(Contd. from Visit to Haifa II). After the visit yesterday, I am full of thoughts. It has been a very eye-opening experience about what happened and currently happening in this country (I like to think that people are actually waking up to it). My friend proposes to pay a visit to his paternal grandparents today. I doubt this experience can be more interesting and thought-generating experience. I am definitely wrong.
We arrive to the grandparents' house, on the side of Carmel Mount. A woman opens the door. The woman has a really clear blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes. My friend talks with her in fluent Arabic, although she has a strange appearance to be an Arab. I come in and am introduced to her and his grandfather. They both speak English, which to me is already a big surprise. I ask her about it and she answers, of course, I speak six languages! English, German, Polish, Russian, Arabic and Hebrew. Really? Yes, I'm actually Polish. The woman explains me how she was born in Warsaw before the second World War. It seems her family was exterminated by the Germans and she was put into an orphanage. She was Jewish.
The children from the orphanage fled from Poland to Russia, trying to avoid the war and the Holocaust. They spent some years in different Soviet regions (even in Azerbaijan) and were finally taken to Israel (probably still named Palestine at the time). When she arrived here, she became integrated in the local society, learnt Hebrew and Arabic and met my friend's grandfather, a Christian Arab from Haifa. When they married, she kind of decided to convert to Christianity, "in order to avoid problems", they say.
The woman talks about the past with contempt and grief. It seems she still remembers her parents and brothers and mourns their loss, even more now than before. I explain her my work here with the Peace NGO and she opens her eyes with awe and illusion. "What you do is amazing", she says. I explain her that it is tough, however, as conflict here escalates in every moment, and people are not convinced that peace is possible. "Nothing is worse than what the Germans did", she says. She seems to remember how heartless, unscrupulous and inhuman the Nazis were with families and children like hers. "But let's talk about nice and beautiful things now, that belongs to the past!" She shows me the pictures of all her grandchildren, and tells me how proud she is of all of them.
I kind of want to ask the grandfather if he still remembers what happened here in 1948. He was 13-14 by the time, he says, and he remembers how they all had to leave Haifa, escaping the war, to go to Nazareth. In Nazareth he spent some months and then he was able to come back to Haifa. I understand he was very lucky, especially compared to what happened to the other branch of my friend's family.
I cannot be more amazed with the live historical testimonies I just had the chance to talk to. One is a victim of the Nazi Holocaust and the war, the other, someone who was present during what the Arabs call the Nakbah, even if a relatively lucky one. It is amazing how history in this region is still alive. Some might say that's probably what prevents this region from evolving, from becoming adapted to the current reality. People are still attached to their old fears and beliefs, their grievous experiences in the past, the loss of the beloved ones. However, as this charming old woman says, maybe it is not such a bad idea to talk about the present situation positively, about the reality of nowadays. Probably it would be better to try, little by little, to leave in the past what belongs to the past.
My friend from Haifa is a Catholic Palestinian and has a very interesting family history, which I am able to learn while I visit his family on the mother's part, during a trip around the North of Galilee. They used to inhabit a place called Kfar Bir’em, a Christian Maronite village near the border with Lebanon. I am happy about learning my friends history, but I am not sure what I’m going to find there. The first surprise comes when we arrive at where the village was supposed to be. There is some sign for a new Jewish village nearby, which has a similar name (Bar’am) but sounds more Hebrew. However, this is not the place, they tell me, we are going to the old Arab village.
When we arrive, there is some kind of barrier and a cabin. What? You have to pay to visit an old village? Yes, we have to pay because this has been turned into a National Park now, it is a place to visit but not to live in any more. As I get off the car I see a kind of a park with some devastated ruins, something that does not resemble a village in any way. I learn the whole population of around 1050 inhabitants was expelled from it in 1948 with the excuse that they would be able to come back in two weeks. They were told it was for their own security. When the inhabitants tried to go back to their houses they were attacked by the army and had to flee. Some of the inhabitants tried to go back in 1949 to take care of their houses, after the hard rains of that winter. Chief Police Officer of Safad gave them permission to do it. However, my friends tell me that when the inhabitants arrived at the village the Army took all of them to the Police Station in Safad. There they were given an expulsion order, and were taken to a small village called Zbuba, near Jenin.
My friend’s family and many others started an exodus that took them from Jenin to Nablus, then to Amman, to Damascus and lastly to the South of Lebanon. They walked all this way with no money or possessions, without anything to do but to ask for money in the streets to survive. Once in Lebanon, some of them achieved to cross the border and most of them settled in the empty houses that the refugees from the Naqba had left in a little village near Bir’em, called Jish (or Jasqala).
