Israeli Authorities keep a list of addresses belonging to Palestinians

Last Friday, January 1^st, a Palestinian man, citizen of Israel, opened fire with a stolen machine gun in Tel Aviv, murdering two young Jewish men and injuring more than a dozen. Today, January the 4^th, he is still at large. I’m not in Tel Aviv, but from the pictures I see on social media, hundreds of special forces and police are all over the city. The authorities began raiding every apartment belonging to a Palestinian in Tel Aviv. It seems that the state keeps us under separate lists and has a list of addresses belonging to Palestinians.

The photos posted beneath are taken from the Facebook page of Ahmad Amer. In his status, he writes:  “So the police decided today, 4 January 2016, that it is completely logical to enter our home in Ramat Aviv [neighbourhood in Tel Aviv], turn it barbarically upside down, take out the clothes from the closet because clearly the terrorist is hiding on the third shelf inside, turn the sofas because it’s clear he undoubtedly crawled underneath them. Of course all this was done without a warrant, and because we are Arabs, and of course, we – a physician, engineer, and a stock market director would want to hide their terrorist. I am enraged and I can do nothing except to write a meaningless status on Facebook.”

erasing my language, silencing my voice, erasing my smile. But I rise and smile

You try to scare me. Make me shrink. Further.

Make me walk the streets of my city

My city

Trying to take up less space.

For two whole weeks that I’ve been avoiding public transportation. And when I had to take the train, and wanted to take my laptop out to work, I remembered it had stickers in Arabic on it, saying: “my right to live, to chose, to be.”

So the laptop remained in my backpack. Along with my language.

When my friend called during that same train ride, I mumbled quietly, “aha, hmmm, yeah, ok, bye.”

Before riding the train back home, I had on a shirt with the writing: “the personal is political” in Arabic and Hebrew. My friend asked me if I was sure I wanted to wear this shirt on the train. I looked down at the shirt, and again, packed my language inside my backpack.

For two whole weeks, they have succeeded in crushing me, in erasing my language, silencing my very voice, even my smile. The feeling was one of complete paralysis.

But today I rise, and I smile. Because erasing my smile would mean they have succeeded in their mission of crushing me. And today I raise my voice and say: with all the devastation around us, with over 1,400 dead women, girls, boys, and men in Gaza, with the all permeating sense of helplessness, and the crushing sense of hopelessness, we will not give you the satisfaction of yielding. We will not be crushed. Our smiles will not be erased, no matter how hard you try! No matter how hard you try to erase my language, silence my voice, I raise my voice for justice. And I refuse to lose hope, and I refuse to give up on my smile. Because we, sir, teach life! In spite and despite all your attempts to crush the life out of us. We rise, we smile, and we teach the world life!

khulud, 1 August 2014

Haifa

on National Civic Service for Palestinian Citizens of Israel

For two months now, I’ve been turning over the issue of National Civic Service in my mind. It’s not a coincidence, as in recent months there’s been a lot going on about this issue, and now that I work in Hirakuna, I’m much closer to this issue, as National Civic Service is one of the issues Hirakuna deals with, although it’s by no means the main area of the Forum’s work.[i]

Usually, I write in a free style and from my own personal perspective, providing my thoughts on issues, rather than giving analysis and a broad reading. Usually I take my own personal experiences, and reflect on the wider socio-political reality. However, with National Civic Service, it’s much more complex, as there are quite too many layers to the issue and several perspectives. So I am taking my time with it.

I’m in the initial stages of writing an article about it. I will make an attempt to raise my voice and present one perspective among many about the issue of National Civic Service for Palestinian citizens of Israel. I’d like to stress from the start that this will be a personal yet political reading of the reality, and in no way will it exhaust the issue, nor will it present all perspectives. This being said, and although not representative in a collective way, it will however represent some of the voices. And since the collective voice is made up of many individual voices, then it follows that this voice has its place in the composition of the collective voice.

National Civic Service is a very complex issue in Israel and cannot be dealt with in any linear mode. It has several layers of complexity interacting and affecting one another.

Hopefully I will complete the article within the next two or three weeks. Please follow up to read it.

