We should manage our fortune as we do our health—enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity
We stared at each other in a moment of shocked silence—me, my three kids, and them—five men in black greasepaint, mushroom-like camouflage caps and night vision goggles. Why the hell are they in my driveway? Then, without a word, we walked past each other, they striding by us into the night—and us into the house for a fitful night’s sleep
When I woke the next morning, I made for Huda’s and told them about the patrol (over some of her delicious, hot, homemade bread), but I was surprised to hear that, according to them, it was “adee,” an Arabic word that meant “normal” almost always, as in, “Oh, that shit?! Yeah, its adee.”
Oh. Okay…
I had no choice but to try to take their comfort with the status quo as a good sign, even though my husband said that when he was growing up in Safa he almost never saw the military. Well, apparently, it was adee now. A couple of days later, though, I learned that the military might not be the only thing I should worry about in the village.
It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and I was just about to settle into a nice, little nap when Amani and a group of her cousins burst into the house in a panic. Panting and wide-eyed, the girls unleashed a flood of Arabic that I couldn’t understand until Amani finally caught her breath enough to tell me that there was a huge fight outside, complete with “sticks and lots of blood.”
Having no idea what she could be talking about—soldiers, criminals, kids, what? I ran outside where I saw a crowd surrounding two Red Crescent ambulances (the Middle Eastern version of the Red Cross), their medics loading four bloody men onto boards. It was mayhem, and everyone seemed to be upset and running around. More and more people gathered between the houses until the crowd started to resemble a mob—complete with—no kidding—people brandishing clubs.
Everyone was shouting, and many of them seemed to be teetering on the verge of hysteria, but I couldn’t understand anything. Then I found Huda and her daughter, Manar, among the mass of women who were also gathered, and they explained in slower, simpler Arabic that four men from “our tribe” had been attacked in the neighboring town. The crowd, the clubs and the shouting were all part of the beginnings of a tosha; a tribal battle that could morph into an outright “war.”
Although I knew Palestine was a tribal society, and I’d heard that the Ta’mre tribe that my husband’s family belonged to was notorious for their ferocity, I always assumed actual tribal battles were a remote possibility. I certainly didn’t expect to actually see a clash in front of me. But in the West Bank, where local laws are still hit or miss, and police are scarce and unreliable at best, having a tribe behind you can offer a kind of protection. The fiercer one’s tribe is, the less likely anyone else will mess with you.
In general, actual tribal fights were rare in the area because the Ta’mre had several thousand members and strong organization. All it took was one phone call to the Mukhtar, or chief, to bring out the rest of the tribe, which would descend like locusts from dozens of neighboring communities in and around Bethlehem. Because of this, people mostly stayed on their good behavior.
Today, though, because a pair of hot-headed brothers had decided to take their chances and attack the four men (now headed to the hospital) for some trivial slight in town, and because the brothers were from a rival tribe, their entire clan and home town could face “our” wrath. It was crazy, Wild West stuff. Still, the thought that this is my kids’ tribe occurred to me, and I realized that I was oddly pleased at the notion.