CITIZENSHIP DENIED

A new amendment to the Citizenship Act will be presented at the next government meeting in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in the next few days. An amendment according to which anyone seeking Israeli citizenship has to declare “loyalty to a Jewish and democratic State of Israel.” I read the article in Hebrew, then searched for the English version, because I know that English versions of news articles often don’t match their original Hebrew. Thus, the English article doesn’t mention one small – but very significant – detail. This amendment, should it pass, will not be applicable to new immigrants who are seeking Israeli citizenship by virtue of the Law of Return. Now here’s the twist: the Law of Return is based on a racist ideology, granting the Right of Return only to Jews. Following simple logic, not only is the amendment in itself racist as well, applying to certain religious and/or ethnic groups, but it is outright ridiculous. Since Palestinians and/or other Arabs who don’t already hold citizenship are not entitled to citizenship in the first place, and since new immigrants seeking citizenship under the Law of Return are exempt from declaring their loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic State of Israel,” then who in the world is the amendment supposed to be applicable to?

p.s. please bear with me - there's just so much going on here, and I'm trying to write about everything, but just don't have the time - I've got 3 articles in the process right now, so hopefully I'll be posting them soon.

losing my disk-on-key – discovering an Arab at the pool

Losing my disk-on-key – discovering an Arab at the pool

Yesterday morning I lost my wallet. Everything in it was replaceable of course, but the shock of losing my disk-on-key stayed with me all day long. As I don’t trust technological gadgets, I always make sure I have backup for my writing on 2 computers and an external hard-drive. I try to send a copy of my “Life in Fragments” novel in progress to my email when I remember. But the most updated versions are always on my disk-on-key, as I use different computers when I write. Well, the last back-up I did was two weeks ago, and since then I wrote a lot. All that is lost now. I cannot replace the words I wrote or retreat them from memory. It took me a full day to overcome this small tragedy of mine.

This morning, I religiously updated all my back-ups, and then decided to stop moping around and get to work. I started going through the hundreds of writing files that accrued during my years of writing. Many of them unfinished pieces and beginnings of short stories. I discovered a piece I wrote back about three years ago, about my experience when a receptionist at the pool said to me, after I showed her my ID, “You know, if it weren’t written down here, I would have never believed you were an Arab.” I discovered other stories left unfinished for various reasons. Going through them, reading some parts, I am filled with renewed energies. I never discard a piece, even if it’s only one paragraph. I believe that if I wrote it, then there’s a reason behind it. Sometimes I leave a piece because I feel I’m not ready to cope with the subject at hand. So I’m taking this as an opportunity to go back to my past writing and rediscover themes. Sometimes it’s good to stop and go back. Writing about an experience with a distance of time can give new perspectives.

Follow up here for the whole story of the pool – and other stories. Coming soon.

family matters

The following event succeeded in getting awed replies even from my friends here in Haifa who are well aware of these issues.

I was invited for a job interview at one of the largest Palestinian NGOs in Israel advocating for the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. I walk in the room, and am greeted by the director (needless to say he’s a man), and the two deputy directors (both women). Before we start the interview, the director asks one of the women to make him coffee. Then the phone rings, and he asks the same woman to answer the phone. She picks up, and says that it’s for him. He doesn’t approach the phone, but rather asks her to ask the caller what it is, and then tells her what to reply.

A few minutes later, we are all seated at a round table, the director looks down at my resume, and reads out loud “khulud kh____.” A short pause, while he tries to figure me out. “Where are you from originally? And are you related to so and so?” For about ten minutes, I find myself answering these questions that have nothing to do with me or my skills. He needs to know whose daughter I am, which village my family comes from originally, whether I’m related to the Kh who is a member of the Haifa city council, and if – by chance – I’m related to that Kh who married a Jewish woman. Of course he doesn’t ask me if I’m Muslim or Christian, but this is also important to him. He discerns this from the answers to the other questions.

