tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:53:58 +0000PalestineGazaDiasporaOccupationRefugeeExileArab CultureGaza StoryParentsiHateTheWorldPoliticsResistanceAmericaLaw SchoolConfusionFunnyWarIdentityMarriageChildrenSummerFamilyImmigrantWeddingCareerGoalsInternshipIslamLoveFearHamaswar crimesMamaMartyrMemoriesWomenCollegePhotosTravelUNright of returnAnxietyMotivationPovertylistAmerican ArroganceIDFMenPoetryRamadanTerroristBDSCompassionGrandparentsIntifadaIsraelPopular ResistancePrisonersSeptember 11thpropagandaBrothersFoodGrandmaQuranSell-OutSyriafreedomEgyptHateHigh SchoolIraqIslamophobiaLibyaNakbaPost-GradSacrificeStay HumancultureliesAfghanistanCongressCourtElectronic IntifadaHijabNGOOrphanSiegeStatehoodTexasUNRWAWarriorsBooksGilad ShalitGingrichHomeJoe BidenKhader AdnanPillar of DefensePower CutsPrisoner ExchangeSelf-ImprovementSettlementsSoccerTraumaVirginityVittorio Arrigoni2012 ElectionAbbasAfricaFamineGeorge W. BushHana ShalabiHiroshimaHunger StrikeIVAWIranIzzeldin AbuelaishJasmineMazin QumsiyehMemorial dayNBA FinalsNagasakiODSRamadan MassacreSeaSkypeSportsUSA PATRIOT ActUnemploymentVacationPalestinian Diaspora& all that comes with itnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)Blogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-2896774723057503882Fri, 26 May 2023 05:08:00 +00002023-05-26T00:08:42.080-05:00DiasporaExileFunnyIsraellistOccupationPalestineright of returnTravel48 Ways to Sneak into Palestine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I recently broke the occupation by circumventing the Israeli policy to keep Gaza and its people completely separate from the West Bank and its people. Here's how you can do it too:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Change your name.</li>
<li>Change your name on your passport. </li>
<li>Get a new passport. In case you're wondering, it will have a different passport number.</li>
<li>Go back in time and change your name at birth.</li>
<li>While you're in the past, change who your parents and grandparents are because that'll come up at the border crossing too.</li>
<li>Change your face.</li>
<li>Change your height and eye color because those are in their system too.</li>
<li>Change your birthplace, preferably to any place other than Palestine, but it would be best if you made it the moon.</li>
<li>Have your story straight–come up with an alternative answer to every question they will ask: your name, your father's name, your grandfather's name, your family name, your mother's name, her father's name, her family name, your father's birthplace, your mother's birthplace, where they were married, when your father left Palestine, and when your mother left Palestine.</li>
<li>Have your spouse memorize the story.</li>
<li>Have your baby memorize the story. </li>
<li>Have your neighbors memorize the story.</li>
<li>Have your senator memorize the story.</li>
<li>Have your father, paternal grandfather, mother, maternal grandfather, and anyone with either family name memorize the story.</li>
<li>Write your story down on a tiny piece of paper, put it in a glass of water, read Quran over the glass, drink half of the water, wash your passport with the rest of the water while reading ayat al-kursi, swallow the piece of paper to use as a resource to keep your story straight during the interrogation.</li>
<li>Disconnect any email address you have connected to your phone.</li>
<li>Delete any social media apps.</li>
<li>Erase passwords to social media accounts saved on your phone.</li>
<li>Deactivate all social media accounts.</li>
<li>Deactivate your email.</li>
<li>Burn your mailbox.</li>
<li>Change the street number on your house.</li>
<li>Change all of the last names of the people in your family saved in your phone to match your story.</li>
<li>Alternatively, have only first names in your phone.</li>
<li>Delete all of your contacts.</li>
<li>If you have any contacts in Gaza, remove "Gaza" or "Palestine" from the contact details, then delete the contact, then melt your phone with a blowtorch. </li>
<li>Run the melted phone over with a car.</li>
<li>Throw the phone scraps from the window of the airplane in the center on the Atlantic Ocean.</li>
<li>Reformat your laptop computer.</li>
<li>Leave your laptop at home, between your mattress and your box spring.</li>
<li>Leave a decoy laptop on the coffee table. </li>
<li>Write important phone numbers on a piece of paper and keep it in your wallet or in your pocket. Important numbers include: the embassy for the other country you have citizenship to, the consulate for the other country you have citizenship to, your senator, your head of state, Ban Ki-Moon, and your mom or someone else you feel comfortable crying to over the phone.</li>
<li>Dress Western, preferably with a cowboy hat.</li>
<li>Have way too much stuff. Palestinians bring a lot of suitcases, but not a lot of stuff. Seem foreign by having few suitcases, but a lot of unnecessary junk. This includes: a laptop bag, a backpack, a sleeping bag, golf clubs, sunglasses on your head, a tent, a hat, a locket with your mom's photo and a photo of a plate of hummus or knafeh, some travel guidebooks, a camera bag, a water bottle, a mystery book, an autobiography, a sci-fi book, a fiction book, an iPad, an iPod, a laptop, a newspaper, a boombox, a flashlight, a carseat, a luxury stroller, an umbrella stroller, a baby carrier, a travel crib, an extra baby, and some gum.</li>
<li>Speak English only. </li>
<li>Pretend not to understand Arabic.</li>
<li>Slightly mispronounce your own name so they think you're even more foreign than you are.</li>
<li>Pretend not to understand their accent when they speak English.</li>
<li>Pretend not to hear them.</li>
<li>Answer their questions with non-answers. For example: Do you have another passport? No, I take the bus to work. How long will you be in Israel? It's 2:30PM. Have you been here before? Yes, I packed my own bags.</li>
<li>Talk much louder than you need to. That's the most American thing you can do.</li>
<li>Give a little more information than you need to. That sense of self-importance is also super American. For example: Where were you born? Southwest Chicago, not far from Midway. What is your father's name? Khalil, but no one calls him that.</li>
<li>Offer unnecessary commentary. For example, announce when you are thirsty, bored, hungry, hot, or cold. Call people rude. Criticize the inefficiency of how they are processing people. Be horrified when people are smoking indoors.</li>
<li>Have the name, phone number, and address of a person you know in Jerusalem memorized. If they ask you where you will be staying, always say Jerusalem so that you can get the good visa.</li>
<li>Have your travel itinerary printed and show it to them. They like to know you aren't staying long and have fixed plans to leave. Preferably stay less than 24 hours. Or just turn around and leave as soon as they let you through.</li>