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[i] Hirakuna’s mission is to enable safe spaces and create volunteerism and leadership opportunities to empower young women and men to take active responsibility and become engaged in their communities and beyond, ultimately becoming active agents for social change. Hirakuna’s main objective is to create a vibrant and resilient civil community with the social, organizational and professional infrastructure to promote reciprocal social responsibility, volunteerism and leadership throughout the Palestinian society in Israel.

Hirakuna’s vision is a flourishing and advanced democratic society based on the values of equality, human dignity and liberty, and maintaining a combination of individual and collective rights; a society that emphasizes mutual solidarity and responsibility; a society where individuals can realize their potential and influence the general good. Website: www.hirakuna.org | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hirakuna?fref=ts

An Arab an the Pool

I buy a ticket to the pool, just like any other citizen, take a key and head to change into my black, one-piece bathing suit. After swimming ten pools, I decide I like it here and want to make a membership. I tie a towel around the upper part of my body, and walk to the reception desk. The woman at the desk smiles at me, how may I help you, young lady. I tell her I wish to subscribe to the center’s pool, get all the information—three month program, six month program, twelve-month program—and I settle on the twelve month membership. "I need your ID card please." So I hand her my ID card, knowing what to expect. She takes the ID card—at the bottom of which there is one word, the one word which always betrays. Not me, but the person studying it. Her reality slows down as she tries to figure out in her head—without being too conspicuous about it—how to react. Should she just ignore it? Should she comment? Say that some of her best friends are like that? Or that Mustafa is her favorite car mechanic?

Looking up at me in great surprise, and almost in a whisper, confessing, "You know, if it weren’t written down here, I would have never believed you were an Arab." What is there to react to such ignorance? The only thing I manage to do is come up with a faded smile, apologizing for not looking the part.

***

I wrote the piece above several years ago. Rereading it, it tickles me. These surprised looks used to trigger different emotions in me. But not anymore. Sadly, living in a place that is overflowing with racism, one gets immune to the more subtle forms of it. Otherwise, we couldn't function. Because it's everywhere, all the time, non-stop.

CONTEXT

some political thoughts on the context within which we live:

Palestinians constitute a national minority living within the green line, and ever since the Nakba in 1948, they have had ambiguous relations with the state. On the one hand, we are legally full citizens of the state. On the other hand, we are continuously discriminated against through systemic policies and racist legislations. There is clear discrimination in allocations of resources in all fields - education, health, land, infrastructures, public transport, etc. Not only that, but due to this systemic discrimination, our accessibility to resources such as education, housing, employment, social services, health services, economic opportunities and more are very limited.

Alongside these practices, there are dangerous political processes happening which threaten our collective national identity. The state makes great and strategic efforts to deconstruct our identity and sense of belonging through various means, such as restricting our right to commemorate the Nakba, through school curricula, trying to recruit our youth to the National Civic Service, legislation proposals to give those who did National Civic Service extra rights and incentives in different fields, and more. Furthermore, our freedom of expression is restricted, thus reducing our public, political, social and democratic spaces, and many social change leaders and activists are politically persecuted.

The abovementioned factors constitute only a partial background to our complex reality, which affects the abilities of Palestinian social change organizations to act and effect genuine and sustainable social change in our community. More specifically, this reality has unique effects on our youth which, combined with our still traditional and patriarchal society, poses great challenges on their sound development.

The education system, school curricula, and contents taught are controlled by the state, thereby restricting the development of a Palestinian identity among our youth. Furthermore, the education system today does not provide youth with tool for critical thinking. Political, social and economic issues are ignored, and contexts relevant to youth's lives are not dealt with at all. When they finish high school, there is almost no guidance regarding higher education options, how to choose the right profession according to interests, tools on integration into higher education, etc.

Another issue affecting our youth is the geographic fragmentation. The more than 1.5 million Palestinians living within the green line are geographically fragmented, with three major concentrations of communities: in the Galilee (North), Triangle (Center) and the Naqab (South). Many youth, who live in geographic and socio-economic peripheries (e.g. unrecognized Bedouin villages in the South or from remote villages in the Galilee), do not have the opportunity to meet other youth from other parts of the Palestinian community. This reality affects their ability to develop solidarity across all segments of Palestinian society; solidarity that is larger than their own small local circle, which is necessary if we wish to build a strong and resilient society that is united, has a strong sense of belonging and reciprocal social responsibility.

