KK-Forum,
fra Ha'aretz, Friday, November 3, 2000. Tom Segev har forøvrig skrevet en
meget leseverdig bok, "The Seventh Million".
Hamzeh-Muhaisen's dagbok finnes altså på
http://www.addameer.org/september2000/personal/
Knut Rognes
*******************************
Eye of the Beholder
Where are you Anne Frank?
By Tom Segev
Thirteen years after David Grossman documented [in "The Yellow Wind"] the
intensity of the hatred which he found among children in the Deheisheh
refugee camp, a personal diary is being written from the same site to
record the events of the new Intifada. Responses articulated by Muna
Hamzeh-Muhaisen when she hears of some tragic event, or views an atrocity
on television, are monitored by Internet surfers all over
Israel.Hamzeh-Muhaisen has a powerful compulsion, almost a physical need,
to sit by the computer and unleash her pent-up emotions and record them in
the diary she's kept since the start of the current uprising. The result is
a searing document well worth reading via the Internet (it can be found on
http://www.addameer.org/september2000/personal). This is a diary which
stirs responses from virtually every country in the world. Israelis who
sense that they lack a full comprehension of what generated the present
wave of violence will learn something from this journal.
Hamzeh-Muhaisen is a journalist aged about 40 who was born in Jerusalem and
grew up in Jordan and the United States. Her Muslim father was Haifa-born;
her mother, a Christian, hailed from Beit Jala. At the end of the 1970s,
her family emmigrated to the United States. In 1988, Hamzeh-Muhaisen
traveled with her University of Washington journalism degree to cover the
Intifada. She didn't intend to remain in the country, but she married a
resident of the Bethlehem-area Deheisheh refugee camp in 1990, and has
lived in the camp since then. Her husband works in a Palestinian Authority
office, and she runs an Internet project designed to develop ties among
Palestinian refugees, particularly residents of camps in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon.
"I feel like I'm going crazy," she wrote on October 4 from Deheisheh, six
days after the start of the violent eruption. "Nobody in Deheisheh is able
to go to work, except those who work in Bethlehem [sic]. Life has come to a
standstill." Her neighbors, she recorded, were desperate, burdened by
terrible pressure. She quotes their appraisal of the situation: "It is
either us or them, and if they are going to bomb us and level us to the
ground, then be it."
"One bomb will do it for Deheisheh," added Muyasar, her 34-year-old
neighbor and mother of six. Replying, Hamzeh-Muhaisen said, "We'll all die
instantly," in the event of a bomb attack.
"Dying is better than going on the way we have been," Muyasar rejoined.
Hamzeh-Muhaisen summarizes the general mood in this October 4 diary entry:
"Every woman I talk to here says the same. The mood is so different this
time. People are just fed up. Fed up with Israel's aggression, with the
PA's corruption, with the shameless peace agreements that have turned this
place into an apartheid state ... a bantustan ... a West Bank divided into
200 isolated islands ... of a silent world that doesn't give a damn ...
just because we are Arabs ... Don't Palestinian kids count in today's
world? Are we less human?"
Wealth enjoyed by wealthy PA figures angers Deheisheh residents: "Funny how
we live," Hamzeh-Muhaisen writes. "None of us has enough money for a donkey
ride out of this place, let alone for a plane ticket. Perhaps this is why
the anger at the well-to-do in the PA. There sure is money in this country,
but only in the hands of the few. The rest live month by month and put
their fate in the hands of Allah!!!!"
Her neighbors also complain that Arafat has been overly conciliatory. The
PA chairman's willingness to negotiate with Israel on the basis of the Oslo
accords makes their blood boil. They are, she writes, prepared to fight to
the bitter end: "Perhaps this will be our last battle and our last war ...
it is either our death or our liberation. There is no third way ... we
don't want a third way" [From the October 5 diary entry].
Her neighbor Muyasar urges her (in the October 6 entry) not to fear war or
death: "Like my neighbor Muyasar told me yesterday: Don't fear death Muna
... we don't die twice but only once ... and dying once is better than
going back to the situation we were in before the al-Aqsa Intifada, when we
were dying inside a million times over each day."
Hamzeh-Muhaisen extols death and national sacrifice, telling the bereaved
mother of a boy (named Mustafa) who died that she should "rejoice" because
her son "was Deheisheh's first martyr in the al-Aqsa Intifada." But, for
her part, the diary-keeper is overcome by grief and pain: "Cry my eyes, cry
... the tears may just wash the pain down to a puddle around my feet ...
Cry my eyes, cry! Maybe the tears will keep me sane ... or insane ... not
sure I can tell the difference anymore ... daylight turns into dark, and
then it is daylight again. What month is it? What day of the year? What
decade? Which century? ... Does it matter anymore?" [October 6].
