“A year has passed since I stopped writing … I have overcome my despair, as other people have overcome their despair, and I emerged from it wiser, perhaps, but certainly more adamant in my decision to maintain my sumud, just as the Israeli government seems more determined than ever to empty the West Bank of us, the samadin. I now feel, more than my immediate personal fears, an objective fear of the tragedy awaiting all of us. I am now once more able to see what vanished last year—the individual faces on the wheel of death, Palestinian and Israeli faces, all struggling to halt its progress.”
So wrote Raj’a Shehade, lawyer and author, in the epilogue to his book The Third Way.
Sumud means to endure. To stick to one’s guns. To remain firmly planted on one’s land. The term was coined at the Baghdad summit of Arab states in 1978 (samadin—the endurers) as a name for the million and a half Palestinian refugees who live under the Israeli occupation. The summit established the Steadfastness Aid Fund, meant to direct $150 million a year to these Palestinians—including those who have lived under Israeli rule since 1948—but this has become but a trickle in recent years, because Arab countries have not met their commitments to the fund.
Five years have passed since Shehade wrote those words. When you are not a free man, time passes more slowly: your soul is delayed and defeated along the way. You unconsciously moderate your actions and responses in order to be prepared for any evil. Any unexpected capriciousness of the occupier. Or of the situation itself. The time which passes for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza under Israeli rule cannot even be measured in prison terms. Its end is unknown, and this makes it even harder to deal with. I asked Shehade if he had not tired at the end of these five years, at the end of twenty years, of being sumud.
“No,” he said, “I go on believing in it. Of the two ways open to me as a Palestinian—to surrender to the occupation and collaborate with it, or to take up arms against it, two possibilities which mean, to my mind, losing one’s humanity—I choose the third way. To remain here. To see how my home becomes my prison, which I do not want to leave, because the jailer will then not allow me to return.”
Sumud expresses tenacity and stamina, and a sort of passive combativeness, gritting one’s teeth to keep from giving in, and to keep from losing one’s mind. Sumud means to bow one’s head and live, somehow, until the storm passes. Shehade is consciously sumud—and was even before the Baghdad summit labeled him as such. Other Palestinians are almost unconscious samadin, practically turning their expert passivity into an art.
I tell Shehade that there are such samadin among the Israelis as well: many people who do not accept the situation but who do not know what to do about it. They cling to the desire to remain ignorant and unaware. Faithful to their half-closed consciousness, they immerse themselves in a despairing, miserable moral slumber: “Wake me when it’s over.”
And what does the occupation do to us, the Israelis, in your opinion?
“I think about that a lot,” Shehade answers (our conversation was conducted in English). “First, you must remember that it is not just an occupation. From a legal point of view it is an occupation, but it is actually much worse than an occupation: after all, you do not work among us just to prevent violent attacks upon yourselves. You have taken other, exceptional steps, such as establishing settlements. Nor do the civil administration and the military government work for the benefit of the local population, as they like to say they do. The military government itself is confused. The people there will tell you how much they have improved our lives. They won’t tell you about the twelve hundred amendments and new laws they promulgated in the West Bank. Those are laws meant to make the current situation permanent, gradually but irrevocably. The occupation is selfish. It only acts in matters which affect it directly. Security matters are seen to with great care, but the police station in Ramallah has no sign that says “Police” in Arabic. Only in Hebrew and English. The Israeli policemen don’t even pretend that they are there to protect the locals. West Bank crime is growing and becoming more serious, but Israel is doing nothing to prevent it. It doesn’t affect the occupation.
“What happened to you is what Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz predicted immediately after the ’67 war. He said then that it is impossible to be occupiers and remain moral. Even people with moral intentions are led slowly into an immoral situation. The situation turns into a sort of monster with a life of its own, which can no longer be controlled. An unjust and immoral monster. You have two kinds of people in Israel. One is the kind you called ‘the samadin of ignorance.’ They simply disconnect themselves from what is going on. The second kind uses every means to achieve its goal. The first kind of people say: An honest, sensitive man of conscience like Efraim Sneh [until recently head of the civil administration] should not do the work of the establishment. They want to cut the Arabs off from all the positive forces in Israel. Afterwards, you can’t understand why the Arabs are so wild and violent. You see, you can’t treat people in a certain way for years and not expect that they will react to it, right?”