Israel's Citizenship Law

Sometimes we need a little (or big) nudge from reality to get back to our activism. And so my “indefinite leave from the conflict” has come to an end with the outrageous citizenship law, just ratified by the High Court. The law is not new, but the very recent decision of the High Court that the law is constitutional has left no legal channels open to act against it. Following the last post which includes a letter from my activist friend Dr. Hannah Safran, I am joining several women friends from Isha L’Isha this coming Thursday to visit Taiseer and his family in Akka. We wish to hear directly from Lana, his wife, about her life and the reality she deals with on a daily basis. Yes, this is my small contribution. I feel that I have to be out there. Listen to what Lana has to say first hand. And then do something with it. Write about it. Get her voice out there. Please follow up on this here soon.

Israel's Citizenship Law - Families not Able to Live Together

I am copying here an email sent out by my activist friend Hannah Safran.

I must say that I am as outraged as she is by this reality.

Dear Friends,

This is a plea for help from Mr. Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana from Acca in Israel. Taiseer is a Ph.D student in Anthropology at the University of Haifa, a teacher at the Western Galilee College, and a conductor of creative writing workshops for young adults in the Freedom Theatre at the Jenin Refugee Camp. The story of the plight of the Khatib family (as you may see from the attached material) was all over the media when the high court decision accepted recently the "citizenship law" of 2003.

Lana Khatib is a Palestinian woman from Jenin in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt), she has a diploma in economics from Al-Najah University in Nablus, she has moved to Israel in 2005 to live with her husband in his home town Acca. They have 2 children (4 and 3 years) but her residency here is totally depended on yearly extensions of her permission to stay within Israel of the 1967 borders. She has no legal rights, social rights, health insurance and security. She is not allowed neither to drive nor to hold a job and is thus dependent totally on her husband Taiseer. This situation creates lots of frustration for Lana who used to be independent and worked for about 4 years in the health ministry in Jenin city. One could only imagine who deprived her life is.

With the recent High Court decision she can never dream to achieve a status of a citizen, and not even a permanent resident. In the best case, she might get a renewal of the permission that enables her only to stay with her family, if she is lucky, and won't lose the mere permission to live in Acca. This is the horrific reality of almost 25,000 families in Israel.

Moreover, the Khatib's cannot choose to live in Nablus as Mr. Khatib is an Israeli citizen and according to the laws introduced after the Oslo agreement, Israeli citizens are not allowed to live in Palestinian cities which are within the "A" sections of the divided pTo. If one examine the “citizenship law” carefully its only aim is to create a “pure” Jewish state, empty from Palestinians.

If this situation reminds you of dark times in recent Jewish history please take action.

As someone who is outraged by this latest Israeli High Court decision I am sending you this personal story of the Khatib's family and urge you to protest in any way possible, to the press, to the UN, to the Israeli Embassy in your city/country and to Mr. Obama himself.

If you have more ideas or would like to help create an internation campaign please write back to Mr. Khatib or to me [hsafran10@hotmail.com]. To contact Mr Khatib please write to: taiseerk@gmail.com or become a friend on facebook: Taiseer Khatib.

With outrage and thanks,

Hannah

For Juliano, life was art and art was resistance

Again, tragedy strikes. Again, I am struggling with words. And again, words are failing me when I most need them. Because what words can be used to describe feelings beyond pain, agony and desperation? Words seem too shallow for the emotions lodged somewhere inside of me, refusing to budge. But then, I chose words as my medium, so for me – what else is there other than words?

I received the news of Juliano’s murder from my father – his voice had urgency in it. He spoke in rapid words, “hada takhu la Juliano” (they shot Juliano) First, disbelief. Then, deeper disbelief. I put the phone down, my brain in chaos. No. My father must be mistaken. It just can’t be. But then reality hit me in the face – of course it can be! After all, we live in an armed conflict zone. Where life and death are interconnected and tragedy can strike at any moment. Though I know this, every time it succeeds in astonishing me and in disturbing my mental and emotional balance.