Eventually, the authorities took over all the abandoned lands, on the grounds of not having been used by their owners (who were not able to go back to them in any way). Therefore, most inhabitants from Bir’em live currently in diaspora or in small houses without any lands in Jish.
The people from Bir’em filed a complaint to the Israeli authorities and they recognized their right over the land and the error the Israeli Army committed with them. However, in the last 60 years the village has remained uninhabited, and only the church has been rebuilt and used again from time to time. The reason the Israeli Authorities give not to let them back is that doing that with them would mean doing it with the remaining more than 500 villages documented that were occupied during the 1948 war and in the years after it. There is a complete historical review of what happened and the current legal status of the village in theselinks.
Bir'em's church is the only building that could be renovated and is still used sometimes
The place nowadays seems to be quite touristic and I wonder what people think when they learn this amazing story. They are not told about it, my friends say. There are some ruins of a Synagogue here, they come to visit them and are told the rest of the ruins are just “ancient ruins”, they tell me. You know what? Actually, my mother used to own a house near the synagogue, look how now they cleared everything, it seems there was nothing here ever, my friend’s mother says. I can see the grief in her and the feeling of impotence, when visiting this place and remembering where she comes from.
What is currently left of the village of Bir'em
As we are here, we can actually see a group of people attending a tour on the place. Some of them hear us talking and come to answer. A couple of them seem quite annoyed. They tell my friends that they actually know what happened at this place and they feel really sorry and ashamed for it. However, they seem to have taken the criticism too personally, as from my own experience I can have the feeling that, unfortunately, the knowledge of this kind of events is not widespread in current Israel. At least not amongst those not related to Palestinian refugees.
We stop at the family’s cemetery. They want to visit their relatives. It is a Christian cemetery, where the names of all those that died and were not able to come back are written.
A monument remembering all the dead people that should have been buried at Bir'em's cemetery
Scriptures at the cemetery. Notice that Christian Maronites would originally not use Arabic but Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic.
After this visit, we drive just by the border fence with Lebanon. It is amazing how close it is. We can see some villages just some hundred meters away and a huge pole with a yellow flag on top. Of course that is no Lebanese flag, but the one from Hizbollah. I cannot believe how close we are to them and start thinking about the fragility of the area I’m walking on at the moment. I want to take a picture, but my friends do not want to stop the car and be seen doing it.
As we drive back to Akka and later to Haifa, I try to think about my friends and their impressions after visiting this destroyed village. We are refugees inside Israel, the father says. The process happening in the West Bank is just a continuation of what started here in 1948, Arab villages are demolished and Jewish settlements are built. The Arabs have, either to leave or to stay in very bad conditions. My friends explain how they could never consider themselves as Israelis and how the very concept of Israel as a Jewish State undermines theoretically and practically their history and identity as inhabitants of this place.
History repeating itself
Listening to Palestinians currently living in Israel has made me wonder about the validity of a Two-State Solution for both Israelis and Palestinians in this area. They definitely oppose the idea and want to live in freedom and democracy in a state of its citizens, not Muslim, not Arab, not Jewish, just Democratic (i.e. including all of them but at the same level). For me it seems the most reasonable solution given the circumstances, but it seems unattainable nowadays, unfortunately.
As a matter of fact, a few days after visiting this village I learn about the situation of Bedouins in the South, who seem to be suffering from their own catastrophe, still nowadays. A good friend of mine and a great blogger used to work with them and filmed this small but impressive documentary about a small village that has become their icon for struggle: Al-Araqib.
I cannot but wonder if history is repeating itself, if we have not learnt anything from the past, from the errors and catastrophes that we suffered and we caused to others and still stay in our conscience. It seems the idea of nation-state is trying to be implemented in one of the most diverse areas in the world, with the biggest diversity of nations and religions. To be honest, I cannot really think about any feasible solution that goes further than I what I already stated (democracy, no ethnicity on top, freedom of religion). To be honest, I feel more skeptical than ever with the so acclaimed Two-State Solution after having experienced this and hearing my friends' opinion about it. This conflict becomes more confusing and complicated than ever, finding solutions will not be easy, but I can definitely foresee there is no good that can come out of all this bad, for none of the parts.
Last weekend I had the chance to visit a good Palestinian friend in Haifa. My friend is a Catholic Palestinian with a very interesting family history, which I am able to learn while I visit the city and surroundings, which are much more than the archi-famous Baha'i Gardens.
I spend the first day in the city having a general view of it. Haifa is known to be the city of coexistence, because Arabs and Jews live together in it. Arabs (most of them Christians) in Haifa constitute around 10% of the population in one of the very few populated centers not seggregated ethnically. However, my friend explains how in practice this coexistence takes place in theory, but there is not real life together. Arabs live generally in certain areas and Jews in others and unfortunately it does not seem this will change soon in any way.
