To Dad
I looked at his teary eyes, and beholding something akin to happiness, I smiled. The man I have always known to be my father was back. He did not look like that unfamiliar man whom I could not fully recognize during the last three years. He was no longer that absent-minded, silent figure gazing at walls all the time and uninterestingly nodding whenever addressed by anyone at home. He was there. He was present. He was actually listening as I went on bragging about a high grade of mine. A phone call and a piece of paper signed by some Turkish-sponsored institution brought back my father. I looked at his eyes again, this time more carefully for fear that my first glance was false. As I saw that absolute happiness in my father’s eyes, a big smile made it to my face again.
As we now commemorate the Land Day, we honor the people who stood up for their Land in 1976, when Israel announced thousands of Palestinian dunums would be confiscated. During marches held to protest that declaration, six people were killed. The 30th of March brings back a memory of our Land, my father’s Land. A couple weeks ago, we got a phone call informing us that my father’s name had been selected for a reconstruction program funded by Turkey. The program aims at helping Gazan farmers whose Lands were damaged during the Israeli offensive in 2008 to replant their trees. It provides farmers with all types of facilitating materials, such as fences, tree cuttings, seedlings, seeds, and irrigation systems. My father declined to apply for those organizations that gave financial compensations to farmers. How can he take money in return for Land? Unlike any other aid program, this program gives no money to farmers. It instead helps them stand on their own.
Though my father was born to a family of farmers, he did not follow that path. He studied economics and political science in Egypt and spent most of his youth working as a journalist, mainly a columnist, writing about economic and political issues in newspapers in Kuwait. When he was back in Gaza, though, he had to take care of the piece of Land my grandfather left for him years before. It was not difficult for him. Gradually, the Land became more of a passion than a profession. It was one of the few things he cared about, the daily thing that kept him busy. It was heaven on earth.
During those twenty-three days of the Israeli attack on Gaza, we were constantly receiving news of Land being run over by Israeli bulldozers. We were told thousands of trees were gone. We were told my uncles’ trees were gone. We were told our trees were gone. We were told Sharga, the whole district of eastern farmland, was gone. But these were rumors—or so my father wanted to believe. We all had hope that our Land was still intact, totally untouched. We were clinging to the assumption that only other people’s trees could get uprooted, but certainly not our beautiful, unmatched olives. Certainly not the trees that were, to my father, the only thing he boasted of to prove he was no less of a Gazan than those who repeatedly reproached him for, as they put it, “recklessly leaving the land of black gold” where they assumed he swam in Kuwaiti oil pools every day, and for “coming to live here” with a small “h.” My father looked at it quite differently, for Here, he always believed, is the Land of al-zait al-muqaddas—the holy oil.
Gaza’s sky was blue again. Things were over—the news said things were over. My father went there. He went to check up on the Land. He put his faith in his olives being an exception, and he went there. He put his faith in that little white spot in the heart of the bulldozer’s operator who, my father supposed, could not have resisted the beauty of our Land and who listened to his innate, good being that told him not to run over this Land. He had faith in the goodness of Man and he went there. He put his faith in God and he went there. My brother, who accompanied him, told us later that all they saw as they walked was ruined Lands filled with bulldozed, dead trees which seemed to suffice for the families’ need of firewood for years to come. My brother said Dad started crying as he saw people crying. They went on. They saw more toppled trees, feeble and defeated. They went on. There was the heaven. The scene of our Land was not shocking. Simply put, our trees were no exception. Our trees were gone. A miscellany of affliction and denial took over the place. My father’s faith, I could tell, was smashed into little pieces. The world seemed like an ugly place.