<li>Ask questions. For example: where is the bathroom? Do you have a changing table? Is there another water fountain? Where is my passport? How much longer will it be? Did he call my name? Is there a place I can nurse? Do you speak English? </li>
<li>When the Israeli agent interrogates you, pretend like she's interviewing you for TIME magazine because you're the most fabulous person in the building. That'll keep you from getting nervous, help you control your anger, and your pretentiousness will make them think you have no idea how serious all of this is.</li>
<li>Take slight jabs at the agent, including insulting their intelligence. For example: speak very slowly and louder than you need to. Act as though you have no idea they know Arabic, so when they ask your name, spell it and say it slowly over and over again. When you name any location in Palestine, ask of they've ever heard of it. Explain very simple things about Arab culture. </li>
</ol>
</div>
2016/03/50-ways-to-sneak-into-palestine.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-8051379203814826520Fri, 26 May 2023 04:56:00 +00002023-05-25T23:56:38.301-05:00I saw Ramallah... And Jerusalem and Yaffa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I initially wrote this post in December 2015, Blogger lost it, I rewrote it in March 2016, and now I am reflecting on it seven years later as a prepare to visit the other part of Palestine for the second time.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Stop reading this, find a copy of I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti, read it, and come back. It's a beautiful description of one man's return home after many years of exile. I identified with it deeply as I read it, and you may too.<br />
<br />
I have taken some time to process and reflect on my recent trip to Palestine, and I think I'm ready to share it with you. I will be vague, when it comes to the details, and very descriptive in everything else.<br />
<br />
Like every trip I've ever taken to Palestine, this most recent trip was enveloped in uncertainty, fear, and anxiety. I packed our bags with items that would work both in Palestine and wherever we would spend our time instead, if the Israelis did not allow one or more of us to cross the Allenby Bridge into Jericho. We didn't plan anything ahead, except for the story we'd tell the Israelis, but that's for <b style="text-decoration: underline;">another post.</b> We didn't want to give the fear that we may not be permitted to enter our homeland more thought than was absolutely necessary.<br />
<br />
I tried not to think about what would happen if the Israelis decided I was a security threat during our flight, but as we grew closer and closer to our destination, it became increasingly difficult. When I was praying in the airport during our layover, I had to repeat chapters of the Quran over and over again because I would lose focus and my mind would wander to possible scenarios where my husband or I would be interrogated or deported or detained. I constantly supplicated to God that our journey would be made easy and we'd cross into Palestine with no hardship. I was slowly growing more and more nervous.<br />
<br />
It was my first time in Jordan. My first time in a kingdom of any kind. It was strange to see the face of a dead man, a blue-eyed monarch, and a curly-haired child framed on the walls of every building. I felt watched and constrained every minute we were in that country. I have always heard stories about people who absentmindedly criticized the royal family in a semi-public place and then suddenly ended up in a government prison. I saw the face of the king and thought about how he has friendly relations with the country that made the majority of his country's residents into refugees, how he has diplomatic relations with the apartheid state across the river that butchers my people regularly. I hated Jordan. I hated that I had to spend a minute there, that I had to cross into this normalizing state before I could be in my homeland, that I needed the cooperation of Israel and Jordan to see Palestine.<br />
<br />
The drive to the bridge was brief. Nothing like the drive from Cairo to Rafah that I know so well. When you drive through the desert for five hours, you have time to really reflect on the journey you're taking, time to prepare mentally for the humiliation and trauma that come with crossing an international border manned by your occupier or its agents, time to build up your stamina and enough pep to survive the coming ordeal. But Amman and Jericho are less than an hour apart. There is no time to process anything. I tried to distract my baby with toys and a bottle so she wouldn't cry and then suddenly we were unpacking the car we had just packed. I wasn't ready to recite my prepared story, I wasn't ready for my battle with the occupier.<br />
<br />
The time we spent on the Jordanian side of the border was so brief I hardly remember it. Smoke. There was smoke everywhere–indoors, outdoors, corridors, everywhere. Just as quickly as we arrived, we were gone. Suddenly we were on a bus. I had my sleeping baby and the carseat carrying her in my lap and I prayed the screaming children behind us wouldn't wake her. I wanted her to be rested and in a good mood so that the ordeal ahead would be a little less stressful. I was so consumed with her needs that I hardly noticed the Israeli soldier walking right outside our window. Then I saw the first waving Israeli flag I had seen in eleven years. My stomach turned. The last time I saw an Israeli flag on Palestinian land was in 2004, the last year the Israeli army had regular ground presence in Gaza.<br />
<br />
I changed my baby's diaper on a changing pad on the sidewalk outside of the Israeli crossing. It was her first time entering Palestine. We arranged this trip when she was just two months old. It was before the current intifada had begun. We got such a good deal on our off-season tickets that we didn't think it worthy the added cost of moving the trip until after the hostilities subsided. I was homesick, Gaza was inaccessible, we wanted to see Palestine together, things were already arranged at work, we had relatives in Palestine waiting for us–it seemed like a good idea to go ahead with the visit. Twenty-four years earlier, I was in diapers and visiting Palestine for the first time–and it was the intifada. I never wanted my child's first exposure to her homeland to be under those circumstances. I didn't want the stories she heard about her first time in Palestine to be about tear gas and curfews and martyrs and general strikes, like mine were. I wasn't so lucky.<br />
<br />
We went through security. It took over half an hour for us to get all of our bags together. Somehow, the conveyor-belted x-ray machine needed extra time to digest our bags and our bags only. We went to the window. The Israeli agent asked my name, my family name, my father's name, my grandfather's name, my maiden name and then if I had a foreign passport. She checked my husband's passport and ID and told us to go. I look to my husband and ask, confused by how quick and painless the process was, whether that was it and if we were going to enter. He was just as confused as I was. The entire process had changed in the two years since he had crossed the border himself. He had no more experience than I did.<br />
