Last year, after First began publishing Erella Dunayevsky’s stories about her encounters with Palestinians in South Hebron, one engaged reader demurred (gently). The pieces struck him “as what the French call ‘angelism,’ casting the victims of an atrocity in an almost holy light.” This next story, composed by Dunayevsky in 2018, is beyond such caveats. (See the epiphany that follows Dunayevsky’s admission of her pique at the plaints of one Palestinian woman: “She tired me and I tried to ignore this, making a great effort to hide my own fuse, shortening as her speeches lengthen…”) First will be posting more of Dunayevksy’s letters on the Occupation in upcoming months…
Greetings friends,
We, who belong to the human race, are fortunate to be blessed with perspective, the capacity to experience things and events from the distance of time, place, and situation. Now, adjust the lens for distance. Zoom-out. Like a camera.
This capacity enables us to take things in proportion, appropriately, to be less involved, less judgmental, more relaxed and balanced, a little protected from our own feelings, which sometimes overcome our capacity for containment. (Although, we do sometimes see a landscape from a particular altitude, from an airplane or spaceship, and utter an overwhelmed WOW!).
But no less fortunate is our capacity for adjusting our lens for a close-up, a zoom-in. Without it, we’d lose our capacity to take in human conditions that pluck on the personal heart strings, diminishing our sensitivity. We’d relinquish the most precious gift we have received as human beings — the ability to feel compassion.
So, I invite you to join one of our zoom-in trips. We do them at least once a week when visiting our Palestinian friends.
Thursday, May 3, 2018. A pleasant May morning. In my mind, I hear a line from Alterman’s poem, “Don’t You Give Them Guns”: The month of May was the fairest of all Mays ever known to Mother Earth.
Our Subarita (a Subaru that has already been on the road for 25 years) sails eastward, between the curves of the northern Negev towards the rising South Hebron Hills. A high concrete wall with coils of barbed wire on top wounds the pastoral landscape, even for someone who is unaware that this is the separation wall that winds along the Green Line, every now and then devouring large expanses of arable land and residential areas of Palestine.
Ever so slowly, we organize our minds from a relatively relaxed zoom-out state to a state of zoom-in.
We cross the checkpoint smoothly (we are, after all, part of the master race) and begin our visiting day at A-Twane.
…
A-Twane is a Palestinian farming village. The Maon Settlement settled nearby, the outpost, Havat Maon, settled on a hill even closer to A-Twane.
Jum’a, our old friend, a tall, sturdy, handsome man welcomes us with his naturally warm smile as he sits in a wheelchair in his yard. The story he was about to tell us was already familiar in general terms, but now we zoom in.
Jum’a tells us that for quite a while now, settlers from Havat Maon have not harassed A-Tawane villagers, not in their homes, not in their fields and not in their diminishing grazing grounds. The villagers blessed every quiet day like this.
Early in March, the provocations were renewed. This time not only youngsters from Havat Maon participated, but adults as well. They uprooted olive trees, threatened to run over children with their jeeps, arrived masked at the home of Jum’a’s mother, situated at the edge of the village, the closest Palestinian house to the outpost, and so on and so forth.
“At the end of that month,” Jum’a continues in his fluent Hebrew, “on March 25th, 2018, at 7 a.m., I took my little flock out to graze in my own field, not far from my home. I was after abdominal surgery and walked slowly. Suddenly, I noticed that I was surrounded by settlers from the nearby Havat Maon Outpost. I realized at once: I’m being ambushed. I began shouting for help. In the village, my shouts weren’t heard at first, but the group that surrounded me dispersed, except for one. One settler remained and began to throw stones at me. I fell and couldn’t get up and then he threw a very large stone at me that broke my leg from the knee to the thigh. Still, no one came to me from the village. At this point, as I could not get up, the man aimed his rifle at me and tried to shoot. His weapon jammed and couldn’t fire. God is merciful.
After about an hour, people who heard my cries for help came from the village. First came teachers from the schoolhouse that is relatively close to the field, and then others from the village and beyond.
The army also came. A soldier began to ask me questions. I answered him with a question: ‘Did you come to ask me questions or to help? I need help. Bring a stretcher.’ I was taken to the hospital. It’s a complex fracture, in several places. They operated.
Israeli police arrived, questioned me. The policeman asked: ‘Why are you lying about the settler? We heard you fell near your home. So why are you fabricating this story about the settler?’
After a week at the hospital, I came back home and to this day I am still in rehabilitation. Still can’t stand on this foot. Neither has the Palestinian Authority paid a single cent for surgery expenses, hospitalization or rehabilitation.”
Several days later, Sami, a student from A-Tawane and the son of an old friend of ours, was also injured, ending up with a very broken leg. This time, not by a stone. This time, he was intentionally run over by an all-terrain vehicle from the Havat Maon outpost. The all-terrain vehicle had a driver.
We descended from A-Tawane along an unpaved track, riddled with potholes, in the direction of the wadi leading to Jinba village. The army has declared this wadi ‘firing zone 918’ and all 15 of the wretched hamlets scattered along it are slated for demolition. A day earlier, the army had demolished 7 structures in the villages of Halawa, Markaz and Jinba.
We drove to see Ahlam, an old friend. “My home won’t be demolished this time,” she told us, her blue eyes a mixture of sadness and determination. “Let them demolish. They will demolish and we will rebuild.” After a moment’s silence, she adds: “But, may they demolish before Ramadan. It’s harder during Ramadan…”
Her mother-in-law is with us this time too. She is always present when we come. She doesn’t really understand what exactly we’re doing there. She knows that we are Jews and Israelis and precisely for this reason she’s certain that we are responsible for the occupation, although she also knows we have her back. During every visit, she rages at us: “Why is the occupation still going on and doing all the evil things it does?” she asks accusingly. She tired me and I tried to ignore this, making a great effort to hide my own fuse, shortening as her speeches lengthen. This time too. But this time, suddenly, she got up from her place opposite me and sat down next to me. “Tell me”, she asked almost pleadingly, “are you a Jew?”