One of our trees, which later became the subject matter the whole neighborhood spoke of, was still standing there. Just one week before the attacks, my father told my brother how slanted this tree was and how quickly they needed to get rid of it. They were planning to cut it, and yet, ironically, it was the only tree the Israeli army left (out of boredom or out of mercy, I cannot tell). But it was still there. Later, whenever my cousins wanted to make Dad feel less terrible about it, they made fun of the whole thing. “How the hell did the soldiers know you were planning to cut it anyway and so decided not to cut it themselves?” my cousins would remark. Everyone would start laughing. But Dad did not. His Land and olive groves are not laughing matters to him.
When my father and brother were home that day, my brother started telling us about what he saw. He told us that the trees were uprooted—“Al-shajar tjarraf,” he kept repeating. My father was in his room, crying. During the weeks that followed my father’s visit to the Land, he had a daily schedule: in the morning, he prayed and read Qur’an. At night, he cried.
Speaking about the Land, the houses, and generally the financial losses during or right after the Israeli offensive would have sounded very selfish and indifferent to others. When people are dying, you do not speak of your beautiful house that was leveled to the ground. When people are losing their legs and arms, leaving them disabled for the rest of their lives, you do not speak of your fancy car that once looked like a vase adorning the streets of your modest neighborhood and that is now a gray wreck. When a mother is burying her child before she could say good-bye, you do not speak of your Land and your trees that were mercilessly uprooted. Those people speak. They cry. They mourn. You listen. And for the memory of your insignificant, little misery, you grieve in silence. And that seemed to have amassed more agony over Dad’s pain.
Recently, I went to father to get accurate information about the trees that were uprooted, their numbers, and their age.
“Why are you asking? Are you applying for one of those charity institutions that offer some money and a bag of flour instead of helping people plant their trees again? Are you? We do not need those! The guy I met from the reconstruction program called last week, and they already sent laborers and farmers to start their job. Do you still want to apply for charity?”
“No, Baba! I am just writing something for my blog.”
“Blog? Okay, whatever that is!”
“So, how many trees were uprooted? 180 olive trees I guess and…?”
“189 olive trees. 160 lemon trees. 14 guava trees…” he bellowed, angry that I missed the exact number.
Embarrassed, I lowered my head and wondered why I was doing this to myself. My thoughts were interrupted when he went on, “Next time you decide to do whatever it is that you want to do right now, get your numbers straight!”
I made no reply.
“You hear me? They were 189 olive trees. Not 180. Not 181. Not even 188. 189 olive trees.”
He left the room a few minutes afterwards. Guilt was all I could feel.
That an Israeli soldier could bulldoze 189 olive trees on the Land he claims is part of the “God-given Land” is something I will never comprehend. Did he not consider the possibility that God might get angry? Did he not realize that it was a tree he was running over? If a Palestinian bulldozer were ever invented (Haha, I know!) and I were given the chance to be in an orchard, in Haifa for instance, I would never uproot a tree an Israeli planted. No Palestinian would. To Palestinians, the tree is sacred, and so is the Land bearing it. And as I talk about Gaza, I remember that Gaza is but a little part of Palestine. I remember that Palestine is bigger than Gaza. Palestine is the West Bank; Palestine is Ramallah; Palestine is Nablus; Palestine is Jenin; Palestine is Tulkarm; Palestine is Bethlehem; Palestine, most importantly, is Yafa and Haifa and Akka and all those cities that Israel wants us to forget about.
Today I came to realize that it was not the phone call that brought my father back, nor was it the paper signed by the aid institution. It was the memory of the Land being revived that brought him back. It was the memory of olive trees giving that sense of security each time he sat under them, enjoying their shade and dodging the burning rays of the sun. It was the memory of the golden oil, the best and purest oil, being poured into jerry-cans and handed to family and friends as precious gifts. It was the memory of long years of cherishing the Land, years of giving and belonging.
Between my father and his Land is an unbreakable bond. Between Palestinians and their Land is an unbreakable bond. By uprooting plants and cutting trees continually, Israel tries to break that bond and impose its own rules of despair on Palestinians. By replanting their trees over and over again, Palestinians are rejecting Israel’s rules. “My Land, my rules,” says Dad.