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Translated
by Rann Bar-On
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=19170
There is nothing festive in this posting. Passover, shmassover,
I hate the holidays because while we celebrate, while us Jews babble slogans
about freedom, and fantasize that we are a miserable enslaved nation, we are
in fact busy enslaving the Palestinian people. It`s
become banal and boring to repeat this a thousand times, but in my eyes, the
hypocrisy cries out to the heavens. [The Passover prayer] `Oh bread of
poverty` is no longer the bread of poverty of Jews but of numerous
Palestinian families in the Occupied Territories, who live off thirty or
forty shekels the head of the household manages to scrounge together doing
temporary jobs once every few days.
I got to know one such family this past Friday. I joined my daughter, Talila, at a demonstration against the Wall in Bil`in. The protocol involves gathering at Tel-Aviv`s Northern railway station and from there somehow
organizing ourselves into Arab minibuses and private cars, and driving to
those Palestinian villages whose income has been affected by the Wall. That
is, the Wall separates between the villagers and their fields. My daughter is
well-accustomed to these demonstrations. For me, this was the fist time. This
is how I met Dr. Ilan Shalif, the living spirit of
the the demonstrations and organizer of rides.
Shalif is a psychologist and an anarchist, who
surely has better things to do with his time than to busy himself organizing
taxis. This is what it means to be an idealist: to do things for altruistic
reasons. He comes equipped with special large glasses to protect against the
sting of tear gas the border police will throw at him. What encouraged me was
that not all the demonstrators were youngsters, some were more-or-less my
age, like Yisrael and Dvorah
(Dvorah Ferdel-Zilberstein)
who in the end volunteered to drive us in her red Vauxhall to Bil`in.
We agree on a cover story in case we get stopped at the checkpoint after the
turnoff from Road 443. We were to say that we were on our way to a
circumcision ceremony at one of the settlements. But as it turned out no one
stopped us at the checkpoint, nor did they stop the cars behind us. And so we
climbed hills and descended into valleys between quiet and beautiful
villages, between olive groves and fields of flowers, until we arrived at Bil`in.
In the interest of calm and sanity, it is best not to look at the new
settlements that are popping up on the way to Bil`in.
All sort of ugly piles of cement that destroys the beautiful vistas of this
land in the name of some fake `love of Israel`. When I stare at this
colossal ugliness, designed to house all sort of orthodox parasites from
abroad whose only job is to hate the non-Jew, I understand that what is called
the `Jewish nation` is not my nation at all, and that I feel far more
sympathetic and empathetic towards Palestinian residents of the Occupied
Territories like the family from
Bil`in who accommodated myself and my daughter
after I was (lightly) injured during the demonstration by an exploding stun
grenade.
The father of the family is called Hashem. His wife
is named Zahara. They have two married daughters
living nearby, and they have lovely little children. I felt at home
immediately. Hashem brought me herbs from the garden, which were supposed to help alleviate the effects
of the gas thrown at me by the soldiers. Zahara
hurried to bring us a tray filled with fresh vegetables, pita bread, olive
oil and za`atar. Their house was small, pleasant
and brightly lit. Hashem works occasionally as a
gardener
in the houses of rich people in Ramallah. Luckily, his brother owns the only
supermarket in the village and sells him good on credit. This is how they
manage to survive.
As I was walking with the demonstrators - some villagers, some from Ramallah,
and some Israeli and international activists - towards the gate in the Wall
that is protected by armed border policemen, my daughter told me that one
border police unit occupied Hashem`s roof and fired
at the house next door, where stones were supposedly thrown from. My daughter
shouted at the soldiers that the house they were firing at had elderly and
disabled residents in it, but they ignored her.
In the mean time, I stood facing the soldiers guarding the gate in the Wall
and watched them. They put on tough-looking faces, but to me they appeared to
be just a group of cute kids. I thought to myself that any one of them could
have been my son. The only ones who looked agitated were those who stood
behind them, with the badge of the army spokesperson`s
office on their shoulders, filming the events.
The main attraction of the demonstration was a elderly Palestinian, who had Parkinson`s, who came in a black suit and a Palestinian keffiyeh and threw himself on the soldiers` shields. They
pushed him back, though they did try to be gentle, not because they are
gentle by nature, but rather because they knew foreign television crews were
filming them from the adjacent hilltop.
Once in a while the commander of the unit, who seemed slick and devious to
me, one of those who will declare at a party a few years down the line that he`s really a leftist, instructed with a nod of his head
the use of a water cannon to disperse us. Then the stun grenades began
flying. What a disgusting man! How could I say that I belong to the same
nation as this commander, who orders stun grenades to be thrown at me, while
seemingly unable to wipe a vile smile from his lips. It`s
clear to him that I am non-violent, and I will not lift a finger to his soldiers,
nor I nor the elderly people I was with, much less the villagers who were
even less violent than I was. All they wanted was to demonstrate a symbolic
presence near the Wall. One day I will bump into this commander when he is
back to civilian life and I will spit in his face(symbolically,
of course, not really, because I am not violent like he is).
This is how the Occupation functions. On the front line are good, innocent
youth, who could have been my children, about whom I could never say that
they are oppressive occupiers. Behind them stands a commander who looks like
a marketing executive who cannot harm a fly. And behind him stand all sort of
slick-looking youths from the army spokesperson`s
office who look like future cinema directors and authors. And even further
back behind them stands a water cannon for dispersal
of demonstrations. And what`s the big deal about a
water cannon - water doesn`t kill. Nor do stun
grenades. The whole thing looks like child`s play,
and despite all this there is an Occupation, despite all this Hashem lives in a cage, much worse-off than black slaves
in the US in their time. All the people of Bil`in
can do is go to Ramallah, where the world they can travel freely in stops.
All this misery is created by people who look like dorky marketing managers.
So on the night of the Seder, while listening to the dull text of the Hagadah, I will think about Hashem
and his family from Bil`in, who fed me a sparse
meal, and yet I, even if I wanted to fulfill the commandment telling me to
share my food and my home with the needy will not be able to, because of
those fences and walls of Occupation separating between us, disguising
themselves as elements in an `enlightened` Occupation. And I will think that
they are truly my people, not the disgusting officers who look like marketing
executives, who destroy my beautiful land with fortified cement.
Upon them will I pour my scorn, as is commanded to do upon non-Jews in the hagadah.
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