“Yes”, I answered.
“And you’re from Israel?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“So why can’t you tell them to stop the occupation?”
There are times when something unexpected elicits the right reaction.
“Are you Muslim?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And you’re from Palestine?” I continue to ask.
“Yes.” She replies.
“Can’t you tell Abu Mazen to finally give you the money he receives for you from countries all over the world?”
“No!!!” She responds and her face suddenly lights up. Instantly, she realizes what she hadn’t for a long time, that we are simply good-hearted people who come to give support, mainly emotional support. After a short silence, her face became very sad. “The house they demolished in the neighboring village, Markaz, is the home of my daughter, Maryam. They destroyed everything, the house and the electricity and the water,” she says in a stifled voice. I hug her and listen and she goes on describing her pain.
Then we rose to leave. She walked by my side all the way to our Subarita that was waiting for us a little way from the house, and all that time, she didn’t let go: “Please come again. Please, don’t forget us. It helps me so much when you listen and I can weep like that. There’s nothing else I can do. My life is very simple. All my life I’ve been here, in this village, cleaning, cooking, working in the field, raising children, raising grandchildren, and all of this under very difficult conditions. And on top of all that, this occupation?” This is what she said, repeating it again and again while I contain and contain, almost weeping too, but then we reach the car and take our leave with a warm hug. I promise we’ll come again soon. Fortunately, my dear friends in the car contain me.
But there wasn’t much time to contain and linger over what we had experienced so far, only the time it took to drive from Jinba to Susia.
What happened in Susia, we also already knew. Zoom-in, though, as we have learned, is entirely another matter.
Ahmad, the 10-year-old son of Nasser and Hiam, 11-years-old Zahara, and 14-years-old Hamude, children of Mahmoud and Ula, and 15-years-old Diana, daughter of Jihad and Samiha, experienced trauma Monday, on their way from school.
Nasser reported this to me that day. When we came on Thursday, Ahmad was already waiting for me.
We sat aside and 10-year-old Ahmad told me the entire event in detail, as I had asked.
I asked him to write in order to let go a bit of his trauma.
So, this is what Ahmad wrote: “I was on my way back from school with my pals after a school day. I passed a sign and took off its covering. Six people saw what I did and followed me. When I saw them, I ran home and one of them ran after me and said: ‘Stop or I’ll kill you.’ I ran fast and when I got home, I went into the kitchen and hid behind my Mom, telling her: ‘A settler!’ This man came in right away and pushed her hard, and she fell on the floor, and he pulled me out of her hand. I was very scared. Then he put a gun against my head. Then I sat on a chair and there were two men at my side. And I cried. Scared. Very scared. Scared.”
These are the exact words Ahmad wrote. He told many other details, but his writing expresses the fright that settles in his mind. Zahara, Hamude and Diana hid among the neighbors’ sheep. Hamude and Diana snuck out and got home, while Zahara escaped into Ahmad’s home and when she realized the chaser was in the kitchen, she hid under the bed and witnessed the whole thing.
I listened very carefully to Hiam, Ahmad’s mother. Her story began with Ahmad’s frightened entrance into the kitchen, his chaser right behind him, the man Ahmad thought was a settler. When the man entered the kitchen, Hiam ordered him out of her house. The man said he was a policeman, although he was not in uniform. Hiam asked to see identification. He showed it. Indeed, he was an Israeli policeman, a Druze, native Arabic-speaker. He demanded the child. Hiam kept Ahmad behind her back. The policeman pushed her violently, dropped her to the floor and pulled Ahmad by the hand. Hiam managed to get up in spite of the blows and the fall and catch Ahmad’s other hand, held out to her with fear in his eyes that is not describable. Ahmad was hanging between the policeman and his mother, crying and screaming.
When Ula, Zahara’s mother, arrived – she too was violently pushed.
Ahmad’s screams alerted the neighbors. They alerted more neighbors and then international volunteers arrived who were there. Everyone had their cell phones on.
At this point Ahmad was in the hands of the policeman. When all of Susia arrived and the incident was documented, the policeman exchanged his violent behavior for the conduct of someone who has a minor thing to sort out. Hiam told me that this was especially difficult: When there were no witnesses, he was most violent, and in the presence of witnesses he changed his demeanor.
Then Nasser, Ahmad’s father, arrived – he was out of the village when it happened. The event ended with the policeman explaining to Nasser that his son had vandalized public property.
There were more details, but I focused my zoom-in on what Ahmad, Zahara and Hiam had told me. I wanted to enable each of them to be with their trauma in order to face it again and let it go, instead of being caught amidst the fortified walls of defense and denial mechanisms, and all the other loyal advisers of fear and hurt.
Therefore, beyond the actual story I asked each of them what was the hardest part.
Ahamd said: “The hardest part was when the chaser held a gun to my head and said ‘Stop or I’ll kill you’.”
Zahara said: “The hardest part for me was hiding under the bed and seeing everything and not having any way out.”
Hiam said: “The hardest part for me was when the policeman tore Ahmad away from me.”
For a moment, these trauma stories got mixed with personal trauma stories of some of my Holocaust-surviving clients.
I breathed slowly until I could see again that I am in Susia and the year is 2018.
I didn’t know whether my soul was weeping or letting go. I could only hug them very lovingly. I got home and gave the newspaper a glance. How wonderful to rest a while in zoom-out arms: Iran, Syria, Gaza, refugees, people expelled…
Erella