I was accepted for the job, but needless to say that even before they informed me of their decision, I made up my mind. I will not work in a place where part of my job description is making coffee. I will not work in an organization where my family’s background is more important than my abilities, skills, and potential.

This incidence is an example of why I tend to drop my family name. I resist the labels people attach to me just because of my family name. I resist the preconceptions people have about who I am based on my family’s background. Yes, I share a collective history with my family. I’m not breaking away from them, no. All I want is to be accepted for being who I am, and not for being the cousin of, or the daughter of.

Family reputation here is of great significance. So if I come from a “respected” family, lucky me. But if I don’t? I don’t even want to go in this direction here – because this is not what matters to me. I am not trying to hide my family’s name and thus my family’s background because they’re perceived as “respectable” or “not respectable.” This is not the issue here. Just as I don’t want people attributing negative conceptions to me based on my family’s name, I also don’t want them attributing positive ones based on it.

I am a full, complete person with abilities, emotions, ideas, and my own political stance. I have my own goals and visions as well as my own challenges and dilemmas. In an ideal setting, I imagine meeting a person and introducing myself as khulud. khulud the individual, complex person.

Of course family plays a significant role in how I developed to be the woman I am today. But this is in the small daily interactions with my close family members. The fact that I’m related to someone who’s on the Haifa city council doesn’t count here. I don’t see how the very distant relative (whom I never even met) who married a Jewish woman has any effect on me, or the fact that two of my cousins are advocates. What’s that got to do with me???

Notes from underground

I am continuously faced with the difficulty of negotiating my spaces of existence. It is becoming harder and harder to find the emotional space to write, not to talk about the actual physical time and space. I find myself increasingly sitting at the computer screen into the small hours of the night, at times even greeting dawn, as I sit here with my coffee (trying to replace it with ginger tea, but it's not really working), cigarettes and two dogs.

Sometimes I reach the breaking point. Sometimes I want to give up. The effort to find the space and time - to clear all the clutter of the day from my mind - becomes an unbearable task. But something deep inside me keeps tugging at me. Keeps telling me that I need to do this. I need to write. To me, writing is like breathing. I imagine sometimes breathing as painful - but there is no other option. I have to keep breathing even if it causes agonizing pain.

Lately, I received some very heartwarming personal emails from some of you. Some even from people I don't know. I just want to tell you that your emails - maybe you didn't think of them like that - are lifesaving to me. They join the other life-lines I hang on to. I don't know what you think of my person, maybe you think I have all the confidence in the world and that words come easily to me. Well, writing is a struggle. It's an amalgamation of agony and ecstasy. But confidence? That's also a problematic word. Sometimes I believe. Sometimes I waver and am uncertain. Sometimes I have faith in my own abilities - but more importantly in my mission. Other times I feel frustration and don't see any progress. But with all this - it has never crossed my mind to abandon my goal.

But I think that a major cause for my frustration is actually not directly connected with writing itself. It's connected with being unable to find that silent, free space: mental, emotional and physical. The small tasks of life are so demanding, sometimes not leaving us time even for a hug. But I make an extra effort. Sometimes I give up another hour of sleep, pass a good read, or skip a nice relaxation. At the end, it's a matter of choice.

What's the point in writing this post? I think it has served its point!
Good night all and see you around the corner, khulud.

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."

Breaking a Promise - Refusing to Apologize

I’ve been putting off writing about the following issue, as it’s been very difficult for me emotionally. This is to all my friends who don’t live in an armed-conflict zone and who have no idea how the conflict gets under our skins, affecting all areas of our daily lives.

Someone dear to me was coming from England to visit, and we arranged for my daughter to come wait for her at the airport. She was arriving at around 19:00, which was already quite late.

Getting to the airport from Haifa is quite easy by train, which takes about an hour and 20 minutes, and it goes all the way to the airport. So of course I was a bit worried about my 15 year old daughter traveling alone, but not too much. I had everything arranged – meeting point for them, telephone numbers, exact instructions for my daughter, etc.