<br />
As we nervously made our way out of the building, an Israeli agent at a kiosk asked to see our visas. We handed her our passports and, again, she asked to see our visas. We had literally just been handed our passports and had nothing else to offer but the documents we had already given her. Then she began yelling "Roukh shubbaak" over and over again. Another Israeli agent directed us back to where we had just been, took our passports, and told us someone else would return them shortly. After three hours, we asked an Israeli agent about our passports. Then, with my sleeping child strapped to me in an infant carrier, I was interrogated by a Polish girl with accented English. I told her my rehearsed story. She took notes in Hebrew. She typed something on her computer. She asked more questions. I saw my husband through the blinds and he saw me. He looked so nervous and worried, so I smiled at him. He smiled back. I knew that we would make it in.<br />
<br />
She said something to another agent in Hebrew, he turned toward his desk, pulled out a stamp, and handed it to her. She stamped my passport and sent me back into the waiting area. I left and handed my husband my passport. He searched for the slip of paper that would grant me access to all of my homeland, except for Gaza. He did not find it. Instead, he saw a stamp that said "PA ONLY" and we grew livid. I returned to the interrogation room and told her she made a mistake, that I needed to go to Jerusalem. She told me, in her broken English, "You are not supposed to enter, consider this an effort." I remembered then my own powerlessness in this occupation. I remembered that this small blonde European girl had the authority to tell me where I can and cannot go. I remembered all of the post-Oslo Israeli regulations that exist to prevent me from entering PA territory. And I felt lucky. I hate it now, but those were my sentiments as I stood in that illegitimate building, receiving unwelcome orders from someone who should never have any control over where I go on the land my ancestors have cultivated for centuries. I remembered the green ID card I left in Chicago, the camp in Gaza where my parents were born that I think of as home, the story I manufactured, and breathed a prayer of thanks that I would see the West Bank.<br />
<br />
I returned to my husband, grabbed my baby's stroller and told my husband "Let's go," hoping with my entire being that I can get through the glass door ahead before these brainless agents, who hold my fate in their hands, realize what they had done.<br />
<br />
We gathered our bags, paid for a bus ticket to get us to Jericho, and boarded as quickly as we could. As soon as I breathed Jericho's warm winter air, I knew I was safe. I was in Palestine. My baby had woken up and I was nearly dancing in the street with her. I was overjoyed. Finally, I was in Palestine again. But this time, I defied the occupation, I overcame their policy of separation, I–a Gaza ID-holder–was in PA ONLY land. It was a miracle.<br />
<br />
My mom later told me that she expected me to cry once I crossed into Palestine. She thought I would collapse into prostration, thanking God for the blessing of being on His sacred land. That is not what happened. I did not cry in Jericho. I was ecstatic in Jericho; I was cunning, calculating, devious, and scheming in Jericho. I had outsmarted and outmaneuvered the occupation. I was completely invincible. This all-powerful force that we had been taught to fear unconditionally was fallible. Never before had I felt with total confidence that we could defeat our occupier. This is what they are supposed to be best at–security, fences, borders, exclusion, separation, interrogation, database upon database of information– and they failed. If they can't master this very central part of their occupation, then the entire structure is weaker than we imagined. In fact, it is evidently very breakable. And I broke it.<br />
<br />
As soon as this overwhelming joy swept over me, it was gone. Right outside of the doors you must cross through on the Palestinian side of the border to enter Jericho, there is a line of taxis waiting to take you to every region of Palestine. And because we are a loud and rambunctious people, the drivers of these taxis are calling out the destinations they can take you to. And naturally the loudest and most energetic taxi driver is the one promising to take passengers to Gaza. He even had a song. "3al ba7ar, yaba. Yalla, yaba. 3al ba7aar, jaaj. Gaza, Gaza, jaaj. Gaza, yaba. Fu2a3iyyah Suma2iyya." He was tempting me with all of my favorite things–the beach, oh our beautiful beach, and beachside barbecues, and our most famous regional dishes. My husband was on the phone with our ride, describing where the new exit from the border is and how to get to us. It took all my will power not to jump in that man's taxi and try my luck at Gaza. My Gaza, only 2 hours away. It was so close and so unreachable that my bones ached. I felt hollow, weak, and powerless again. I was in Palestine but far from everything I knew about Palestine; far from the camp that my parents have always called home, far from the house my parents worked tirelessly to build, far from my relatives, far from my Palestine. The place I was in was totally new to me and nothing like the Palestine I'd fallen in love with.<br />
<br />
The PA ONLY was so completely different from my Palestine. The West Bank is objectively breathtaking. Any person in the world would fall in love with it upon seeing it, both for its natural beauty and the gorgeous imprint my people have left on it. But Gaza, Gaza is different. You love Gaza because it isn't beautiful. Gaza's beauty is in what it symbolizes; Gaza is the heart and soul of Palestine, it is the dignity of our undying nation, the center of resistance, the home of our refugees, it is resilience and strength embodied. Gaza has its breathtaking beach, but Akka and Yaffa will make you quickly forget Gaza's beach. Gaza has incredible architecture and history and culture. But we love Gaza because we want to love Gaza; it is an endeavor we have all agreed to undertake. Gaza is love in the midst of heartbreak. At lease for me, a refugee. It's the open arms that welcome you when you flee for your life. Gaza is the Ansar welcoming the grief-stricken Muhajiroon. Gaza is my family's dispossession and the reclaiming of our power, simultaneously. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