Israelis sometimes ask the mirror image of that question: Why is it so easy to control you? How can you explain the fact that we rule more than a million and a half Arabs, almost without feeling it? After all, were the situation reversed, wouldn’t we make your lives miserable?
Shehade smiles sadly. He is a small man, of delicate appearance, and projects a strong presence. And exactly because he is so fragile, it is clear from the start that it is hard to frighten him with any sort of physical threat: he has already come to terms with that, as it were, and the discussion passes on to other, deeper subjects, where he is very sure of himself. In his book he writes: “How easy it certainly is for the Israelis. It takes no effort to rule a society accustomed to paternalism to the point that people do not even ask who is giving the orders. We make use of and accept authority so naturally that we do not even see the humiliation and shame it engenders. The Israelis need only glide down the path prepared for them and rake in all the profits.”
He tells me of the Jordanian occupation. Those are his words: the occupation. Of the intentional Jordanian effort to rewrite Palestinian history and obliterate Palestinian identity. Of the breaking of the Palestinians and the destruction of their society. “Imagine it—when King Hussein would come to Ramallah, we were all required to go out and stand along the roads, waiting for him for hours—he never came on time—and applaud when he arrived. Yes, there was oppression then, and today, too. You see, I am becoming an expert on oppression. You ask why it is easy to rule us? Check out how many people have been exiled. Many thousands of people have been exiled [more than two thousand have been expelled from the area since 1967, according to data collected by Dr. Meron Benvenisti—DG]. Whenever someone has expressed an opinion about anything, he has found himself on the other side of the bridge. Today there are far fewer expulsions, because there is no one left to exile. You have not allowed any leadership of any kind to remain here. You have ripped our society apart.”
In any case, what do you do with your emotions about the occupation? How do you take out such constant frustration?
“I write. I work against injustices inflicted on Palestinians by the administration. I established the Law in the Service of Man organization. I do things so as not to fall silent. Whom do I hate? I am filled with repulsion when I meet some of the fools who manage our affairs. It is not hate but pity. There was a case in the military court—I generally prefer not to represent clients there, it is too emotional a matter for me—when I told myself: Take it easy, don’t get excited. But I could not help it. I boiled over. The Israelis there were so rude and unfeeling! That is, they were rude, noisy, vulgar, and uncultured, just as they are everywhere. I asked the secretary there, a nice girl, not all there, and not herself responsible for anything (that’s what I thought then, but today I think that there is no such thing as not being responsible; everyone is responsible), I asked her why I had to leave all my human qualities behind me at the door when I entered your building. And she said blandly, What are you talking about? It didn’t matter to her! I stood there and vented my anger, in an unfeeling world that neither paid attention to it nor understood it! What kind of life do your people have, your people who manage our lives? That girl, still so young, and she has to work in something that has no connection with what is real, only with the oppression and humiliation and the violation of the natural rights of every man! And there are thousands like her! After all, all your young people pass through these territories!
“Or another instance: The authorities were going to destroy a house in the neighborhood where I grew up. A house full of memories and emotions for me. I stood there and I saw how the soldiers measured the thickness of the walls in order to decide where to lay the explosives. They did it with such matter-of-factness! We stood there, I and the owner of the house, and we saw how they measured, and it was horrible. It was like seeing someone measure a live person for a coffin. I looked at the soldiers. So young! It is a challenge for me: to understand how they can do it. One of the answers is that they are racists. They simply don’t see the family that lives in that house as their brothers, human beings.”
Have you ever tried to put yourself in their place? How would you act if you were in a similar situation?
“I certainly understand the dilemma Israelis find themselves in. I don’t mean to imply that Arabs are angels. Not at all. I understand the importance of military service for Israelis. But if you serve in the army you support something that is out of your control. On the other hand, as an Israeli you cannot decide to serve and yet not to serve. I think that, were I Israeli, I would devote the same energy I devote to military service to attempts to make peace. That would, perhaps, be one way to deal with the contradiction.”