And then, as life happens to unfold, something unexpected happened. The woman arriving (let’s call her Maria for the sake of convenience here), sent us a text message from the London airport that the plane is one hour behind schedule. This one seemingly insignificant hour threw me off balance (this is the whole point of this post, so bear with me and read to the end. I need to get the facts out of the way first before I start dealing with the conflict and how it’s connected to this). I immediately sent her a text message that my daughter will not come to pick her up, but apparently the message was lost in cyber-space and did not reach its destination.

Needless to say, and understandably, Maria reached Tel Aviv and was surprised that my daughter wasn’t there waiting for her. (Just for clarification: Maria knows her way around Israel, she’s been here several times and knows how to arrive by train on her own, which she did in the past).

So Maria arrived in Haifa alone by train, my father and my daughter were waiting for her at the Haifa train station. I didn’t come to the train station because when she arrived in Tel Aviv, she called us and said that she didn’t want to see me. Why? Because I promised that my daughter would wait for her and I broke my promise. Simple logic.

Upon arrival at my parents’ house, she attacked me, screaming between her tears that I am selfish and that I broke my promise. (I was also accused of playing the victim – but to this day this remains a mystery to me. I’ve never played the victim in my life, nor do I see myself a victim in any way.) I was not allowed to explain why I decided not to let my daughter come to the airport. I told Maria that when she is ready to hear my explanation, I am here and willing to explain. Throughout her whole stay in Haifa, she did not approach me once to demand an explanation.

Now back to the reason why and how it’s connected to the conflict. The one hour delay in the plane schedule – as I already said – threw me off balance. Different scenarios began running through my head. Many times, foreigners coming to Israel would be delayed by security forces for anywhere between 1-4 hours upon arrival. Recently, a German woman coming to do her internship at Isha L’Isha was taken to an investigation room and held there for 3 hours. The famous Spanish clown, Ivan Prado, was recently detained for six hours at the airport, following which he was denied entry and put on a return flight to Spain. More recently, the great linguist Noam Chomsky was not allowed entry either. Last month, Druze women who received permits from the Ministry of Interior to visit their relatives in Syria were denied entry back into Israel, of which they are citizens. The Occupation is built on arbitrariness. This very arbitrariness is a systemic policy designed to instill chaos into our lives.

I didn’t want my daughter to wait at the airport into the night. Another image – that of my daughter being beaten up on the bus by a grown woman just because she spoke Arabic on the phone – also came to my mind. Acts of violence on a racist basis have become rather the norm than the exception in Israel. I didn’t want to expose my daughter to unnecessary risks. This is my right as her mother. And nobody can take this right away from me.

I was asked to apologize, but I refused. I refuse to apologize for a decision that I made and for which I take full responsibility. It does hurt me that I didn’t get the opportunity to explain my decision. Looking back, I would have made the same decision again.

So if I am selfish by protecting my daughter, so be it. No, I can’t protect her forever from the conflict. She will get her share of it in due course. But for now, let her enjoy being a 15 year old as much as possible.

As for Maria, in her eyes I am still selfish. She hasn’t approached me since to demand an explanation. Maybe it’s convenient for her to think in a superficial black-and-white way in terms of me breaking a promise.

Many people who think they know everything there is to know about armed conflicts disregard the fact that the conflict is inherently connected to our everyday experiences. Every day, we have to make new decisions and negotiate our personal and private spaces according to the unfolding political reality. They refuse to see these connections, because then all their clean theories (anchored in a certain type of discourse that is not applicable to us) would collapse. They refuse to see, for example, that violation of women’s health rights are – in our case – connected to the conflict as well as to socio-economic issues. But this is for another post.

And lastly, you might wonder why I initially did agree that my daughter go to the airport. Well, for the very same reason. We do our best to live as much a normal life as possible in this insane, absurd reality.