My friend wants to show me an area called Wadi Salib. Wadi Salib was one of the most prominent Arab neighborhoods in Haifa. After the Nakbah, most of its residents had to leave and were never allowed back or were taken their properties by the Absentee Law. Nowadays, the area is inhabited by some Arabs and Mizrahi Jews, who occupied the empty houses. However, most houses are empty and in ruins and my friend explains me that permits to renovate or rebuild these houses are seldom given by the government. The area looks like it was a really nice Arab neighborhood. Nowadays it looks miserable, as we can see in the following pictures.
My friend expresses his opinion when walking around the area. For him this is just another strategy to wipe off any Arab trace from the face of Haifa. First they changed the names of the streets, then they changed the names of the cities and villages, now they want to destroy the Arab heritage of Haifa.
The local government planned an office area for the region. That would imply eviction of families (most of them have no permits as they are occupying houses that belong to Palestinian refugees), demolition of houses and a complete new appearance for the area, more modern and less historically linked to the Arabs.
Two Saturdays ago, I had the chance to visit a good friend in a Kibbutz near Beersheva. Kibbutz Hatzerim was established in 1946 (even before the creation of the State of Israel) by people from other Kibbutzim and other Jewish immigrants from Europe who came to Israel through Iran.
The visit allows me to get a bit the feeling of what life in a Kibbutz is like. The first shocking element is that inhabitants of the Kibbutz have almost no private property. They live in terrains that the Kibbutz gives them and have to pay only for building their house. They have a house for every family, but meals are usually done all together in the main building. In the same way, the kibbutz offers the inhabitants laundry service, a shop, some basic food elements (milk, bread, rice), etc… everything is given for free or in exchange for some special currency within the kibbutz (there is no real money). The Kibbutz has a Primary School, a swimming pool, a little farm, a factory and an Ulpan for the Olim Hadashim (new Jewish immigrants to Israel), or visitors that come here to volunteer in the summer (usually Jews from Brazil, they tell me). Most people work here in the different services for the Kibbutz, the farm, the jojoba crops or in the factory (it seems they are pioneers in irrigation systems and sell their products around the country). On the other hand, if someone wants to work outside, his payroll must come into the kibbutz as part of the community, and they will be allocated the same amount of pocket money and services as everyone else working in it. Most surprisingly, not even cars are private here. When you want to take one, you can reserve it in the office and pay in return for the km you have done with it. If you break something, the insurance for the Kibbutz will pay for it, but bear in mind that everyone will know you did it and how, so you'd better behave. The philosophy here is "give what you can, get what you need". A very interesting way of looking at life in community.
I have dinner with my friend's really charming family near the Kibbutz, almost in the desert, actually. The family is a mixture of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, some of which live in the USA and others in Israel. My friend's uncle is an Englishman who came to Israel some decades ago ("when Israel was still popular", he says) as some kind of support for what was being created here. He had been a soldier before in the British Army and just after arriving enrolled himself in the Israel Defense Forces. At a certain moment in our conversation I tell this man I generally dislike armies. Nobody likes them, he answers, implying they are nonetheless necessary. He explains me how after the time in the army, he came to the Kibbutz to have a new experience and eventually ended up staying forever, forming a family and even converting to Judaism, a hard and complicated process he endorsed in, in order to take responsibility about his new family and new life in Israel, he explains me.
After my visit to this amazing family and their curious lifestyle I am full of thoughts. On the bus trip back to Tel Aviv I keep thinking about the validity of this model to be implemented in larger communities (or even countries) some way. It is definitely more humanizing than the current harsh capitalism based on reckless competition we currently have. On the other hand, I cannot but wonder about the complexity of Israeli society. People would come to this country just to go to war for it, in order to live with their neighbors a communitarianlife impossible to find anywhere in the Western world. I wonder what it is that allows us to live in perfect harmony with the ones we consider to be "our community", but makes it impossible for us to live the same way with others, to the point that we need armies, even if we don't like them.
I also cannot but ask myself about the possibility of having mixed Kibbutzim with the Arab communities. Would anything actually change or have to change because of it or to make this possible? I try to think if, in the same way I saw in the Kibbutz, it would be possible for everyone living currently in this country to have a common understanding of life and a commitment to equality that might include the difference too. After all, it's humanity what unites us, not ethnicity, not religion, not origin or language (and Israel is a perfect example of this, with the huge diversity of languages and origins it has). I know this might sound crazy or utopian to anyone living in this region now, but that does not mean it wouldn't be logical and reasonable to be achieved. After all, we all need virtually the same to live happy and in peace with our neighbors. If we actually think about it, differences belong more to an abstraction of ideologies, than to the reality of what we actually are.
