In November 2017, having presumably mentally recovered from my trip to
Poland, I got a proposal to go on an equally educating and enlightening journey
– one to the heart of the Palestinian Authority. The notification was quite
sudden, hence I found myself hesitating and packing all in the same time. A few
days later, I got, half-drowsy-half-excited, to the central bus station on the
Tel-Aviv-Ramat-Gan border, where I was greeted by buses that were to be headed
to Ma'ale Ha'Hamisha, which lies west of Jerusalem.
After a forty-minute ride, my mom and I got to the small pastoral town
that lay densely surrounded with the local bushy vegetation, where the seminar
was to be taking place. The seminar was organized by the Geneva Initiative
Organization, which is named after a non-formal accord signed in the midst of
the second intifada, in 2002; and its Palestinian counterpart, the Palestinian
Peace Coalition. The accord that was signed by Israeli and Palestinian
officials and political activists, didn't skip any burning and non-burning
topic that had anything to do with the conflict.
The air in Ma'ale Ha'Hamisha reminded me that of Poland – cool, clean,
breathable – and differed significantly from the one that surrounds the urban labyrinths
of Gush Dan (aka the Silicon Wadi); from the thick, viscous soup in which every
Israeli city is slowly cooked, except for some rightful exceptions. After
enjoying the local air (that, despite the presumable peculiarity of such a
statement, is no less of an attraction than the gorgeous landscapes of the
Judean desert and the woods of Jerusalem), we headed to the hall.
In the conference hall, that was more of a moderate meeting room, we
were greeted with cookies and tea, as well as chairs arranged in a circle
specifically for the discussions that were to start right after some
socializing – the discussions that primarily focused on the infamous conflict –
and all the trouble that came with it. The discussions jumped from one topic to
another, as it usually happens with loaded debates – all the more so when their
subject had to do with each and every one of us – although each one experienced
it differently.
From the delicate discourses we moved onto a series of perilous arguments,
and not once would we hear the air stand still after exceptionally volatile remarks
– so tense we felt it could be cut with a knife. The discourses were replaced with lectures, and those were followed by more discussions. The rounds would change and so would the speakers – until it was
time for the cherry on the cake – the Palestinian delegation led by Dr. Ziyad
Darwish.
Dr. Darwish, which is used to talking to Israelis, uttered, showing his
outstanding Hebrew skills, the story of his people and that of his; he spoke
about the dream and the reality; about the endeavors of his to change Israelis'
perception of Palestinians, and Palestinians' perception of Israelis. As for
him, the image is clear – the leaders quarrel, and the people suffer; he sees
no bigger impediment to the solution than voluntary blindness and lack of
awareness; of incitement and prejudices fueled by populist demagogy – and added
that, if we ever want to see the situation through our own eyes, "as they
say in Yiddish – ahlan wa-sahlan".
And so was it – as the sun rose above the rocky hills of Judea, we got
on the minibuses, on which we flowed, led by leftist NGOs, eastward, to Jerusalem. We passed by
Mevaseret Zion and Emek Ha'Arazim, by Har Khotzvim and Ramat Shlomo – then we turned
toward the "don’t ask, don't tell" zone, East Jerusalem, where we
passed by the separation wall that surrounds Beit Hanina.
As we passed the walls of the "eternally united" city, we drove northward, to Ramallah. I filled with hope as I saw the clean and well-preserved freeway on which the buses made their way, yet it unapologetically vanished the moment I saw the road beside it – an old, neglected, narrow track, covered with cracks and dust – by which stood dilapidated tents, surrounded with shattered rain barrels. Tents, where grows a futureless generation that, in its flight from the present, drowns in the past, burns with frustration and wrath, and occasionally sets the whole region on fire.
(Illustration: Times of Israel)
The straight wide road turned into a curvy lane, its broad margins were
replaced with barbed wire, and the soft and comfortable ride turned into a
bumpy rollercoaster as we roamed the mounts of central Samaria. The road, that
went straight from an Israeli military zone into a Palestinian-governed
territory, one that was carefully designed in a way that would make it easy to
block with a single armed vehicle, wound around the hill on which Rawabi stood.
The young city that resembled a strange yet oddly esthetic combination
of Modi'in and Qiryat Sarona, became the Wonderland of the Palestinian dreamers
– those that still believe that a day will come, and their dismembered land
will become the pearl of the Middle East. Its residents, young adults from the
top of the middle class, showed a colossally different reality than the one
around them, and greeted, showing off their outstanding English skills, the
visitors of their bourgeois bubble – a Palestinian version of Tel-Aviv. The
cleanliness of its streets mirrored that of Germany; their shopping center
reminded me of the malls in Warsaw and Krakow, and every stone posed elegantly
in a desperate attempt to erase from the city's essence any remnants of the situation
in the West Bank. It seemed that the locals created their own deception of liberty
and independence, and live in a constant illusion of freedom inside the city –
in complete dissociation from the PA, from Israel, from the IDF and from the
reality. Is there a different reality, and is it achievable – or, for all one
knows, is the illusion preferable over resistance? Perhaps. Perhaps, if one
can't dream – it's better to live in a dream of one's own.
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