A chaotic evening followed – phone calls, chat, emails… And when I couldn’t stay with it any longer, I went to a café and had two badly needed glasses of wine. A close friend contained me with all my sadness and weakness, not letting me fall apart and shatter on the ground into fragments. And when I came back home, I collapsed into my bed, thoughts of Juliano again taking up all the space in my brain.

Juliano Mer Khamis, son of a Palestinian father and a Jewish mother. In a land torn between two peoples, he at once belonged to both and to neither. In a land where national and religious identity is central to most, he transcended to a place beyond – for him, life was art and art was resistance. For him, there were no distinctions between these three separate concepts.

A one-of-a-kind artist and political activist, Juliano was wholly dedicated to fostering a new, young generation of Palestinians with a vision of reaching freedom through artistic, non-violent means. Juliano wanted to reconstruct and rebuild that which has been destroyed. He wanted to give the children of the Jenin refugee camp hope – and for that he was murdered. He wanted to give them creative tools so that they can stand up with their head high and struggle for their freedom and their rights with art – and for that he was murdered.

The murder hit close home because we have something in common yet different – the use of art as a means of political action and resistance. But whereas I walk carefully between the drops of rain, making every effort to avoid getting wet, Juliano stepped into the puddles. He was true to himself as an artist, true to himself as a human being, and true to his values. His art was above and beyond his fear for his personal security. His was fearless commitment with no real regard to consequences, whereas mine is muddled with rational thoughts of “what ifs.”

And this takes me back to a thought that takes up much space in my personal writing: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” (Desmund Tutu)

There are many things I fear writing about publicly. I fear for my own personal safety and for the safety of my daughter. And thus much of it remains in my private collection, not seeing the light and not reaching readers. This is what bothers me most – how true am I to my values of justice? To what extent am I willing to step into puddles and not avoid the rain drops? To what extent am I willing to merge my writing – my art – with my resistance? Where are the boundaries and to what extent do I stretch them in the name of…?

What I do know for a fact now that Juliano’s murder opened up this space for me – a deeper crack to examine my writing and the issues I avoid writing about for fear of… because for me, there’s no point in writing if it doesn’t serve a higher purpose and the values I believe in. If it doesn’t strive to make structural social change…

Preventing Assimilation in the holy land

Let's try to imagine the following scene:
You are walking in a major city in the United States. The year is 2011. You walk into a nice restaurant, and settle down with the menu. As you look around you on the pictures hanging on the wall, you see a certificate close to the bar. You want to know what kind of a certificate this restaurant received, so you walk over and read the following: “This is to certify that this business does not employ Blacks.”
Or does it say, “This is to certify that this business does not employ Jews.”
So, is this racism? I don't think that there is one person who would argue otherwise.

Now let's switch to Israel 2011. “LEHAVA – Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land” recently convened a conference in Jerusalem, where they launched their new campaign for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land.” The idea is to issue certificates to businesses who commit to not employing Arabs. The certificate reads “this is to certify that this employer employs Jews and does not employ enemies.” In a news item, one of the business owners proudly said, “I'm not a racist. I just love Jews more.” And I am wondering... how many people are still blind in this country? And how far can this insane racism go?

"Security" everywhere

You can’t go anywhere in Israel without being searched – your bag, your car, your body. Security guards lurk everywhere – coffee shops, shopping malls, schools, buses, businesses. Their metal detecting machines are ready to slide down your body ever so slowly, revealing those hidden secrets in the folds of your dress.

I try to avoid shopping malls as much as possible. But today I had an errand – Ziyad’s phone was dead and the cell-phone company’s service center is located in the Haifa shopping mall. So I had no choice.

We passed the first security guard – he was sitting on a chair, looking decidedly bored. He thought we were not worth a second glance. A young woman behind the wheel with an unshaved man sitting next to her. Ziyad’s unshaven beard has become his unequivocal stamp: his statement to the world. Not that he needs it, with his dark complexion he undoubtedly looks the part. Now if he were driving, the security guard wouldn’t let us pass so easily. But I guess he only saw me, it was already getting dark, and it was probably the end of his shift and all he wanted was to get the hell out of there – out of his security guard role for the day.