But the rolling green hills of the West Bank. The country roads that wind between them, linking each of the tiny villages to one another. The olive trees that pepper the hills and line the villages. One tree has green and black olives, olives for pressing and olives for pickling. The stones farmers jammed into the sides of hills, building makeshift retaining walls and gorgeous terraces, to keep the soil in place so the olive trees can grow upright are among the most beautiful sights of the West Bank. Sanasil, they call them. They make the hills look like stacks of trees, perfectly sculpted for farmers to cultivate. And the fig trees! They are even fruitful in the late fall! I ate a fig as big as an apple, sweet as a mango, in the late months of fall. In the dead of winter, the whether is still breathtaking. You can enjoy breakfast on the porch and a brisk walk in the evening all year round. And those tiny villages, each one is different from the other. Some are on the tops of hills, with steep roads twisting through and others are in valleys, surrounded by tall hills that perfectly project the athan throughout town, five times a day. The only thing more beautiful than the sunrise is the sunset. The houses are older than anything I have ever seen in my camp. The large rough stones have housed so many generations that most families have a hard time tracing back which forefather stacked them.<br />
<br />
I can't believe that I thought Palestine was arid and dry. I feel deceived and robbed. The only green part of Gaza are the farms and orchards, and it takes considerable effort to make them green. I was born in the plains of Texas and my only exposure to Palestine was flat, dry land. The hills of the West Bank were a completely new experience for me. I saw similar terrain in Turkey, but I'd never seen it in a place that was mine or that I associated with home. What a beautiful surprise.<br />
<br />
<b>RAMALLAH</b><br />
<br />
Ramallah wasn't very exciting for me. But I was never very excited about Ramallah. I liked it because it reminded me a lot of Gaza City, particularly the Rimal district, el-Sa7a, and even the market of Shuja3iyyeh, as I remember it and likely not how it stands today. It was old but not dingy, it had a used feeling to it that made you wonder how many generations have walked these same roads and shopped in these same stores and prayed in these same mosques. There was a very old juice shop near Manara Square that I loved. I visited it and drank a different sweet concoction every time I was in the city. And there was a spice shop I fell in love with. Somehow, everyday, something I bought there finds it's way into the food I eat or the tea I drink. Ramallah felt familiar, which was a nice change.<br />
<br />
The Ramallah village that my husband was raised in, where my in-laws were born nearly seventy years ago, that my children will answer the question "where are you from?" with–that village was very new to me. I saw olive trees older than all the modern regimes that have ruled Palestine. They call them Romani trees because they date back to the Roman empire's rule over Palestine. My father-in-law told me stories about the stolen hill the used to belong to the village, before a settlement was built atop it. When he was a child, European Jewish tourists would come and make some kind of pilgrimage to the hill. He told me "some times we'd go chat with them, and sometimes we would throw rocks at them," in the same unpredictable and spontaneous way kids with little supervision might act today. He showed me the path he took on the back of a donkey for two hours to fetch water for his family. He gave me a tour of the house where he was born and where my husband lived for four years of his childhood. There were silos built into the internal walls of the house for grain and other staples. The stone walls were two feet thick and kept them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The basement of the house sheltered their animals in the winter. My father-in-law, as a child, used to sometimes sleep with the animals he raised underneath the main floor of the house. I saw the well they dug when he later owned the house, and the stone trough the animals drank from, and the tiny room that was once their outhouse. I walked through the recently paved roads that wind through the old part of the village where my husband used to play with his cousins. He recalled to me every childhood memory he had as we passed by buildings and homes and schools he knew. It was nice to be connected to him in that way. It made me wish I could lead him through my family's neighborhood in our camp in Gaza, that I could guide him through my Palestine like he was leading me through his.<br />
<br />
We hiked one of the many hills that surrounds my husband's village, a hill that hadn't been taken by settlers or military installments. We could see the entire village and three neighboring villages from that hilltop. We heard the call to Asr prayer echo through the village from its two mosques, back and forth like a familiar conversation between two old friends. The brightness of the Dhuhur sky was beginning to fade and you could see as far as the next group of hills would allow. It was breathtaking. I performed wudou and prayed on that hilltop, praising my creator for this splendid sight and the good fortune of bearing witness to it. The baby woke up just as we reached the top. We pointed out the major village sites we could find to her and taught her this–all of this–was hers, her village, her homeland, her home. We didn't want to leave, but we needed to be back in the built up part of the villages before sunset, when the wild boars tended to come out. We tried to breathe in as much of the crisp winter air and memorize the view from every direction before we went down.<br />
<br />
<b>YAFFA</b><br />
<br />
We crossed Qalandia too late to attempt to enter the Old City of Jerusalem, so we went straight to Yaffa instead, the city where my mother's family is from. I have dreamed of seeing Yaffa for seventy years. I gave myself virtual tours as I looked up images of the port, of the neighborhoods where my grandparents lived, of the old city. I was so confident I would love Yaffa, the bride of the sea. But I was wrong. I hated Yaffa so much. Yaffa filled me with burning anger. The old city was cleansed of its history and a falsified historic facade cloaked all of the centuries-old buildings that once housed people my grandparents could have known. Israeli tour groups walked through the narrow stone paved roads with cameras hanging off of their necks, refusing to move aside for native me and my stroller as I tried to pass. So I forced my way past them, holding my tongue as it instinctively tried to beg for permission with "pardon" and "excuse me." I hoped to drive my stroller wheels over their big stupid European feet and pretend I hadn't noticed because the stone way is bumpy either way. I walked through their photos and stood in their shots for longer than was necessary, pretending to be oblivious to their intentions. I spoke loudly as tour guides gave descriptions of the buildings around us, hoping to disrupt their disgusting show. I was eager to leave, but I needed to pray Maghrib.<br />
<br />
