House Arrest
On August 12, 1976, an Israeli officer showed up at Raymonda’s front door with the diktat from the military governor, barring her from leaving her house—the Tawil family had by this point moved to Ramallah. A policeman, furtively taking in the sight of her shapely figure, stood outside the door, and the military ordered her phone disconnected, cutting her off from the outside world. Her “Kalashnikov” was silenced.
As they isolated her, the Israeli government propaganda services leaked stories about her undefined “illegal activities,” how she was stirring up tension between Christians and Muslims, and how, in a further twist of the knife, she was carrying on a series of romantic liaisons. The Iraqi-born Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer, military governor of the West Bank at the time, taking a surprisingly sophisticated tack that would become part of the Israeli repertoire, played off Arab male prejudices and feelings of “honor.” He told village elders that a woman cavorting with Israeli men was a threat to sacred Arab tradition, a despiser of the Almighty Himself.
Daoud had little choice but to put on a brave face. What the authorities didn’t factor into their plans was Raymonda’s network of Israeli friends. Together with Uri, Ruth came by often, and the churlish soldier outside the door, jaw dropping, didn’t dare block her. Like chastened schoolboys, they looked down at their boots when she said they were being “absolutely silly.”
Amos turned up, always ready to share a bottle of spirits. Abie was tireless in his efforts to get the word out on Raymonda’s house arrest, by broadcasting reports over his pirate radio station; Abie Nathan was the one Israeli the Tawil children couldn’t wait to see. Each visit, they slipped him scraps of paper with titles of pop songs they wanted to hear: Suha’s favorite was “Hotel California.”
The New York Times ran a story on the case, accompanied by a flattering caricature of her as a lioness in a cage. Barred from going through the front door, an Italian television crew crawled over a wall and interviewed her through the bathroom window in the back of the house.
House arrest had lasted for two months before the authorities summoned her to the military governor’s office. It was October, and the entire country was a dusty brown after half a year of no rain. The air was dry and smelled of smoke. The military policeman led her into the building, up a flight of stairs and to a spacious, bright room, lingering a moment before swiveling around and shutting the door behind him. Yigal Carmon sat in a chair with his legs crossed and his hands laced behind his head.
Carmon, the Ministry of Defense expert on Arab affairs, was an intellectual and a historian, and part of his job was to monitor what was written about Israel in the Arab press. He might have been her persecutor, but he was also a sharp-minded professional, eager to understand her.
His office chair squealed as he swiveled it around to face her. Raymonda noticed on his furrowed temple a thick blue vein beating. “It seems,” Carmon said without further ado, gesturing to her to take a seat, “that house arrest is not enough for you, Mrs. Tawil.” He cleared his throat. “You are still opening your mouth too much!” He delivered the line smoothly. His unblinking face was made almost anemic by the sunlight pouring through the windows of his office. He sat with his hands clasped on one knee. At first, she thought he was nodding off: trained interrogators can look both asleep and watchful, cunning like a rattler.
With a racing heart, she knew she had to stand up to him: showing weakness would only make matters worse. If she wanted Israeli men to respect her, she needed to strike back. In the toughest voice she could muster, she said: “You’d better listen to me and people like me! If not, you’ll have another Yom Kippur fiasco on your hands. Your son could be killed in it! And then, when you’re staring down into a hole in the ground, you’ll remember me and my warnings.”
Carmon, sucking on the end of a ballpoint pen, tried to say something, but stopped. Pointing in the direction of the door, he said with an almost pleading whisper, “Please get out.” It must have been one of the shortest interrogations in the history of the occupation. The impression he made was of a man forced to repress someone he admired.
More draconian orders arrived a few days later, barring her from welcoming visitors, sealing her off from the outside world. There were now two soldiers stationed out front, preventing anyone from entering while another kept watch over the backyard. General Ben-Eliezer, who was slandering Raymonda as a “loose woman,” passed by to check in with the soldiers and warn them not to be “seduced” by her “smiles and hospitality”—Raymonda kept them stocked with coffee and cake.
The next time the military permitted her to leave the house was for a trip back to the military governor’s building, to hear the official charges against her, which included the usual crimes against the state: organizing strikes, transmitting information illegally, taking part in demonstrations, and wearing a PLO badge on her lapel. It took the judge half an hour to run through the entire list.