Loss, memory, utopia: the refugee experience

Banksy cartoon in Deheishe refugee camp

Day Tripper in Palestine
By Jennifer Langer
July 27, 2015

Jennifer Langer, founding director of Exiled Writers Ink,  poet and editor of four anthologies of exiled literature

The Palestinian landscape of rolling hills looks serene enough but this is a deeply politicised landscape. Our trepidation about crossing over to the West Bank as Jews is compounded by large red signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English which proclaim ‘This road leads to Area A under the Palestinian Authority. The entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden. Dangerous to your lives and is against Israeli Law’. They mark the point where a road in Area B enters Area A. In the aftermath of the Gaza War, tourists conflate the Gaza and West Bank situations and hence are fearful and so few venture on to the West Bank. Nevertheless, we are off to Bethlehem and Hebron on a Green Olive day trip from Jerusalem aiming to gain insights into the reality of the situation for ourselves in an attempt to distinguish between the multiple narratives and discourses that prevail.

Restrictions prohibit most West Bank Palestinians from entering Jerusalem and therefore our Palestinian Christian guide is only able to meet us once we have passed through the Bethlehem checkpoint. He briskly elucidates the significance of the surrealism of A, B and C zones imprinted on the landscape and periodically informs us when we are entering a different zone. It is apparent that these zones are deeply internalised by him whereas we are, as yet, unable to differentiate between them. Area A is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Area B is under Palestinian civil authority but is mainly controlled by the Israeli military and Area C, comprising most of the West Bank’s uninhabited land, is under total Israeli authority. Our guide sardonically concludes that, in fact, all of the West Bank is under Israeli surveillance and control, yet he is not didactic and yearns for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Indeed Green Olive Tours is run by a Jewish Israeli working closely with Palestinian guides.

The Deheishe refugee camp off the main road in bustling Bethlehem is entered through an arch adorned by a huge key, a symbol representing the keys of the original lost homes of the Palestinians. We are confronted by walls plastered with slogans referencing Arafat, Che Guevara and the Palestinian liberation struggle and murals including one of a shahid (martyr) and one by Banksy of a little girl body-searching an Israeli soldier. The camp was established for the 3,400 refugees who fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and of the current population of 13,000, more than 95% were born after 1948. While the dwellings are ramshackle and intersected by a warren of alleys, Deheishe does not conform to my notion of a refugee camp as it possesses an air of permanence and orderliness. I reflect that it is situated in Bethlehem and yet because of UNRWA policies and refugee descendants’ resolve, the inhabitants appear to live a separate existence from local Palestinians.

In addition, the refugees’ lack of integration into Bethlehem can apparently be attributed to their lack of land ownership and commensurate Palestinian voting rights. Yet, at another level, the memory and longing for watan, the ancestral lands, has to be acknowledged. Indeed, the refugee descendants’ transgenerational memory of a former utopian existence and of loss bears similarities to that of Jewish second generation children of refugees, despite neither having undergone the experiences first-hand. The key straddling the entrance to the camp encapsulates the yearning to recover the elusive past and memory is utilised in the refugee camp as a powerful instrument for constantly perpetuating the Palestinian refugees’ struggle.

Water

In the refugee camp our guide informs us that the most serious issue and concern for all Palestinians is lack of water and he points out the water gauge currently registering zero. Water supply is spasmodic and as it is sometimes cut off for several days by Israel, all Palestinian homes need water tanks on their roofs. In contrast, Israeli settlement homes receive a constant, plentiful supply and hence water tanks are absent from their homes as we observe when passing numerous settlements.

Graffiti on Bethlehem’s separation wall

We drive along a congested Bethlehem street alongside an immensely high concrete wall with watch tower. The Wall cuts off streets and areas within Bethlehem, making them inaccessible to the Palestinians. The local Palestinians and traffic pass by leading their everyday life and seemingly oblivious to it while we gaze at all the protest graffiti messages and images: ‘Make Hummus Not Walls’, ‘Love Wins’, ‘To Exist is to Resist’, and Leila Khaled exhorts ‘Don’t Forget the Struggle’ and we spray paint our own message to peace. A local Palestinian’s poignant lines on the Wall on hope surprise me given the grimness of existence: ‘I hope that Israelis and Palestinians will find a way to live in peace and that there will be no wall’.
After viewing the Wall and pondering on its impact, all is silent between the three of us in the tour car as we speed along to Hebron.

Ghost town centre – Shuhada Street, closed by the Israeli state.

Shuhada Street in Hebron is strangely quiet and almost bereft of shoppers. Trade is slack for the shopkeepers and a few express their frustrations to us about the rubbish constantly emptied on them and their wares by the settlers who live on the floors above. The rubbish may include urine, bricks, jagged glass and used nappies and we observe all the rubbish that has accrued on the wire netting which covers the entire market. All the time Israeli soldiers watch the street and us from the roofs of buildings.