Women in the refugee camp, she records, are held captive by the political
events, and discuss them incessantly. Writing in their voice, she hurls a
defiant statement toward Ehud Barak: "This Intifada must continue ... The
death of our people isn't going to be without results ... let every
Palestinian household give one martyr and let's see this through to the end
... news of a cease-fire agreement depresses us; it isn't what we want to
hear ... we can't have an Intifada every few years and then slumber into a
deep sleep until we wake up again some years later to do it all over again
... this time it has to be a fight till the end ... till we win."
The neighbors' mood, Hamzeh-Muhaisen concludes, is absolutely unyielding.
It's an all-or-nothing fight for independence: "After 52 years of
resistance, dispossession and occupation, everyone is ready to either
witness the total destruction of the land of Palestine, or the emergence of
a fully independent Palestinian state ... which path we take is now
Israel's choice." [October 8]
Concluding sentences in her diary entries, Hamzeh-Muhaisen often uses
multiple exclamation points (six or seven or eight), or five or six
question marks; and she frequently connects sentence fragments by a number
of dots.
In a telephone conversation, Hamzeh-Muhaisen sounds very cordial. If Hanan
Ashwari is Golda Meir, I tell her, you're Geula Cohen. Hamzeh-Muhaisen was
very surprised by this comparison to the former right-wing Knesset member.
"Me???!!!!" she said; clarifying, she emphasized that she supports peace.
Her platform consists of a full withdrawal from the territories, the
dismantling of the territories, the establishment of a Palestinian state
whose capital is East Jerusalem, a right of return. Is that, she asks,
really considered extremist?
No, she said during the phone conversation, she isn't writing her diary as
a contribution to the Palestinian propaganda effort. The question insulted
her. She's writing the diary to survive. Signifying the personal, emotional
character of the effort, she begins each entry with the words "Dear diary."
On October 9, Hamzeh-Muhaisen writes: "Where are you Anne Frank? Where are
you? Is this the reason you died for? So that your people can turn around
and commit these pogroms against another people? You were so young and
didn't deserve to die, yet you died because of your identity ... the same
reason they're killing us now. It is our very existence that they are
fighting." In this passage, Israelis are evidently cast in the role of the
Nazis, but Hamzeh-Muhaisen denies having intended this comparison. Over the
phone she explained: "That comparison never crossed my mind. I always
admired Anne Frank. Had she lived, she would have been a 70-ish-year-old
woman today; and I wonder what she would say regarding what's happening."
The kidnapping of three IDF soldiers filled the hearts of Deheisheh
residents with satisfaction. Many concluded that they can trust only
Hezbollah.
The lynch murders of IDF reservists in Ramallah prompted Hamzeh-Muhaisen to
reflect that had they not been there, in Ramallah, they wouldn't have been
killed. Nonetheless, I asked her, what did you feel when you saw the
pictures on television - after all, your responses to images are so
emotional. Hamzeh-Muhaisen answered dryly that the Ramallah photographs
damaged the Palestinians' reputation around the world, and that she herself
would prefer a non-violent civil rebellion. Were all Palestinian women on
the West Bank to sit down and block roads, she posits, it would be
impossible to reach Jewish settlements. And were the oil-producing states
to cut off supplies to the West just for a short time, the world would take
steps to help the Palestinians. About 10,000 people live in Deheisheh. They
are refugees, and descendants of refugees, from four villages that were
conquered in 1948. Hamzeh-Muhaisen weaves details about their daily lives
into her diary, juxtaposing them between ultra-nationalist slogans. She
describes a routine of siege, rage, helplessness, despair.
All of the camp's women residents talk exclusively about the political
events; Hamzeh-Muhaisen believes that current affairs might contribute to
the emancipation of the Palestinian woman. Events force her to neglect her
own needs; Hamzeh-Muhaisen relates how she twice forgot to wash, and comb
her own hair; and she describes a scene in which everyone goes off to
attend the funeral of one of the camp's victims - staying behind at home,
she grabs a broom, and starts to clean the whole house, just to do
something and stop her from losing her wits. Frequently she describes fears
and anxieties that border on lost sanity.
More than anything else, the refugee camp residents are frightened of
settlers. People lose sleep, or are bothered by anxiety-headaches; and
children suffer from nightmares. She herself fears that she's living on
borrowed time, that tomorrow might not come.
The diary's power emanates from these vivid descriptions of raw emotion.
Something very profound is once again stirring among the Palestinians. We
were blithely ignorant about this groundswell of emotion, just as we
weren't conscious of the Palestinians' readiness to launch the first
Intifada. "You didn't know because you don't understand what happens to
us," Hamzeh-Muhaisen says. She states that she wasn't surprised at all by
events of the past weeks. For months she had sensed that an outburst was
just ahead.