I asked him what he feels with regard to the settlers. Here, for the first time, Shehade lost his keen sense of humor and abandoned the low voice he had used until now.
“In my eyes they are criminals. Criminals and lunatics. Sometimes I have to meet them. They are racists. Look, racism is hard to diagnose precisely. There are many things that seem to be racism but are not. Real racism is when you don’t see another person as human. They ask—with deep inner conviction—why the Arabs don’t accept what they want to do here? They don’t understand that, as human beings, the Arabs desire everything that any human being desires. They simply are not willing to understand that!”
And after so many years of contact and mutual acquaintance, don’t you see something positive in Israel’s effect on the Arabs?
“At the beginning I believed that the Israelis really were a sort of new race. And there really are some good things about you: friendship, frankness, the strong feeling of mutual responsibility. That impressed me. You definitely have created something new in liberating yourself from the past and attempting to create a new life for yourselves. The problem is that when it clashes with my freedom, in the West Bank, it is a little difficult for me to be enthusiastic about it. Israel is, in a way, a positive challenge for the Arabs. It has momentum. It is the resuscitation of something that was almost dead. It is hard to come to any clear conclusion about this, because, in comparison with the Jews in Israel, the Jews in the world at large have progressed much more intellectually, culturally, and even economically. Your legal system is impressive. Of course, it is regressing as a result of the occupation. That corrupts everything. The occupation continually presents strange, twisted challenges that it is hard for a system of justice to provide answers to. The truth is that you suffer greatly from the occupation. Britain conquered half the world, but it was then a mature nation, prepared for it. Israel was not prepared. You were too young.”
Have you met Arabs who have adopted or who imitate—as a method of assimilation—Israeli modes of behavior?
“There are people like that here and there. Mostly those who work with the authorities. I once met, in the context of my work as an attorney, an Arab whose job was to interrogate security detainees. He sported a pistol on his belt. His work is hard, you know—there are prisoners who are very hard to break. Sometimes he has to beat them. Sometimes even his Israeli commander has to chew him out for that—really. His life is much easier under the occupation. They also taught him to shoot. But there aren’t many like him. And I have more proof that, for you, the occupation is not successful, and that we have not surrendered completely. You would think that, if the Hebrew language is part of a higher culture, it would be a strong influence on Arabic, right? But the only Hebrew words which have been absorbed into Palestinian Arabic are ‘roadblock,’ ‘traffic light,’ and, oh, right—‘walkie-talkie.’ And what has happened to Hebrew during the same period?”
I tried to remember. A large number of Arabic words had been naturalized by Hebrew even before ’67, probably as a result of our acquaintance with another group of Arabs, those who live in and are citizens of Israel. But today you hear many more Arabic words in daily conversation, in all different contexts. Raj’a Shehade, Christian, thirty-five years old, single. Son to one of the families of the Arab aristocracy. His father, also a lawyer, was murdered, apparently by Palestinian extremists, and the murderers have yet to be found. Raj’a Shehade himself has many connections in the United States and in Europe, and he has many Israeli friends. In the twilight region between the conqueror and the conquered, Shehade stands out as a man sensitive to nuances; he seems to me to be one for whom the blind, anonymous occupation threatens his personal sense of individualism, rather than his Arab or national identity. For this reason, perhaps, he keeps his head above water, exposing himself (sometimes dangerously) to critical Israeli eyes, challenging Arab society as well, confirming again and again his uniqueness, his existence.
* * *
I asked him how he feels when he leaves Israel for another country.
“That experience, of foreign travel, is very important to me, for the very reason that Israel continually claims that it is a part of Western culture. You should understand: the Israelis are not satisfied with having conquered us. They want to turn us into a colony of theirs, in every sense of the word, culturally as well. That means that they don’t want only to confiscate land, but also to impose themselves on the soul and thoughts of the conquered. It is very important for Israelis—in a sometimes touching way—to impress us. To convince us how much Israel is superior to us. And by the way, there is a huge difference between the propaganda that Israel directs toward the West Bank, where it wants to appear omnipotent, and the propaganda it directs toward the West, in whose eyes it wants to appear as a victim, surrounded by powerful enemies.