We then move to Bab al Khan Street. It is mid-day now and our guide warns us not to walk too far along the road which is deathly quiet in the heat. As we stroll out, the tension is palpable and it feels like a scene out of High Noon. Once a flourishing market street, now all we pass are shuttered shops, an Orthodox Jewish man and a few Palestinian boys. Old Hebron appears to be a ghost town. We encounter the memorial to Gidi and Dina Levy who were killed at this point by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 2003 and a plaque with a picture of the couple describes the exact circumstances of their death. At the end of the silent street, there is a checkpoint manned by a lone Israeli soldier who asks to see our passports and allows us to walk on.

The border / checkpoint between H1 and H2.

Hebron is divided into two zones H1 and H2, with the former representing 80% of the town, controlled by the Palestinian authorities while H2, where approximately 35,000 Palestinians live, is under Israeli military control. The border between the two parts of the town is marked by concrete barriers and a security post. H2 is the area where the Palestinians are subject to severe restrictions on movement and commerce and where about 800 settlers are protected by 2000 Israeli soldiers. The Palestinian family hosting us and an American group for a delicious lunch of aromatic rice and chicken explain the difficulty of life in H2 resulting from the concrete barriers, fenced off areas, segregated roads and checkpoints within H2.

Haim Hanegbi on Youtube, English and Hebrew, English translation.

Across the road from the checkpoint near their home, large signs in Hebrew and English on buildings state: ‘These buildings were constructed on land purchased by the Hebron Jewish Community in 1807. This land was stolen by Arabs following the murder of 67 Hebron Jews in 1929. We demand justice! Return our property to us!’ However, apparently this land is owned by a Jewish non-settler, Haim Hanegbi, who inherited it from his grandfather, the Sephardi rabbi of the Hebron Jewish community. As Hanegbi opposes Jewish settlement in Hebron, he does not wish to donate the land to the settlers, yet they insist on their right to the land despite not being the legal owners.

Tomb of the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs) in Hebron

It is not only land that is the issue, but religious sites become deeply politicised as demonstrated by the problematic sharing between Jews and Muslims of the huge Hebron Herodian edifice which contains a synagogue and a mosque and most importantly, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah and herein lies the problem because the site is highly sacred in both Judaism and Islam. It is the second holiest place for Jews but there are scarcely any tourists here compared to the throng at the Western Wall. Jews were forbidden from accessing the site for about 700 years and did so only in 1967. Segregation exists in the building with separate entrances for Jews and Muslims. Once again we undergo scrutiny at the Israeli row of checkpoints leading to the synagogue and then imbibe the profoundly religious aura inside. I note a woman praying emotionally at one of the tombs but only half the cenotaph may be viewed through a grill. The only means of viewing the other half is from the other side of the building, namely the mosque.

In order to gain access to the mosque in the same building, we are compelled to walk a long way round and an Israeli soldier asks what religion I follow as Jews are forbidden from entering the mosque. This is the mosque where Baruch Goldstein murdered twenty-nine Muslims at prayer in 1994. I am not entirely honest as I dearly wish to see the mosque interior and inside, after donning a long blue hooded robe and removing my sandals, I glimpse the other halves of the caskets through a grill. The actual tombs are in the cave beneath and cannot be accessed but we peer down into the depths through holes in a padlocked cover and just about make out a flickering candle far below. Given the political situation, sadly the cenotaphs cannot be visited by Jews and Muslims simultaneously but the shrine is unlocked for Jews on specific religious holidays and likewise for Muslims on their special religious days.

Passing as an ordinary tourist

As a Jewish tourist who revealed my Jewish identity only to our guide, at which point I mentioned that I supported Jews for Justice for Palestinians, I felt strangely situated on this day in Palestine as tourists are viewed as neutral, transient visitors whose identity is solely that of a tourist. The Israeli soldiers clearly perceived us as such rather than as Jews because we wore no Jewish apparel or symbols and it is plausible we would have been asked awkward questions had they known we were Jewish. Moreover, there were few, if any, identifiably Jewish tourists. Similarly, when we were in the company of Palestinians, we did not divulge our Jewish identity as we did not wish to be perceived as partisan. Nonetheless, there was a sense that impressions gained in one day lacked deeper dimensions and complexities of which we were not fully aware.

As a Jew, I felt profoundly uncomfortable bearing witness to the oppression and dystopian existence inflicted on the Palestinians. Furthermore, the realisation that areas and zones appeared deeply entrenched was extremely depressing. It was tragic to witness the almost total separation of Jews and Palestinians which meant they were denied interaction such as opportunities to meet and engage in conversation. Peace seemed ever more distant and elusive.

Dr Jennifer Langer is founding director of Exiled Writers Ink and editor of several books of exiled literature including If Salt has Memory: Contemporary Jewish Exiled Writing (Five Leaves, 2009).