After a week and a half of the most stifling heat, Jenin comes as a relief. Or rather, the Arab-American University of Jenin, comes as a relief. This brand new campus is situated, Third World style, well outside the city itself, in the cooler hills above. The drop in temperature is a respite for this northern European but the condition of my feet is of some concern to our hosts.
Ironically, my feet are much better than they were in Tel Aviv but, thanks to all the dead skin, they look much worse. While the rest of the group travels into the city, I have to stay behind to wait for the doctor.
We spend the following day planting trees around the campus, part beautification, part solidarity. In both cultures, Palestinian and Israeli, the tree is a powerful symbol of ownership of, and attachment to, the land. Planting a tree in the Holy Land is a political statement, since it will be there long after its planter has passed away.
But it isn’t all po-faced pondering on the meaning of landscape gardening, there are moments of light relief too. That afternoon we play a game of volleyball, Palestine versus The Rest Of The World, in which yours truly, limping slightly, plays his part. The non-Palestinian part of the planet gets battered.
There is also plenty of downtime during which we discuss the political situation in the West Bank. The issue of suicide bombing always provides for a lively debate. Those of us in the Guardian Brigade disapprove of this form of violence and repeatedly point out how damaging it is to the Palestinian cause.
Our hosts are deeply divided on this issue and good friends will often argue bitterly about the morality of suicide bombing, without either questioning the other’s commitment to the intifada. Those who do justify this practice tend to do so in the most mundane forms, as in:
“It is necessary, you can’t leave a bomb in a bag in Tel Aviv, it will be discovered within seconds.”
This is a long way from the bloodcurdling rhetoric of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The openness of debate is impressive, showing that occupied Palestine is one of the most democratic societies in the Arab world. Something for the rest of the Arab world to ponder.
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From Jenin, it’s onwards to the largest city in the Occupied Territories, Nablus. It is also one of the West Banks’ more conservative places. The area around Jerusalem has a large Christian population, alcohol is sold in shops and the sight of human shins is not considered shocking. But here in the north, almost everyone is Muslim, booze is off the menu and shorts are not a good idea.
The city itself is stunningly beautiful, nestled between two mountains, the natural setting somewhat distracting from the squalor and poverty. We are staying in a primary school, sleeping on the cold wooden floors of the classrooms. During the day we have the pleasure of the company of a police officer. Our hosts, eager not to worry us, claim that the police often stay in schools these days to avoid Israeli helicopter strikes.
While this may be true, we soon learn that the police officer is also there for our protection. It is forty days since the murder of a top Hamas man in the city, a significant landmark in the Islamic religion. Our hosts fear that some hothead may react badly at the sight of foreigners at a time like this. The level of care is touching but the fear proves unfounded. As with everywhere else in the West Bank, people are friendly and frequently call out “from where are you?” The answer “Ireland” always raises a smile.
Our time in Nablus includes some tree-painting in a local park, a trip to the refugee camp and a visit to the Turkish baths. But my overall impression of our time in Nablus is one of tedium, of sitting around at the school killing time; talking politics, playing chess or smoking the water-pipe. The Israeli closure is particularly severe at the time so we are told to be patient and flexible.
It strikes me, lounging around the school, that the sheer tedium of occupation is the only part that the outsider can fully experience. All the rest: the brutality, the casual racism, is diluted by the presence of a foreign set of eyes and ears. On the way out of Nablus, we are stopped at an Israeli checkpoint. There are seven of us in the car but we only pass forward five IDs as two of the passengers are from Gaza.
The soldier on duty doesn’t bat an eyelid at this, handing back our documents and waving us through. For years afterwards, I took this as an example of the very poor level of maths teaching in Israeli schools. Only recently did I realise that, in all likelihood, the soldier knew fine well that some people in the car hadn’t handed him their IDs. He chose to wave us through because I was in the car, because he didn’t want the foreigner to get a bad impression.
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On the wall of the classroom is a picture of Yasser Arafat beaming down at us in that slightly creepy Third World “el presidente” way. The wee man’s noble visage is often on display in the West Bank. As part of my sponge-work, I make a point of asking the Palestinians I meet lots of questions. I always enquire what they think of Yasser. The answer is nearly always the same. First there is a recitation of Arafat’s failings: he signed a disastrous deal at Oslo, he is corrupt and autocratic, he won’t lead the intifada etc. Then just when I expect to hear a hearty “Down with Yasser!” all the anger drifts away and the Palestinian sighs wistfully “but he is my leader.”
As “Mr Palestine”, Arafat had built up such a reservoir of support and affection among his people that he seemed immune to the consequences of his many mistakes. It was his centrality to Palestinian life which Bush and Sharon foolishly ignored during their “Arafat is irrelevant” stage.
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The trip to the refugee camp in Nablus is more memorable than the visit to Jalazon. Our fist stop is a tiny rundown house where an old man tells us his life story, of how he was ethnically cleansed in 1948. In spite of the family’s obvious poverty, they are keen to ply us with food and drink. Spotting an old picture on the wall of a young man in uniform, I ask who he is. “That’s me” the old man replies in Arabic “I was in the British army from 1945-48.” My grandfather was also a British soldier in the 1940s. It’s funny how the world’s trouble spots often have a British connection.
We wander around the camp witnessing the cramped and squalid living conditions, considerably worse than those we saw in Jalazon. One house, or rather a room, sticks in my mind. Perhaps twelve feet by twelve, it is beautifully decorated, the bedding would not look out of place in the Belfast suburbs. Yet an entire family, ten people, sleep in this one room. They must have spent every last penny they have making their tiny patch of real estate look as pleasant as possible. To me, it says something about the strength of the human spirit.
Afterwards we meet up in the local community centre to discuss what we’ve seen. There are a few more speakers including an old man who launches into an anti-Semitic tirade. This provokes a heated argument as some people in the room take exception to his remarks. Some of our guides leave the room, heads hung low knowing that the old man’s stupidity will be the lasting memory of the day.
The old man had acted as a tour guide for one group (thankfully not mine) before going to the community centre. When he found out that one of the people he was showing around was British, he launched into a diatribe about the mandate period. He was gloriously oblivious to the fact that the Brit in question, Mudhasser, was obviously of South Asian origin and several decades too young to remember the mandate period.
I add this detail just to demonstrate that, in my experience, there is a near perfect co-relation between anti-Semitism and general idiocy. One of the “good” things about anti-Semites is that they are not hesitant in advertising their stupidity.
Leaving the camp, I feel sorry for Dave that he had to listen to such rubbish from a man he was trying to help. But he doesn’t seem downbeat at all. In fact, as we leave the camp, Dave comes up with the funniest line of the whole trip. Looking at the human misery around him he sighs:
“All this coz we never got to be cowboys.”