Just down the road that runs along the Mediterranean was that old mosque that had been turned into a restaurant and bar. My blood was boiling. If I didn't have my baby with me, I would have marched into that horrible place, stood right in front of the bar and prayed right there, yelling every Quranic verse at the top of my lungs, reminding those poor stolen walls what purpose they used to serve. Luckily the people we were with informed us that there was a functioning mosque just down the street. We passed a beautiful old building that apparently served as a theater for my grandfather's generation and dozens more before his. As I approached to read the plaque describing when the theater was built, I heard the loud chattering of dozens of bats and backed away. Though I was afraid, I was pleased. These bats making use of this space meant that Israelis hadn't touched it. I didn't mind sharing part of Yaffa with these bats, as long as it wasn't soiled by the ugliness of occupation and its rebranding of all things indigenous.<br />
<br />
We reached the Grand Mosque of Yaffa. The minaret was tall and lit. We walked in circled for fifteen minutes until we could find a door to the structure the minaret was attached to. There was a beautiful wall with half a dozen taps for wudou along the wall that faces the street. There were palm trees. Though we couldn't see everything because of the darkness of night, it was breathtaking. We found the entrance to the mosque and I followed a cat into the women's section. I crawled through a very low arch to reach the prayer area where prayer clothes and beads were available to worshipping women. The ceiling had pointed arches just like what I remember of the ceilings of the now bombed out Great Mosque of Gaza. It was a familiar reminder that my Palestine and this Palestine were one and the same. The ceilings were painted with beautiful calligraphy of the names of Islam's first ladies: Mariam the daughter of Imran, Aisha the wife of the Prophet Mohammad, Fatima the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad, and plenty more. It was a beautiful space dedicated to women in worship. After I completed my prayer, I returned the skirt I had borrowed, wore my shoes, and looked around the courtyard of the mosque. It was lined with beautiful arches just like the ones I had seen in mosques built in the same era, from Egypt to Turkey. I felt at home, like part of Yaffa was still mine. I took as many pictures as I could so I could tell my family in the US and Gaza that part of Yaffa still remembered us.<br />
<br />
Then we went to Ajami. My grandmother was born and raised in Ajami. My grandfather was from Nuzha and Manshiyyeh, but he likely also spent much of his time in Ajami. Ajami reminded me too much of my camp. The streets weren't beautifully bumpy like the old city's stone paved roads, they were broken and decrepit. The homes were collapsing on themselves. Our guides explained the the occupation forces didn't give the Palestinians of Ajami, like most of the Palestinians inside '48 lands, building permits to renovate, preserve, or add on to their homes. And most of those who stayed in Yaffa after the Nakbeh were forced into Ajami, making the neighborhood serve as a refugee camp for internally displaced Yaffawiyyeh. This history showed. We were also told that the drug trade in this area was allowed by Israeli police to flourish and devastate the community. I was again overcome with anger over the indignity my Yaffa and her people were forced to endure.<br />
<br />
We had dinner at a beautiful seaside "fruit of the sea," as they call seafood in Arabic, restaurant called The Old Man and the Sea. I will never forget this meal. If you ever have the chance, please eat at this restaurant. It's Palestinian owned and run and the food is perfect. They present you with nearly thirty small platters of beautiful and delicious appetizers. They bring mouth puckering yet sweet freshly squeezed lemonade. They offer freshly baked za3tar coated bread right out of the wood burning oven. All of this before you have ordered. It was decadent and delicious and the hospitality was fitting for a king. Our guides told us that this was the most empty they had ever seen the restaurant in the many years they have been eating there. We asked the waiter why, especially on a weekend night, the restaurant was so empty. He told us they believed that the Israelis had agreed to boycott the business ever since the third intifada began.<br />
<br />
We ended our night with ice cream. And that was one of the most depressing parts, oddly enough. The Palestinian young man who was working at the shop read to us the flavors written in Hebrew, and he translated into Arabic the ones he knew. There were some he didn't need to translate, like Snickers and Twix, but there were also a lot he didn't know how to translate. These were mostly fruit flavors. This is a young man whose first language is Arabic, whose primary language is probably still Arabic, but Hebrew is so much a part of his everyday speech that he couldn't remember the names of fruits in Arabic. I wasn't upset with him at all for this and I don't even blame him. I mean I forget things in Arabic too and I'm the child of Palestinians born and raised in Palestine. This was just something I'd never seen before, something I didn't expect. I had no idea I'd face a language barrier with a fellow Arab in Palestine and it wouldn't be ME who had difficulty finding the words to express a thought.<br />
<br />
Overall, my life-long dream of seeing my beautiful Yaffa was a nightmare. I was so disappointed. It wasn't that Yaffa wasn't as beautiful as I had expected. No, it was gorgeous. But it felt lost, conquered, defeated. The West Bank and Gaza don't have this feeling; the West Bank is being suffocated and Gaza is drowning, but they are alive and fighting to survive. Yaffa felt cold, like the life had been sucked out of it, almost like there was no going back. It was an out-of-body experience, like watching your life play out but you're missing from it.<br />
<br />
<b>JERUSALEM</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I honestly don't even know where to start. This part of my visit still feels like I imagined it. Let me begin with this: whether there was an intifada or a meteor was about to crash into the old city, there was absolutely way I would go to the West Bank and not attempt to enter Jerusalem. I may never be granted the occupier's permission to enter the West Bank again for the rest of my life–that is not an unlikely scenario. How could I ever explain or justify not seeing my national capital, my holy city, the first direction my prophet faced to pray, where my prophet rose to paradise? There is no way. But for some reason, nearly everyone I saw in the West Bank acted as though I was selling my baby into slavery by attempting to enter Jerusalem, even if it was to pray in one of Islam's most sacred houses of God. People told me I was "sacrificing my child's life" because even minimal exposure to tear gas could kill her. These people literally told a fellow Palestinian who challenged the occupation and tried to see part of her homeland she was submitting to occupation by attempting to enter on their terms and that she might as well be killing her helpless baby by doing it. It was the most heartless and insensitive thing I had ever heard. But nothing anyone said was going to stop me.<br />