The second security guard stopped us. He opened the back door, making small talk. The “good evening how are you” is meant to identify the distinctive Arabic accent. We had some papers strewn on the back seat, and the guard asked if they were business papers. He then asked me to open the trunk of the car. And that’s where it all began. For some reason, I couldn’t open the trunk. Ziyad came out of the car, tried to open it, but still it wouldn’t budge. Ziyad’s irritation began to surface as he talked to me in Arabic. The guard studied us, still calm. But when Ziyad told him “the trunk won’t open, what’s the problem just let us go,” he began showing signs of distress. He got on his communication radio and reported to a more senior guard “come quickly, there’s a man here who won’t open the trunk for inspection.” I knew that was what Ziyad needed to hear to lose control. “Why did you lie?! Can’t you see I’m trying to open the trunk?! What do you want me to do, it won’t open!!” They exchanged some words, all the while ignoring me. I said to the guard, “listen, friend, the car is mine; I’m responsible for opening the trunk, so you deal with me. And you, Ziyad, get in the car and be quiet.” Ziyad shot me a dark look, telling me “get inside the car and shut up!”

Then another guard appeared, the one summoned. He was calm, I could even see a trace of a smile on his face. “What’s the problem?” “The problem is that your guard here is a liar. The trunk won’t open, and he says that I refuse to open it for inspection.” I tried to make myself visible again, “the car is mine, I’m responsible for it being opened for inspection. The trunk won’t open.” “Shut up,” Ziyad shot at me, this time with a wicked smile. “See how he talks to her? She is so polite, and look how he is behaving,” the first guard tells the second guard. The second guard smiled at me and asked to see my ID card. I handed him my driver’s license instead. “Have a good day,” and he let us go.


Looking back at the incident, I see at least three levels of interaction:
(1) The most obvious one is the “security” issue. Ziyad looks the “terrorist” part: his heavily-accented Hebrew, his agitated mood, unshaven beard and dark skin. He fits the profile security guards are trained to immediately identify. An all too familiar scenario must have run through the guard’s mind: Ziyad was using a “clean-looking” woman as a distraction; the bomb was hidden in the trunk. At a certain point I could see the flash of horror in the guard’s eyes – the bomb would go off, killing us all on the spot. A scenario he got drilled about during his training period, but he never actually imagined he would have to cope with it in real life. Until this moment, it was just theoretical matter he had to study in order to get his gun.
(2) The second level has to do with the politics of identities and ethnicities. The security guard was an Ethiopian immigrant. Ethiopians have been placed by Israeli society at the bottom of the social ladder, even below Arabs. So this was a contest between the two men, each making an effort to make himself look superior by crushing the other into that low inferiority.
(3) The raw, primitive form of male dominance. Each of them tried to prove that he is the “man” and has the final word. I don’t need to go into this – it’s the same old battle of men since the beginning of history.

I’m sure this list is incomplete, and upon deeper examination, additional layers can be revealed. But this was my own personal-political experience, yet again proving that the personal is indeed political.

bathroom tiles, cornflakes and death to Arabs

It was such a good and fruitful day. You know, those days when you get out of the house in the morning with your "to do" list and actually outdo yourself and get much more done? Well, it was one of those days. I went to the office, and got tons of work done. In the evening, I went with my parents to Kufr Manda to help them pick new tiles for their bathroom, which was an extremely difficult task, but accomplished successfully.
By the time we got back to Haifa it was eight thirty in the evening, and I took a nice walk back home from my parents' house, meeting my daughter and two dogs halfway. On the way, I bought some cornflakes.
As we were nearing our house, I had a satisfying feeling of being tired. A good kind of tiredness from having a productive day. And then I saw it. At the entrance to our building - a car with a finger-written message on its unwashed back window. Normally it would say something like "wash me please." But this one was different. It said "Death to Arabs."

