| Day 13 continued... |
| We are told as well of some modest successes. One time, the Rapprochement Center arranged for Israeli Jewish families to celebrate Shabbat with families in Bet Sahour. The Israeli police tried to stop them, fearing that it would be too dangerous, and even ordered buses for them to get out of Bet Sahour. The Jews refused to comply, however, telling the police that if they forced them to leave, Israel would be the first country to force Jews to use transportation on Shabbat. Ashamed, the soldiers let them go, and the Jewish families had Shabbat with the families of Bet Sahour. The Center also organizes dialogues and annual candlelight processions. A new focus of the Center is social justice. As the leader of the group talks, more and more people slip in, some finding a seat, some leaning against the wall. The room grows darker; the candle lights smaller but more luminous. The man with the blue shirt and black eyes speaks again, his voice and gestures a study in strictly controlled passion. �We reserve the right to use whatever means we feel necessary to repulse the people who are occupying us.� During the intifadah, we are told, all of the people here kept the doors to their houses open, so that Palestinian demonstrators could run through any house to escape the soldiers. The young men tell us that they never let their parents know where they were going, first because their parents would worry, second because under torture they might reveal the information. Schools were closed during the intifadah, so classes were organized in peoples� homes, and the young men guarded the neighborhood in shifts, using the roofs of houses as watch towers. Things became difficult, however, when Israeli soldiers were trained to disguise themselves as civilians. A man leaning against the wall spoke up, �In a military assault, they can defeat us. They have more weapons, better firepower. But we know the land, the roads, the alleys. In a street fight, we will win.� On that note, our meeting ended. From a western perspective, the evening had been surreal. I thought of the scene from �Les Miserables� where the students plot revolution at their candlelit table in the caf�, but this was not a novel�it was and is real life for real people. I felt overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem. When I attended lectures by Israeli speakers, the government�s policies seemed perfectly justified; here, the opposite seemed equally and compellingly true. The only thing I was sure I understood was that I couldn�t really understand; the only opinions I felt secure in positing were that the truth did not lie wholly in one camp or the other, and that there would never be a clear-cut answer. It was time for our group to pair off and go to the homes of our host families in Bet Sahour. Jerry sat, scribe like, at a table, and by the waning light of a candle recorded the name and phone number of each place our seminar�s participants would be staying. He gave us two emergency contact numbers�his and the Center�s, and then we said goodnight. Betty and I were retrieved by a middle-aged gentleman who, miraculously, managed to drive a car with entirely fogged up windows down obscure winding streets to the family�s home. There, we met the mother and grandmother of the family. They told us that there were no lights, since Bet Sahour had been without electricity all day. We sat in the candlelight, in front of a dark TV screen. Occasionally, someone went into another room, flashlight in hand. The father is unwilling to speak about the Palestinian situation. The daughter is impatient with it�she is in 10th grade. The son, twenty years old, waits on pins and needles for his cell phone to ring. When it does, he leaps to his feet, speaks quickly into it and rushes out of the house. The mother says she is willing to talk about Palestinian experiences, �because the tourists want it,� and commences with a litany of woes. A little after 7:00 P.M., she, Betty and I bring a candle into the kitchen and sit down for a dinner of cucumber and tomato salad, excellent brown rice, and fish with lots of little bones that, in the dark, are impossible to see before eating. I spend the meal trying to nonchalantly remove bones from my mouth. Dinner is followed by tea and an hour of strained conversation, during which the father tells us that there is no point in talking to Americans, since we all watch TV reports about how evil the Palestinians are, and we all support the Israelis. I am appalled to be a guest in someone�s home and at the same time the source of so much tension. I tried to express our good will and openness to hearing all sides of what is surely a very complicated situation, but felt that my efforts were only making people angry, so I stopped trying to talk and just felt sad, and very much in need of a cigarette. Eventually, Betty and I went to our room. To get there, we had to go along a walkway outside; the guest room had its own entrance. We made our way along slowly, our path illuminated by the one candle I carried and a sky filled with stars more numerous than I have ever seen, stars of biblical proportions. Inside the freezing cold and pitch-black room, we light one more candle. There are, happily, lots of blankets. We decide to keep one candle in the bathroom and one in the bedroom, the end result being that we couldn�t see anything in either room. Before going to sleep, I stand outside to look at the stars. I do not have a cigarette, because I do not know if the family would consider it rude. |
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