<br />
We tried to enter Jerusalem a number of ways, but neither the legitimate nor the illegitimate worked. As we were leaving my husband's family's house I told him, "purify your intention and make your only intention today to be prayer in Masjid al-Aqsa." And a few hours later, we walked straight in through a checkpoint without any of the necessary documents. He didn't even have a passport. There is no way to explain it.<br />
<br />
We left the home of our hosts early in the morning and went straight to Damascus Gate. We bought ka3ik el-Quds and some giant Jerusalem falafil and entered the old city. I instantly fell in love. I never understood what the old city was like. The courtyard around the Aqsa and Dome of the Rock is enclosed by a fortress and the narrow stone paved roads around this fortress is lined by shops and above them are family homes. Some of these homes and shops have been taken over by settlers and there are huge Israeli flags hanging from the roofs and windows of the stolen homes. But, I would say, the vast majority of the people you see in the old city are Palestinian, unless you're counting occupation soldiers and police. There are tall walls all around you in the old city, but if you look up, it's open and you can see the sky. There are different paths that connect the shops and they twist and turn, making it hard to tell if you're approaching the Aqsa or walking away from it. Though most of the shops sell souvenirs, the shops in the old city sell everything from dried fruit to spices to Turkish and Jordanian imported Islamic dress to embossed leather goods to hand stitched Palestinian items. It was overwhelming because I wanted so much more time wandering from shop to shop, patronizing the <i>murabiteen</i> running each of these small businesses that keep the identity of the old city Palestinian.<br />
<br />
The soldiers were very heavily armed and every hundred or so feet, you'd see a metal detector and a couple of soldiers or police. They had infested the place. And this was an incredibly intimidating sight to a group of people lacking Israeli-approved documents to justify their presence. I had to make a conscious effort to constantly speak with my husband to disguise our very obvious nervousness.<br />
<br />
Five feet from the doorway between us and the Aqsa's courtyard, an Israeli soldier looked at my nervous and tense husband and asked him where he was from. My husband told him Chicago. Then the soldier asked my bearded husband accompanying his hijab-donned wife if he was a Muslim. Then we entered. I looked up and saw the Dome of the Rock in all of its splendor and glory. I was in awe. I was stunned. I couldn't believe my eyes or my good fortune. Every other part of our trip that shouldn't have happened but did left me feeling like I had outsmarted the occupation, but as I stood before the building built over the stone where Prophet Mohammad stood before he rose to paradise, I felt overcome with gratitude. There are millions of Palestinians wishing they could be in my place, billions of Muslims around the world praying to worship in this mosque. And I was there. I felt like the luckiest person in the world. I looked at my husband and he asked me if I was okay. I was sobbing. I hugged him and shook in his arms. He laughed a little and told me I would be even more pleased to see Masjid al-Aqsa. Then he asked me to stop crying so we wouldn't bring attention to our undocumented selves.<br />
<br />
He led me through the courtyard and showed me al-Aqsa. It was enormous. I had no idea how huge Masjid al-Aqsa was and how small and far back its dome is. As we began taking photos of our baby girl with al-Aqsa behind her, the call to Dhuhur prayer was called. We were thrilled; not only would we be able to pray in al-Aqsa, but we would pray in congregation. My husband quickly performed wudou and we rushed inside. I laid my sweet baby girl on the floor near a beautifully ornate pillar and stood next to her in prayer. Overwhelmed with the emotion of finally being in this sacred and beautiful place, I supplicated to God, asking Him to give everyone in my family and every Palestinian and Muslim yearning to pray in al-Aqsa the opportunity to do so. We prayed the congregation prayer. As I waited for the crowd to clear out so I could explore the mosque and take photos of its exquisite beauty, I looked around me and tried to memorize my surroundings, afraid the occupation may never permit me to enter again. Everywhere I looked, there were ornate and intricate geometric designs. It was breathtaking. There were stained glass windows and high arches and calligraphy. It was so much more beautiful than I had imagined. I have not been to the Ka3ba or el-Masjid al-Nabawi, so this was the most sacred space I have ever been and, although occupation forces were a mere few hundred feet away, I had never felt safer and more at peace.<br />
<br />
As we headed out of Masjid al-Aqsa, we heard the loud and forceful chanting of "Allah Akbar" coming from what sounded like a furious group of women. I looked to the courtyard of Masjid al-Aqsa and I saw settlers guarded by over a dozen occupation soldiers and police marching through our holy site, desecrating it with their unwelcome and violent presence. The <i>Murabitaat</i>, the women who never left Masjid al-Aqsa and served as its guardians because it was clear the Jordanian <i>waqf</i> had failed to fulfill its obligations, were making sure the Israeli settlers and their state-sanctioned protectors knew they were not welcome. I was so proud to be among them. I thanked them for their work in service of our cause and liberation and they asked where I was from. They were glad to know a Palestinian from Gaza was praying in Masjid al-Aqsa. I looked around for the Indonesian tourists I had seen moments earlier, but they were no where to be seen. I wondered what they thought of what was happening--the settlers, the armed police escorts, the <i>Murabitaat</i>. I couldn't find out.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><br /></b></div>
2016/03/i-saw-ramallah-and-jerusalem-and-yaffa.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-8812417664648146154Fri, 26 May 2023 03:35:00 +00002023-05-25T22:35:02.471-05:00Rage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Written April 13, 2018--during the Great March of Return.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have this fire burning inside of me that I can’t put out. It’s not ambition or excitement or restlessness. It’s raw, all-consuming rage. I haven’t felt this anger in years but it’s getting really difficult to keep contained this time. Things in Palestine must change. Enough.<br />