But of course we are immune to these graffiti, aren't we? After all, we see them all over. So what was so different about this particular one? It instantly threw me off my delicately balanced mental state. No, it wasn't panic. It wasn't surprise either. Nor fear. I can't quite put my finger on the emotion I felt at reading the words. But it was very disturbing emotionally and mentally. My first reaction was to look in the direction of my daughter, who was walking in front of me. I felt relieved that she didn't pay attention to it - she was looking straight ahead, being pulled by our two dogs. Then I looked around - for what of for whom, I don't know. The words and the strong emotions they evoked accompanied me to bed. This was two days ago. Tonight, the car is still parked right at the entrance to our building. The word "Arabs" was erased, leaving only "death to."

Haifa - the city of co-existence

Haifa is considered to be a city of peaceful co-existence by many. But is it indeed?
(1) I've lived most of my life in Jewish neighborhoods, and still I am annoyed when people give me a second look when I speak Arabic on the phone.
(2) Spending time with my daughter at the neighborhood public parks when she was little, the other kids would either play with her or ignore her. She would be treated like any other kid. Nothing about her would betray the fact that she is part Arab, her being blond with blue eyes, with a non-Arabic name. Until she'd call me "mama" and ask me something in Arabic. Then all the heads - those of children, parents and grandparents would shoot all in perfect harmony and accusation towards me. How dare I (dirty up their neat little lives)?
(3) Teenagers sitting in the back of the bus usually play songs on their mobile phones. Back when I didn't have a car I'd ride the bus everyday and just listen to people's conversations. I've noticed that whenever a song in English or Hebrew would play from the back seats, the passengers would be content. However, every time, and I mean every single time, that a song in Arabic would come from those back seats, there would always be one passenger who'd ask them to turn the music off, as it was annoying. And when the kids would ignore the passenger, she/he would then ask the bus driver to make them turn it off. A verbal argument would follow.
(4) My partner was once asked by a bus driver NOT to speak in Arabic on his phone.

This is only a tiny fragment of the co-existence of Haifa.
Think again!

Leaving Part of my Identity Behind

I love winter.
I love it for private reasons, but I also love it because I like to wear my scarves. I have scarves of every color imaginable.
But the scarves I love most are forbidden to me.
If I wear the red-and-white Kafiyya I get suspicious looks. I feel like people stare at me like I'm a strange kind of cheese and they try to figure me out. But it's not that bad - I can manage with that.
The problem arises when I walk out of the house with the black-and-white Kafiyya. It has long lost its meaning.
It has been politicized and then de-politicized.
Politicized when the west has turned it into a symbol of terrorism.
De-politicized when it started being mass-manufactured by brand labels in all colors of the rainbow and become a fashion statement.
So before I leave the house in the winter, I put on my black-and-white Kafiyya, wrap it around my neck, and contemplate the woman with the olive skin in the mirror for a few moments.
Then, with a thread of sadness unspooling from a corner of my heart, I take it off and hang it back, leaving a part of my very identity at home.

Between two Worlds

Born to a Palestinian father and a Slovak mother, the word land has different meanings for me. I was born in former Czechoslovakia, and at the age of eight, immigrated with my parents to my father’s homeland in Haifa, Israel. My connection to Czechoslovakia was lost, as it never had time to set deep roots. For years after coming to Haifa, I couldn’t connect to the new place. There was a world of difference between the East European town I grew up in and this Middle Eastern world with its amalgamation of sensual textures, colors and tastes, intermingling with a vibrant mix of cultures and an edgy political atmosphere.

As a Palestinian, I’m a second-class citizen of Israel. The state is by definition the state of the Jewish people, which on the most superficial level means I can’t relate to any of the state symbols. I am continuously marginalized – politically, socially, culturally, economically. In my homeland, I have to cope with racism on a daily basis: people who don’t want Palestinians in “their” Jewish state, and a government that wants to delete the Arabic names of cities from signs. All this leaves me with a desolate feeling that there will never be a place I can call home. There's a feeling they want to delete me and my history.

My identity will always be intrinsically connected to land. Being an immigrant, I long for a place to call home. Being a Palestinian, I have no such home at the moment.