TELLS HER STORY
My father, who was not a Palestinian, was a very prominent military officer in the Middle East, I will not mention the country for personal reasons. His job was to mobilize Palestinian forces into Israeli territory and cause as much death and damage to Israel as possible. As a small child in the 50's, I remember the horror of being told not to take any candy or fruit from any stranger since it could have a bomb in it. Our house was surrounded with security, a couple of times our train trip was cancelled because the train tracks were bombed. I remember sleeping nights under the bed fearing the sound of bombs and explosions. I remember going to a Palestinian preschool and kindergarten and the word "Jew" instilled terror and dread into the core of my very being. A Jewish person was portrayed like less than human, a dog, an evil alien from outer space who was about to destroy the world.
Jews, they said, had no home because they were cursed by God and the main mission of Islam was to get rid of Jews. As a small child I remember once, at a Palestinian school, asking "why?" The response was that I was a traitor for asking this question and would go to hell, and for the rest of the day the girls in the school did not talk to me. The education was mainly political, teaching kids the hatred of Israel. Arabic poetry was recited daily, with tears in Palestinian children's eyes, on how Palestine was taken from them and how they will retaliate and even die to get it back.
In spite of this atmosphere, my own family which was not Palestinian, did not discuss this hatred. To my mother, and I think also to my father, whom I hardly remember, his job was his duty, nothing more and nothing less, and I don't think he really liked it. My mother said that he was getting sick of his job and was promised to leave his post and get transferred to a post that did not require living on the edge as he and all of us (his family) were. Two weeks before leaving his post he was killed by the Israelis in retaliation. My loving father died at age 35 and never saw his children grow, let alone his grandchildren. He was robbed of his life and for that I blame the Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth.
I was shocked to know that almost 90% of streets in the Middle East are named after martyrs. As I walked in my neighborhood I found street after street with men's names who gave their lives to martyrdom! What a disaster to many families and children, but we were taught only to be proud and retaliate! I dreamed my father would probably come back home from heaven since we needed him more than heaven.
In the funeral I saw men crying like children after his death since he was deeply loved by others too. My mother, after the funeral, was left in a severe depression of which she never truly recovered and my childhood together with my siblings was further ruined. We received a generous pension from the government and so my mother was able to send us to the best private schools. I was very lucky to go to a Catholic school run by Irish nuns.
After a short time, the people who had congratulated us were nowhere to be found, and my mother had very little emotional help. Being in the Middle East in the late 50's, it was very difficult for a woman to live without a husband. There is practically no social structure of support for widows. It is a very clan-like society. Your strength and social status comes only from your family and especially your male relatives. Despite the crowded cities of the Middle East and close proximity of living conditions, the people seem friendly but are isolated from one another and believe in envy. There is strict ritual of behavior, but not genuine social cohesion. The culture is dominated by the idea that "I will be cursed by people who will envy me" to the point of paranoia. People have to keep their distance, sometimes even from their own family members, in defense from the Evil Eye. They always point out that "envy" was mentioned in the Koran. They never discussed envy as a sin that hurts.
All the good Moslems who were very proud of my Dad stopped visiting after a few weeks. Maybe some women did not want us to envy them having husbands and fathers! The relationships among Moslem women were extremely competitive since, according to the Islamic law, husbands can have up to four wives, therefore visiting and being friendly with widowed women can be very threatening. Women actually could shun a beautiful young widow like my mother. One time I heard a woman telling her husband that he could fool around if he wanted to, but to please never marry another woman. Family loyalties and structure is very different there.
In the Middle East a woman's reputation is everything. Neighbors would watch every step of a woman leaving her house, what time she came home and who visited her. I remember my mother chastised me and grounded me because a boy came to talk to me when I was waiting for her to pick me up from school. She said "don't you care about your reputation, having no father and a boy talking to you on the sidewalk?!" I can't blame her now since she was living in this tragedy herself.
The first day I attended my Catholic school, the nuns told my mother they were praying for her. The first day was very peaceful and I felt love among people for the first time in a long time. It was a different kind of love, a peaceful kind of love that wants nothing in return. Half the class was Moslem and we attended a class once a day to learn the Koran. The "Islam" teacher merely recited verses and spoke of Islamic history. I constantly felt that the God of Islam was always angry at us and there was a constant threat of Hell. We never discussed love and a large amount of time was devoted to the wars of Mohammed and how he won most of them. He and his followers would engage in wars with other tribes from Mecca and kill and loot their caravans. They did that for 20 years until Mohamed won and Mecca surrendered. As a child the stories scared me. I am very appreciative that my mother never insisted on us to practice Islam and she had no hatred toward other religions.