One reason the current Intifada erupted has to do with the lack of an
independent legal system in the Palestinian Authority, Hamzeh-Muhaisen
says. There are many human rights violations, including infringements of
women's rights, and there is corruption. People see a whole stratum of
officials, political functionaries, businessmen and insiders of all sorts
who have gotten rich under the cloak of the peace process; and meantime
these ordinary people remain stuck where they are, without hope, she
explains.
At the end of the first month of the Intifada it appears that she's
unleashed the gist of her nationalist message in her diary. She's now
started to concentrate more on her own needs. At present, she's enjoying
hosting people in her home, and she's gone back to listening to jazz music;
and here and there in her diary there are hints of self-mocking humor.
She's started to believe that the sun will rise anew.
Hamzeh-Muhaisen, who has recently finished writing a book, says that she's
well acquainted with the chapter on Deheisheh in David Grossman's "The
Yellow Wind." Who knows how many of the pre-schoolers described by Grossman
have in the past 13 years became shahid (martyrs)?
The martyr industry
Issam Jodda, from the village of Umm Safa, near Ramallah, is a martyr.
Palestinian spokesmen say that he was tortured to death by settlers, who
then burned his corpse and his car. The B'Tselem human rights organization
investigated the circumstances of Jodda's death; and Dr. Robert H.
Kirschner from Chicago, a member of the Physicians for Human Rights
organization, helped with this investigation.
As head of the physicians' organization international forensic program,
Kirschner often worked in Israel during the last Intifada, and in several
cases he concluded that Palestinians had been tortured and killed by Shin
Bet security service interrogators. He is therefore immune to suspicion
about being co-opted by Israel's public relations apparatus.
Dr. Kirschner came to Israel, contacted Jodda's family, and reviewed
several medical documents. He also checked the burnt-out automobile. Due to
the bereaved family's objections, he wasn't allowed to conduct an autopsy;
so he hedges his conclusion, which were to be released last night in
Chicago. While he cannot submit an unequivocal decision, Kirschner has
found that all indications suggest that Jodda died in a road accident.
This story, no doubt, is easily over-looked, in light of the many
Palestinians who have indeed been shot and killed by Israeli security
forces - the majority of these, if not all of them, were shot even though
they did not endanger the lives of police and soldiers who fired at them.
There are, therefore, a sufficient number of genuine martyr casualties, and
so there is not any ostensible reason to invent additional ones. And yet
both Israelis and Palestinians tend to include on casualty lists deceased
persons who cannot legitimately be classified as martyrs.
This tendency has a long history. During the 1930s, casualty lists of the
pre-state Jewish Yishuv included names of Jews from overseas who died of
sorrow when they heard reports about occurrences in the great Arab revolt
here. Engraved on the national memorial to victims of terror at Mount Herzl
are names of deceased from the end of the last century who perished under
circumstances that are not completely clear.
Often such names are included because of pressure applied by family
members. For instance, the family of Marik Gavrilov from the Bnei Aysh
village whose corpse was found several days ago near Ramallah vehemently
demands that the death be recognized as having resulted from
ultra-nationalist terror; yet nobody conclusively knows how his body ended
up where it was found.
Over the years, quite a few Israelis claimed that they were kidnapped by
Arabs in order to account for absences from their homes. In a similar
fashion, a guard at the Augusta Victoria hospital claimed this week that
Jewish youths had shot him. The police believe, however, that the security
guard was not wounded by gunfire.
Aziz Yusuf al Zir, the director of a local branch of the main Palestinian
news agency, was buried in Bethlehem this week. Local residents said that
he died as a national hero; the truth apparently, was that he died due to
an accident involving the explosion of a gas tank used for cooking.
Something along these lines also happened to Sara Abad-Althek, a
two-year-old girl from the Nablus region. Stories about her death
circulated widely; some said that she died due to gunshots fired by
settlers into her father's car. B'Tselem investigated the matter. Unable to
embrace the father's story without reservation, B'Tselem has, so far,
formulated its findings cautiously (the organization's investigators have
not yet examined the bullet-ridden car). According to one Palestinian
source whose account can be credited, the toddler died in an accident -
while cleaning his pistol, her father, a former member of the PA's security
apparatus, accidently let off a shot which hit his daughter.
One way or another, numerous children are becoming victims these days. Some
are killed, others are hurt emotionally, many miss school. The best-known
case involves the 12-year-old Gaza boy, Mohammed al Duri, who was killed
while clutching his father's arms, his tragic plight captured by French
television cameras for all the world to see. This week, Yedioth Ahronoth
reported that an IDF examination has apparently established that the boy
was killed by bullets shot by Palestinians. To verify this contention, the
bullets which hit Duri will have to be found; it is doubtful that the IDF
has access to them, since they were extracted in hospitals in Gaza and
Jordan. The pathetic attempt to prove that IDF soldiers did not kill the
Gaza boy can be equated to the effort to establish that the toddler Sara
was murdered by Palestinians.
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=17&datee=11/03/00&id
=99346
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