover of his book is a quote from Jimmy Carter: “…a rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.” I said if American Christians understood what has happened to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, they would be angry at the Israelis. Shehadeh said that the Israelis had used the wall and Har Homa (that horrifying settlement built on a formerly-wooded hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem) to interfere with the natural development of East Jerusalem south into Bethlehem. Have you seen photographs of this landscape from before? he asked. It was once a beautiful sweeping view, from Bethlehem north to Jerusalem, and the two places connected. The same was true of Ramallah. It used to be part of greater Jerusalem to the north. The Israelis wanted to interfere with the natural growth of the Palestinian community. That is part of the reason for the wall, the checkpoints.
[Yes, I know: security, suicide bombers… And Israelis have told me that they used to shop at the Arab markets in Bethlehem. All passed. For now…]
I asked him about Jaffa, which Shehadeh’s family fled. Jaffa was the symbol of Arab culture, he said, and that is one reason it was extirpated. Preserved by the UN as an Arab enclave of the Arab state in the partition that came three months after that camel’s destruction outside Rima’s house, Jaffa is mentioned in Ben Gurion’s diaries, Shehadeh said. It was important to attack it, as “an insult” to the Arabs (Shehadeh’s words). I asked him if Jaffa could ever be restored. He looked at me like I was nuts. “That is a fantasy.”
Obama’s insult to the Arab-Americans at that party (and there were many others too) was his statement that Jerusalem would be undivided. That is a fantasy. Jerusalem has withstood its conquerors for ages. I said to Shehadeh, It does not matter if Jewish control of the Old City falls in 2 years or 200, it cannot last; this city belongs to the world. He got a little smile. Even when he comes in through the checkpoints, past the wall and the glaring lights, he has that feeling at times: This cannot last. Jerusalem is too important to too many people. Shehadeh had just read in the book Rome and Jerusalem, a quote from Agrippa warning that the walls around the second temple could not be maintained. (And no, I am not endorsing massacres, but openness).
I felt myself in the throes of history in a Palestinian-American’s apartment. It is a great thing to be alive in this age, when we Americans have the power to change so much, and when we see our politicians sold like fish at the AIPAC policy conference, one after another, a process that Rabbi Weiss is honest and angry about and our media can’t even relate. I told Rima’s friends about Nancy Pelosi standing on stage, dangling the Israeli soldiers’ dogtags to please the crowd. “And what about the 3 million Palestinians under occupation, and the 11,000 in Israeli prisons,” said Rima’s friend whose uncle died in the King David.
Rima and her friends surrounded me as a representative of the Jewish people, Why Why Why. The Jews, they have stood for morality and justice. I said, Yes we have, and we are pissing that away. But you watch, younger Jews won’t stand for that.