<br />
Return isn’t a dream or optimism or idealism. It’s the only way. Either the refugees return or they will all be killed as they force their return on the occupier. That’s what has been happening over the past 70 years anyway. The resistance has always been and remains an army of dispossessed. You either support, defend, and advocate for return or you watch silently as refugees are slaughtered. If you ignore refugees in your discussion of “solutions,” you’re engaging in the same idle talk that got us 70 years of occupation.<br />
<br />
I’m tired of crying at screens as I read about the latest murder. I’m tired of praying I don’t get bad news about my loved ones, who I already miss so much I can hardly say their names.<br />
<br />
I’m enraged that I’m having to teach my toddler about walls and settlers and refugees and demonstrations because that’s what it means to be Palestinian. She’s never eaten a fresh fig or prickly pear but she knows about the separation wall and about settler land theft. Pragmatism and small steps brought us here. They gave us a national identity that is entirely hopelessness and mourning and homemade oxygen masks.<br />
<br />
If you have criticism about safety and avoiding clashes, you haven’t been paying attention. They’ve been plucking our children out of their beds. They shower bombs on their homes as they sleep. The clashes haven't stopped, the moments of calm are just moments that Palestinians are silenced, not subdued. There is no reigniting or rising of tensions, it's the refocus of the world's attention on us. We are not safer when we muffle our own rage. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Return or death. </div>
2018/04/rage.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-1270928638769876262Thu, 19 Mar 2015 00:50:00 +00002015-03-18T20:24:38.122-05:00Free in Gaza<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It has been nearly three years since I have breathed the air of Palestine.<br />
<br />
I think of Palestine every day. It's odd; even though Gaza is aptly called the "largest open-air prison in the world," there is no place I feel freer than in her streets, on her beaches. This likely reveals more about how the United States has become a surveillance state than it reveals anything about Gaza, but there is something beautiful in feeling free to speak openly and freely about any subject without concern that your words are being recorded and may one day be replayed to you in a federal court house before a jury at your material support trial.<br />
<br />
It's true, if you come from an outspoken Fateh or secular family or espouse those views yourself, you may not understand at all what I am talking about. But even my long list of criticisms of Hamas have not been met with force or hatred. Maybe my audience is more welcoming than others or more understanding. Or maybe no one takes what I say seriously enough to feel threatened or harmed by it. I don't know. But the truth is I feel freest as soon as I cross from the Egyptian to the Palestine side of the Rafah Crossing. The Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing. Another place in Gaza that has been bombed since I was last there. I don't know if the building is functional or if I would recognize it. So much has changed since my last visit home.<br />
<br />
In Gaza, the concern is not so much that the local government is spying on you. After all, they lack the means to do so, even if they wanted to. No, the concern is that collaborators are watching you, listening to your words, and reporting your actions and conversations to the occupier. I have never possessed much information of importance to the occupation forces and have never lived in Palestine long enough as an adult to be picked up on any radar. I guess all of my experiences are laced with disclaimers and exceptions, but that truly is my experience.<br />
<br />
As soon as I step off the bus that takes travelers the couple hundred meters from the Egyptian to the Palestinian side of Rafah, I feel tension leave my body with a deep exhale. Excitement makes my heart beat faster and I can't wait to get through security and see the palm trees waiting for me outside behind a long row of taxis.<br />
<br />
Walking through my camp, I feel connected to the childhoods of my parents that they worked so hard for me not to relive. I imagine what crops grew in the fields here before 1950. What the camp looked like when my grandparents first entered it. If they were relieved to find safety or horrified that this would be their new home. No matter my train of thought, I never worry that one day I will have to answer to the FBI about who I was going to visit, why I walked a particular route, what we discussed, and if we exchanged any money. I never worry that my phone calls will be manipulated and distorted to make me appear to support terrorism or the slaughtering of civilians. I feel safe, even with the drones buzzing overhead and collaborators likely walking the same street. Maybe it's because, over the years, my people have attributed honor to those being persecuted by the occupier. Maybe that is why I do not fear my death or imprisonment at their hands. Maybe because I know no one will trust the decisions of their military courts or comments of their apartheid officials.<br />
<br />
But in the U.S. it's different. I am afraid. I am distrustful. When I say something that I can imagine being misconstrued at my future trial, I clarify for the agents listening in on my conversation, mostly for the benefit of the jury. I may sound paranoid. But I saw shocking and horrifying things in the Holy Land Foundation trial and at Rasmea Odeh's trial. I don't know how anyone can feel safe or free in the United States after witnessing either of those injustices.<br />
<br />
In Gaza, society is made up of people just like me; people whose grandparents were forced out of their hometowns, whose parents barely had enough to eat, whose uncles were prisoners, whose aunts married distant relatives abroad in the hopes of living a better life. They would never believe the slander the occupation spread about me. But in the U.S., I am foreign and a threat and a member of the fifth column and treated with suspicion, even before there is any indication that I stand for anything but truth and justice.<br />
<br />
I miss the freedom of Gaza. I miss not feeling watched or spied on. It's a strange thing to miss, especially when spring has begun and tree limbs are hanging heavy with all of my favorite fruits. But this is reality. This is why I am nameless. </div>
2015/03/free-in-gaza.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-3478300302992820837Thu, 26 Feb 2015 08:52:00 +00002015-03-18T19:18:32.151-05:00I failed my daughter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I never had a sister. My mom and I are very close, but that didn't start until the end of college. I didn't grow up with cousins around. My mom's sisters are my grandmother's age and I never knew any of them well. I am so excited to be having a daughter. I feel like, finally, I'll have that female bond I didn't have growing up. I want to give her a sister. I want to give her everything I had, everything I wished I had, and everything in between.<br />