While I slept

While I Slept

I’ve been trying to get my thoughts together and write something cohesive – a glimpse from the inside. But I feel so overwhelmed by all the disinformation, secrecy and lies. Trying to piece together a complete picture out of the fragments. I started writing last night, and I actually spent three hours writing, getting all the information from the various Israeli and international media together – but at the end, it just didn’t make sense to me.

So I decided to share with you my own day. A day in the life of one feminist activist. The day of 31 May 2010.

As I suffer from insomnia, and I’m used to work at night, I spent the night of the 30th working all night, writing. Before shutting the Internet, I got a last update on the www.witnessgaza.com website, and everything was fine. They were on their way, supposed to arrive in Gaza in the afternoon of the 31st. Then I opened my “Life in Fragments – Novel in Progress” file and started writing. At 8:00 in the morning, I went to bed – without getting updated on the web before shutting the computer.

And while I slept….

I woke up at 14:00, and a quick glance at my phone told me something was wrong. More than 20 unanswered phone calls: from my partner who is currently in Sweden, from my dad, from my colleagues at Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center, from one of our Swedish donors located in Jerusalem, and other friends. My phone also informed me of 7 new text messages. Upon opening my email, I was shocked to discover 45 emails! And all this before drinking my two cups of “morning” coffee!

I got quickly updated from my feminist friends. An emergency meeting was held at Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center (while I slept, but of course), and they formulated a statement of solidarity with the women activists on board the Peace Flotilla. I was also told that a solidarity demonstration is planned for 17:00 in front of the Rambam hospital in Haifa, where they were supposedly bringing some of the injured activists.

Now I have to share with you the implications of this location on demonstrators. Haifa is a mixed city, but with clear division between the Arab and Jewish neighborhoods (like in most mixed cities in Israel). Traditionally, most of the demonstrations take place just above Wadi Nisnas, in the heart of the Arab neighborhood. On the one hand, it is not a hostile environment for us, while on the other hand it is still a quite central location, as we stand on a main junction where many cars pass – both Jewish and Arab. The chances of violence breaking out are not high.

Any other location in Haifa constitutes a threat and is a hostile environment for us. Why? Most of the Israeli public backs all government policies and military actions 100%. They see the demonstrators as traitors. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are seen as traitors and enemies, while the Jewish demonstrators are viewed as “ochrei Israel.”

Thus, the demonstrators face hostility from two sides: passersby and the police. The police are usually very brutal and violent – in most cases initiating the physical outbursts of violence.

Back to the events of the day. As I said, I got all the information before being able to start my brain working. So I didn’t think about the location of the demonstration. Usually I try to avoid demonstrations with potential violence. I quickly got updated on the brutal attack of unarmed peace activists bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza by Israeli commando in International waters – through different websites. The Israeli media was very vague. No official reports of the number of killed. Everything was engulfed in secrecy. There was a lot of disinformation. I don’t own a TV, but my dad told me that the running caption throughout the news was that five Arabs from Haifa were killed, and that their families have been informed of their deaths. Needless to say this turned out to be not true – but only later during the day. I was also told by someone that the ship carrying Haneen Zuabi was being towed into the Haifa Port, which is close to the Rambam hospital. This rumor also turned out to be not true.

While getting updated I had my three big cups of coffee, then took a shower, and headed for the first demonstration. I arrived a few minutes after 17:00, to find 4 or 5 women friends at the entrance to the hospital. We waited for more people to arrive and, after about 15 minutes, we were a total of 20 people, feminist women, both Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, and a few men. At this time, I thought we really looked pathetic. I was still not thinking about any risks or possible violence. We got out our posters and situated ourselves on the big roundabout close to the hospital. A few minutes after this, about 10-12 young people, I would say they were between 15-18, with Israeli flags and posters in support of the Israeli Defence Forces, situated themselves on the other side of the street, right opposite to us.