“Overseas travel was important for me, because I had become accustomed to your occupation. I had become accustomed to Israeli rudeness, cynicism, idiocy, and arrogance, and it was very important for me to see whether that was the only true reality. A person begins to forget things after a few years. Is that the price that people must pay for the progress they have achieved? Must they become rude technocrats, suppressing values they have buried deep inside them, lacking sensitivity to human emotions and suffering? So every time I leave the country I look for alternatives. I look for standards by which I can correctly evaluate our situation here, and reconfirm to myself that it is not inevitable, that what I see here is a counterfeit of the truth. It gives me more strength to face reality. And when Israel tried to impose its patterns of thinking and behavior, and tell me that it is the best, I can respond to that challenge and prove that other nations have done it differently. That it’s possible to have a national consciousness, as the English and the French and the Americans do, and remain yourselves, and not lose the most positive human elements that you have. There are peoples with strong feelings of national pride who, despite that, are completely different. That encourages me and shows me that in the future the Palestinians can have an independent and proud nationalism, and behave completely differently from the way you present yourselves. For that reason, whenever I left the country and was asked about my destination at the airport, I answered: ‘Civilization.’ Here there is no civilization. You try to impress us—and yourselves. You say: We have highways and fighter planes and tanks that we made ourselves, we are liberated people, and you Arabs are primitive; and I had to leave here to discover that it’s not true.”
You certainly know that there are many Israelis who argue that “time is with us.” In your opinion, is the fact that the political situation with regard to the territories has been frozen for so long to Israel’s benefit?
“It seems to me that the long term is more dangerous for Israel than for us. The Arab world is now in a miserable state, there is no denying that. It is a world that is bad to live in. A world of oppression. But Israel is founded on so many contradictions, and on so many opposing forces, that its existence is always in great danger. For example, there is a huge gap between the self-image of Israelis and reality. You think you are omnipotent, because of your success in controlling such a large Arab population. But the truth is that foreign support is the decisive factor. You remind me of the spoiled son of a rich man, who thinks he can do anything, until he has to face life on his own and discovers a few hard truths.
“Another thing: you are still misled by your belief that millions of Jews will still come here. That, after all, is one of the important arguments you have for settling the West Bank! But the Jews of the Diaspora have no intention of coming here. They have a good life where they are!
“And you have another mistaken assumption: you think that Israel will be strong forever, and will get out of the present situation in one piece. You prefer to forget that the Arabs are developing. Part of that is to your credit, of course. We are now more exposed to the world. There are many foreign visitors. We are not standing still. You, however, are stuck. You are prisoners of your conceptions and refuse to recognize reality. It seems to me that to live in an area full of hostility and think that you can do so forever, without making any effort to come to terms with your neighbors, is simply not rational. You display no creative thinking about how to solve the conflict. You…”
Excuse me for interrupting, but do you hear creative thinking of that sort from Arabs?
“For now, we are not in a position to propose attractive or inspired things. We can only respond to proposals that reconfirm our humanity and our personal and national pride. That, unfortunately, is the state we are in. We can only respond to proposals, and they don’t arrive. The Likud voices its opinions. They are not, in my opinion, correct, but they express them clearly and influence the public. The Labor Party plays a cynical game. It could have certain political effects, of course, but it contains nothing new or earthshaking that could bring about any real change or solution to the problem. Look at the blindness of Ber Borochov [the early Zionist who inspired the fathers of today’s Labor Zionists], who wrote in 1900, in Russian: ‘They [the Palestinians] have no reason to greet us with unfriendliness. On the contrary: they believe that the land is justly that of the Jews.’ That blindness continues today in the supposedly enlightened Labor Party, which still believes it deep inside. And now, if all these mistaken assumptions determine your policy, consciously or unconsciously, how can your policy be successful?”
I still cannot understand how Shehade does not tire of and despair from his sumud.