In this last part about the Peace Conference I want to talk about the most interesting part of it all. Amongst the participants we had a group of Palestinians and Israelis who usually meet. They were prisoners, people wounded from both sides… mainly people who without taking any specific political position have realized it is necessary to bring the other into the conversation and try to build something together. The group in question is called Wounded Xrossing Borders.
One of the most interesting testimonies is that given by Mohammed and Dudu. Mohammed is a Palestinian man on his early sixties who was detained 4 times and spent around 20 years in an Israeli prison. He explains how, as a prisoner, he discovered the concept of humanity and the value of life, as he had a lot of time to think. He realized the uselessness of war, killing and destruction, the stupidity of these in order to achieve any objective. Mohammed is imprisoned while his wife is pregnant and is never able to see his newly-born daughter. This obviously affects him and makes him think about what kind of future they are actually creating for her. Therefore he considers dialogue as the only way to solve the conflict, to achieve real solutions and some better future for his daughter.
The other speaker, Dudu, is an Israeli citizen who participated in the 1973 war. He explains how horrible war is. You can see dead people, injured people, ambulances, helicopters. The last thing you want to do is continue forward. However, once you’re in the battle you change all your feelings, you start to walk on automatic pilot. Once you’ve been at war you become mentally injured. Everyone who has been to war becomes mentally injured, he explains.
Dudu worked as a prison warden in an Israeli prison for many years, there he met Mohammed. During his stay there his daughter was born. He felt happy and heard that a prisoner’s daughter had just been born too and tells the prisoner he can have the visit of his wife and daughter, in order to see her for the first time.
When Dudu tells Mohammed, he rejects immediately and drastically. Such a thing cannot happen in prison. Everyone is the same and there cannot be any exception between the prisoners. Solidarity and union between the prisoners is the only thing they have left, Mohammed explains. Dudu explains how amazed he felt after having this answer. The night he explained the story to his wife, he says, he knew there were at least two women crying about it.
Dudu also lost five family members during the Second Intifada. Three of them were close relatives. He felt and saw grief everywhere every day. He could not stand it anymore and started to think about the necessity to talk to the other side.
Mohammed thinks Dudu was just “following orders”. He explains how for him between them “there were no differences”. Therefore they became part of this dialogue group and have toured many places for workshops and Peace conferences. Dudu insists several times to all the attendants of the conference on the idea that if they, prisoner and warden, eternal enemies before, are able to sit and talk together, face to face, dialogue is possible with anyone.
The group has other Palestinian ex-prisoners and refugees and Israelis that are also activists in other Israeli Peace Organizations. At night, I talk to some of them at a shisha bar. They tell me how their aim for dialogue and their peace activism is not related to their political positions. Some of them, they tell me, vote for right-wing parties and could be considered conservative. Some others are a bit more progressive and left-wing.
I ask them about their position on the possible solution, bearing in mind that they know Palestinians and have confidence in them and the possibility of a reconciliation. They tell me there cannot be other solution but a Two-State Solution. Why? I ask them, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a full democracy in the whole region? Oh, no! They answer, impossible! If we apply a One-State Solution we’ll definitely end up like the Balkans, killing each other till extermination, and we Jews, are the minority here, we would end up like the Bosnians.
The words of these people really make me wonder about this. They seem so convinced that the worst would happen that they sound really convincing, and I really have no arguments to say they are wrong. The Jews would be indeed the minority in a big state for the whole region, and they are really surrounded by a big majority of Arab countries. However, I would like to think, as Dudu said, that reconciliation is possible and it would be possible to end with ethnic hatred in the region, because this hatred is modern fabrication. I would like to think that once the basic needs of both populations were met, once no huge structural and direct violence was present and with an effective program of Conflict Resolution, Post-Conflict Resolution and Education for Peace, the current cultural violence would eventually fade away. However, nowadays, I really have no definite answers and arguments to counter the advocates of the Two-State Solution, especially those that have already been victims of violence. Probably another interesting option might be the confederation of the two states, like some people already have pointed out, that might eventually be turned into the same country (allowing a common market, free movement of its citizens, etc...).
What I can conclude is there will not be any possible solution for this conflict unless confidence between the parts is regained. No bridges are built with a Two-State Solution or a One-State Solution if the solution comes aseptically without any further program to be applied in the region. In some way, political decisions might end with the suffering and violence both parts but none of this will be indeed effective unless real dialogue takes place in order to overcome the huge fear and hatred still present in the region.