Two journalists were there to cover the demonstration. Some minutes later a small number of men and women joined the right-wing demonstrators. One man was particularly violent. He came close to us and started screaming at us: “Do you know Arabs? Do you know Arabs? Show me one Arab who doesn’t want to kill us and destroy us and take over our land. All they want to do is kill us. They don’t want peace.” He continued like this for a while, I guess he didn’t think there were any Arab demonstrators. He actually hurled at me the “Do you know any Arabs.”

At this point there was still no police in sight, and I was beginning to be afraid. I just stood there in silence. I didn’t want to provoke any physical violence. Call me a coward. If courage means getting beaten up, then I refuse to be courageous. I don’t want to get beaten up. I don’t want to get arrested. I don’t need to brag that I spent the night being investigated. I don’t need or want a “badge of courage.”


After a while the police arrived. And I do have to say that unlike their usual behavior, they were actually nice to us this time. The demonstration went on.

We were called names and we were cursed. Some of the verbal violence included words and phrases like: prostitute, disgusting, stinking, you get fucked from your ass (I am really sorry for these obscenities, but these are the actual words we were subjected to).

My Mizrahi friend (Mizrahis are Jews originally from Arab countries) were called names and my Russian speaking friends were told to go back to Russia, because “who needs you here? We don’t need you here! Who told you to come here?” We were also told that if we love Arabs so much, we should and live in Gaza or go to Lebanon.

I can’t remember right now all the other name calling and cursing, but these words remain in my memory.

At 6:20 we dispersed, and we all went to the second demonstration, the one in the usual location in Haifa. This one was a much bigger demonstration, I would say there were several hundreds. This time, there was quite a big presence of religious men. The demonstration began at 19:00 and it went smooth until we left. We left earlier because we had a collective meeting that night at 20:00 in Isha L’Isha. At the collective, we went over the statement that was formulated in the emergency meeting and in email correspondences throughout the day and changed some of the wording until every woman present felt that the statement is in line with her convictions. Then we had our regular discussion of the issues on the agenda.

It was a long evening for me, with quite a lot of confusion. I arrived home after 22:00, and got online hoping to get some facts. Still, no facts. Still, the official bodies of the state of Israel were silent. Until now, we don’t know the names of the murdered. We don’t even know the exact number of the wounded and the murdered.

The last two days have been insane for us all.

I want to thank all the support we received from our feminist friends around the world – Australia, Philippines, Uganda, Canada, the US, and others. Thank you for forwarding our statement. It is so important for us to get the word out that there are feminist women in Israel – Jewish, Palestinian citizens of Israel, lesbian, bi-sexual and Russian women who are working together in solidarity for peace, fighting injustice.

At this moment, the last ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, is making its way to Gaza. They have received the full support of the Irish government at this stage. However, Israel claims that it will be better prepared in the future for these ships. They also say that they will take all the necessary measures to stop any ships in the future from entering the Gaza port. And I really hope that nothing will happen to the activists on board the MV Rachel Corrie as I shut my computer and head to sleep. Because I really don’t have the energies for another “while I slept.”




The above picture was taken by Marie Dion

Statement of Isha L'Isha - Haifa Feminist Center

We, the women of Isha L'Isha – Haifa Feminist Center, express deep shock at the continuing and deteriorating consequences of the siege on Gaza. We express our solidarity with women peace activists who acted to break the inhuman siege on women, children and men; a siege that has been preventing basic human freedoms, health services and essential materials.

We extend our support to our sisters in the feminist movement, especially those who went out to exercise their right to protest against an outrageous injustice, and found themselves facing a military attack that was a result of a violent state policy.

We call on women and men in Israeli society to resist the assault on the most basic human values, and to join our call – the attack on the peace flotilla is an attack on me. The siege on Gaza endangers us all.

Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center is a multi-cultural feminist collective established in 1983. Our aim is to bring about social change by promoting values of equal rights and equal opportunities for all women; eradicating discrimination, violence and oppression of women; and fostering solidarity among women.

Isha L'Isha - Haifa Feminist Center
118 Arlozorov St. Haifa 33276 Israel
www.isha.org.il
Tel: + 972 4 865 0977

Language-less (or more)

I am. I am a woman who dreams in an unknown language. Who counts “one-two-three” in one language, and “four-five-six” in another. My thoughts come in fragments of four languages.

My language of love is the poetic song of this ancient land – Arabic. My language of politics is a language I have no connection with – Hebrew. My language of creative writing is yet a third language – language foreign to me and my land – English. And my language of family – well, that’s the simple language of my early childhood – Slovak.

Four languages, one brain. Most of the time there is chaos in my brain – I feel the words of these four languages racing, competing for my tongue. Fighting to escape.

Ideas I write in English I struggle with in Arabic and Hebrew when speaking. The things I write in one language I cannot express in writing in the other one. The words I speak in Arabic cannot be pinned down on paper. The intimate discussions with my family in Slovak cannot be rendered into another language. The heated political discussions with my friends in Hebrew become a struggle when I repeatedly attempt to document them in English. The words of passion in Arabic – well, I can never imagine myself speaking these words in any other language.

Each language leaves an imprint on my identity, as words shape our realities. Each language carries within itself a complete world – of traditions, cultures, symbols, jokes, street-language, and more. Descriptions of feelings and emotions can extremely vary across these languages. The same words – when translated – carry completely different connotations, denotations and meanings. Sometimes they carry history itself within their very letters.

I use all four languages on a daily basis, in different settings and in various contexts. I try to negotiate my identity between and within those four languages and the spaces left by the gaps. It is no easy task. The instant switch between languages feels a burden at times, while at other times I take it up as an intellectual challenge. One thing is sure: life is so much more interesting when experienced in four languages.

Waqfet Banat - Personal Narrative

Cover Image of Waqfet Banat (taken from Aswat's website)

There was a lot of commotion and excitement today at Aswat - Palestinian Gay Women's office. "Waqfet Banat - Personal Narrative" has just arrived from the printing house. A small book, with a colorful cover picture, inviting the reader to the personal, often guarded, private spaces of Palestinian lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex women (LBTQI).

The stories are corageuos narratives of individual women who have had to deal not only with the rejection of their families and communities, but with the very journey of self-discovery. While some celebrate their very identities, others describe the all-too-painful rejections they have had to encounter time and again. Some have emerged stronger and are able to live their lives being openly themselves, while others have been broken and have to lead a double life. A few were not strong enough (how strong can one be?!) and succumbed under the weight of patriarchal, religious, or societal oppression.

I want to personally thank the women of Aswat who worked so hard on collecting, translating, editing and making available this important book. I also want to thank the women who contributed the narratives: your strength and courage are an inspiration to me and I feel privileged to be part of your world. Thank you for opening your hearts and sharing with me your most personal experiences, thoughts, pains, losses and loves.

"Waqfet Banat" is an important contribution to Palestinian literature on sexual identity, and I believe it has the potential of changing perceptions among the public. But most importantly, I hope it reaches the hands of parents of young women on their journey of self-discovery, as family acceptance is a major thread running through almost all the narratives.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a closer glimpse and a deeper understanding of sexual identity and its intricate interrelation to patriarchal oppression and societal norms.

The book is available in Arabic and English. To order a copy, please visit Aswat's website at www.aswatgroup.org.


Cover Image from Waqfet Banat (taken from Aswat's website)

Love Cannot be Defined

I was once given a book called “Conditions of Love,” written by some Armstrong (don’t remember his first name). I try hard to remember anything from the book, but in vain. Today I realize the reasons.

Love cannot be “conditioned.” Love cannot be defined by a single individual who has only experienced one kind of love, in one type of cultural and historical context.