“I do not despair. I only fear for the future. The occupation is steadily destroying us. It destroys the entire fabric of civil and traditional life. We are caught in a totally false reality, and are beginning to think that it is the truth. That is a great danger. But I do not despair: there are so many things to fight for. There are so many things to improve! From looking after mental-health institutions to the effort to set up a law school. There is not a single law school in the entire West Bank. There are a million things that a person can devote himself to. You can’t give up. Independence, for me, is not only a piece of paper or a declaration. You have to work hard to achieve it, and it is possible to do so much even now.”
Later, Raj’a Shehade said: “One of the things which, for me, gives meaning to my life is that the situation is a challenge: to remain human even under the conditions that prevail. To answer honestly the questions that the situation presents. Questions that a normal person can live his entire life without needing to deal with. Not to surrender to despair. Not to allow myself to give in and become a hater. People who speak a language of violence speak a very tempting language. And when I say violence I don’t mean only physical, concrete action. There is also quieter, camouflaged violence. Sometimes I feel that I would very much want to take on that language for myself. I have to fight against that constantly. I am always on guard.”
The Censor
In a chance conversation with two Arab intellectuals—the poet and critic Muhammed Albatrawi, and the author ’Ali Alkhalili—both made reference to the military censorship of their writings.
Albatrawi: “Every word of mine goes through the censorship office. In my poems, I am forbidden to write Yafa, the Arabic name for the city Jaffa, and must use the Hebrew form Yafo. I can’t write ’Askalan and must write Ashkelon. Instead of Falastin, Palestine, I write ‘my land.’ Sometimes I write a simple love song and the great Israeli censor decides it is a nationalist Palestinian poem. For this reason I try to write with great clarity, so that they won’t mistakenly ascribe to me other intentions and red-pencil whole lines and verses. It goes without saying that this affects the work’s literary value. I have to guess and take into account what the Israeli censor will think, and refrain from getting him angry at me. You have to remember that there are more than two thousand books banned in the West Bank. Some of them are works of Israeli Arab writers, which we are forbidden to read in the West Bank, poets like Samih Alqassem and Tawfiq Zayyad. I can never know in advance how the censor will react: sometimes I write something risky and he approves it without a comment, and sometimes I write something totally innocent and it is banned completely. It can drive you crazy, because there is no logic to it.
“I’ve often wondered who the man is, how he can shred my thoughts with a wave of his scissors. I sometimes try to guess who he is by the way he crosses things out: sometimes I think he must be a recent graduate of the Arabic department at the university who feels some holy and juvenile calling to wipe out every threat, even the imaginary ones. There are censors who, I sense, are pedantic bureaucrats, because they consistently cross out only certain words, no matter what the context is. I think the censor must be a very frightened man, bored with his work, maybe even ashamed of it: after all, it is so much easier to cross out a verse than to delve into it and try to grapple with what it means.”
Alkhalili: “If you don’t want all the copies of your book to be confiscated immediately upon publication, you must send the manuscript to the censor. I think it is horrible, because a writer needs to act with complete freedom. What happens to me now, after twenty years of battles and censorship of my work, is that I find myself, to my horror, developing a little Israeli censor inside me, who keeps an eye on me. It has suddenly become clear to me that in a way I am no longer a free man.
“I spend a lot of time thinking about my Israeli censor: he must be some low-level clerk who wants to do his work without getting into trouble with his superiors. That is why, when he has any doubts, he prefers to delete. Sometimes I can feel how angry he is at me by how deep his pen has gouged the manuscript. I don’t think he really likes his job. Somewhere inside, he certainly must feel that he is like an executioner. Words, after all, are things full of life, of humanity, and his job is to cut their heads off.
“Once I carried on an indirect dialogue with the censor. I wrote, for a newspaper, a story about Juha, the great fool of Arab folktales, and the censor banned it. Then I wrote another story about ‘the man who does not laugh.’ I portrayed him as a bitter man, ugly inside and out, who sits in a dark corner and hates everyone, himself included. The censor approved the story without any deletions, and added a note in his own handwriting: ‘But I like stories about Juha.’”