<br />
I want her to grow up feeling safe and secure and loving her self and believing she can do whatever she sets her mind to. I want her to strive to serve God, to help the underprivileged, to be the best member of humanity she can be.<br />
<br />
But I have already failed her. In my 26 years, I haven't done enough to make the world she will be born in to a better place. We are still exiles from our homeland. The occupation of Palestine is as entrenched as ever. Gaza is collapsing. Her father and I have never been to Palestine together and likely won't be going before she is born. She will be a West Banker with a mother banned from the West Bank. She will be the child of American-born Palestinians who always planned but never made the move to their homeland.<br />
<br />
Nearly every Arab country that borders our homeland is tearing at the seams. Egypt is a mess. Nearly a thousand people were massacred in the street and no one has been held accountable. Journalists are in prison for calling a coup what it is. Syria is hell. It is hell. And Syrians have been scattered all over the world, looking for a safe place for their kids to sleep and a steady supply of food. Even Iraq–Iraq is as bad as ever, no one is immune. The Sunnis, the Shia, the Kurds, the Christians, the religious, the secular–everyone is facing death.<br />
<br />
The world is not safe for Muslims. Not our Middle East, not Europe, and not the United States. We are attacked everywhere we go and unwelcome everywhere we flee. Just declaring your faith and being visibly Muslims puts your life at stake. Our masajid are attacked, our homes unsafe. There is no peace of mind.<br />
<br />
I have always been the type of person who panics when the phone rings, whose heartbeat doesn't return to a normal pace until I am calmly assured that nothing has gone wrong. I can't watch someone I love answer the phone and nod silently as they are given information without the worst scenario playing through my head about the information being relayed to them. I am a worrier, and now I have infinitely more to worry about.<br />
<br />
Last week my niece asked me about death. We were sitting on a bench in front of a pond. The bench was built in memory of a deceased man. I don't know him or anything about him. She asked me to read the message inscribed on the bench. I told her it was to remember a man. She asked why he needed to be remembered. I explained that he had died. She understood death as something that comes only to "bad" people. She couldn't understand how "bad" things, like death, could happen to good people. I tried to explain that you can only go to heaven and see God of you die. That wasn't enough for her.<br />
<br />
How will I ever explain to my daughter why bad things happen to good people? Why we don't live in the place we call home? Why my family in Palestine calls a refugee camp home? Why Egypt imposes a siege on Gaza? Why settlers constantly attack her father's village? Why our tax dollars go to furthering these injustices? Why it's not safe to be near the masjid alone at night?<br />
<br />
How can I bring her into a world as sick as ours and hope she grows up feeling safe and secure and loving herself? How can I expect that she won't know that people hate her and wish her harm because of her tan skin, her mother's hijab, her father's beard, the way she worships, and the language her parents speak to her in? How long can I shield her from the sick realities of this world? When will she be old enough to know the truth? How do I tell her that people think she doesn't deserve to exist because she is Muslim, Palestinian, brown, a woman? If I don't tell her, will she understand why I hover over her in public, why I constantly worry?<br />
<br />
She deserves better. I should have given her better.<br />
<br />
For now, I am glad I get to hold her close every moment of the day and night. That way I can keep her warm and safe and fed. I wish I could hold her there forever, safe from the world I couldn't fix in time for her arrival. She is eager though. She is always moving, wrestling to break free, to see this world I warn her of and shield her from. I am confident she will work as hard or harder than I have to correct these injustices. Maybe she will be more successful. Maybe when she becomes a mother, her baby girl will be born in the place we call home. Maybe no one will mourn that she was not a boy. Maybe she will walk confidently on the land she knows is hers, certain she has a place in this world that is hers, a place she can fell safe and welcome. I wish I could give my baby girl that peace of mind. I have nearly four more months, maybe a miracle will happen.<br />
<br />
I'm sorry, mama.</div>
2015/02/i-failed-my-daughter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (48Refugee)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036316314797077294.post-6515411763745671635Fri, 31 Oct 2014 01:30:00 +00002015-02-02T03:30:22.218-06:00GazaGrandmaNakbaOccupationRefugeeUNUNRWAWe survived, now let us live<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You know when you've been on your feet all day and you can't wait to get your feet up because they're throbbing so much that you think your heart might have relocated to your feet?<br />
<br />
You know when you've been plane hopping all day, traveling to some faraway place and you can't wait to reach your destination and stretch out your limbs on a bed?<br />
<br />
You know when warplanes are flying so close that they look like doves in the sky, until they shoot missiles at your neighbors, and you have to flee with just the clothes on your back, clutching your young children's hands, to a strange place far enough away from where you've always lived that you can feel safe?<br />
<br />
Relief. The United Nations for Relief and Works Agency. Rafah refugee camp.<br />
<br />
I wonder how relieved my grandmother was when she arrived in Rafah refugee camp in 1948. Finally, a place where she could hold her kids close and tell them everything would be ok.<br />
<br />
How long did that relief last? When was it that she started hating the camp? Was it when she had to register as a refugee? Was it when aid workers registered her kids in schools? Was it when she realized she was staying? Was it the humiliation of standing in line for rations to feed her family? Was it in 1967 when she thought she'd have to flee again? Was it when she married her daughter off to a man who took her to Saudi Arabia? When her other daughter married a cousin from a camp in Jordan? Was it when her oldest son moved to the United States to begin college? When she went a decade without seeing any of them? Was it when she buried her husband in the camp? When