Because love is a slippery word. It is a word meaning cannot be attached to. It doesn't conform to the rules of the Oxford Dictionary.

Love can be gentle, it can be ferocious, it can be calm and it can be raging. It can take you up beyond the tip of the edge, and it can take you down into the bottomless well of grief. It can be happiness, but it can also live in anger. Love can be ..... fill in whatever emotion and love can be that. And it can be all these combined together and much more.

Whenever I think of the love I have, one word instantly forms in my mind: “intense.” That is the kind of love I am experiencing in this stage of my life. But of course it is accompanied by other emotions as well. Ours is a love riding a wild rollercoaster. It is at the same time thrilling, breathtaking but also scary. It is painful fear mingled with exhilaration. It is like lovemaking – with an amalgamation of feelings beyond pain and joy.

Reading “Mornings in Jenin” by Susan Abulhawa, I came across a paragraph that will remain with me always. Reading her definition of love, I was magically drawn to the concept. I felt, yes, this is my kind of love. Not the philosophical notions of love fed to us. Her kind of love touched me in a deep place of my very existence. Here is the paragraph:

“Amal, I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell. I see your confusion. Consider fear. For us, fear comes where terror comes to others because we are anesthetized to the guns constantly pointed at us. And the terror we have known is something few Westerners ever will. Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our own emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.

“The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has come to live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoiding you, but who is still one of the family. Our anger is a rage that westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stones weep. And the way we love is no exception, Amal.

It is the kind of love you can know only if you have felt the intense hunger that makes your body eat itself at night. The kind you know only after life shields you from falling bombs, or bullets passing through your body. It is the love that dives naked toward infinity’s reach. It think it is where God lives.”

“Mornings in Jenin” is one of those few books that have made a deep impression on me. Its scents, colors, grief, pain, and hopes will remain with me always. I urgently recommend this book. But my recommendation comes with a warning: at the beginning of the book, a small ball of joy makes its home in the readers stomach, but suddenly, and very violently, this tiny ball betrays you and transforms itself into a knot of grief that keep growing and pushing itself upward, until it settles into your throat, making you unable to breath. This knot will accompany the reader to the very last lines of the book.

Post

"she opened her post box and was taken aback. first, by the quantity of the mail. But something was not right. Reaching in, she drew a heavy bulk of letters. All were torn open, their contents scattered. some of them were torn to pieces, others just crumpled. Love letters, bills, notifications of a big package waiting at the post office. She didn't understand. she could tell by the dates on the stamps that this was at least three months worth of mail. who did this? and why was she all of a sudden targeted? or was it not all of a sudden? she felt they were closing in on her."

google "Ameer Makhoul"

shhh... there's a gag order... all I have to say is google "Ameer Makhoul"

Imagine You're on a Military Training

Walking my two dogs in my neighborhood, I saw a mother with her 7 year old boy. The boy was carrying a cage with hamsters in it, and I heard him complaining to his mom how heavy the cage is and how difficult it is so him to carry it.

My first thought was that the mother would find words of motivation, telling him that he's doing great, or that they're almost home or some such words.
Instead, she tells him: "Stop being such a brat. Just pretend you're on a military training."

MILITARY TRAINING???? A seven year old boy????

I don't think I need to add any commentary here...

Sarkuzi will liberate the Muslim woman – part two

Reading my last post, my dear friend Talma brought to my attention the fact that again this is an attack directed at a certain group – the Muslims. What about other groups, such as nuns or Jewish women in traditional dress? So clearly this is yet another campaign to demonize Islam.

And if we take up Sarkuzi’s claim that the Burka defiles women’s honor, then why not outlaw pornography, sexist advertisements and magazines that show all-too-often almost naked women? And what about advertisements using young girls in seductive positions? There is no end to the list of things that portray women as mere sex objects. It’s a whole industry. But of course this is allowed in the name of terms as “freedom of expression” and other such noble terms.