Also in Al-Arroub they have to be careful with their movements. Ishmail’s house is along the main street of the camp. It seems that lately collaborators as well as soldiers are shooting through the street, in an act of intimidation. Now he has to be cautious when leaving the house in the evening. One of Suzy’s students, Nadine, tells that before the latest, very strict closure started, she went to Jerusalem in a bus with young people – kids below sixteen are under “normal” closure conditions allowed to enter Jerusalem. A soldier entered the bus, singing. He asked them: “Everybody should keep up their ID in the right hand. If you keep it in your left hand, you go out of the bus.” For several minutes the children had to keep their right arms uplifted, as if in class, while the soldier was asking them questions like: “Is there any among you who is a member of Hizbollah?” Nadine says that she especially pities older people. They often occupy a respectful position in their society but are mocked and humiliated by young soldiers during such “interrogations.” During the last round of shootings, two elderly nuns, of 74 and 91 years, died in a convent a few hundred meters behind Rachel’s Tomb. During the shelling, one of the nuns sat for hours in her provisionary “shelter” under a staircase, motionless. She died a few days later after a stroke. She apparently could not cope with the pressure. At the Freres School, Giselle tells about her family’s continuing distress. During the latest evening shelling, some dozens of people left their houses in the rain, desparately appealing to both the Tanzim and the Israelis to stop the fire exchange. However, they could not find the Tanzim nor did the Israelis allow them to come close. At the moment, Giselle worries how to leave her house. She lives in a higher part of Beit Jala which is Area C, under full Israeli control. Close to her house is a checkpoint where large blocks of concrete are erected. How to circumvent them? Fuad, the Freres School’s principal, tells that the people of Beit Jala are still inexperienced in finding their way along the dirt roads. “There are always ways around the checkpoint.” For schools it is difficult to allow teachers and students to stay at home. The class schedule would become a mess. 

These days there is much talk, especially in the foreign press, about the “immanent collapse” of the PNA. It is true that many inhabitants despair of the disorganized ways of the PNA as well as the Tanzim. It is unclear how both relate to each other. It sometimes happens that a PNA police takes out his uniform and becomes a Tanzim. Everywhere, among both the Christians and the Moslems, is opposition when the Tanzim start shooting from between civilian houses. In the Moslem Ta’amreh area to the east of Bethlehem, Tanzim are chased away when they take shelter among the houses. Christian Beit Sahouris, in their turn, chase away the Tanzim coming from the Ta’amreh area. Nobody is happy to become a potential target and it is not clear who is in control of what. There is also general resentment against the corruption in the PNA. But that feeling dates from long ago. Lately, you can see people lining up in front of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Bethlehem where some of the unemployed receive a monthly 150 $, but the people waiting there consider this not enough, there are accusations of favoritism, and tensions easily arise. However, resentment is primarily directed against individuals and particular offices, and not against the PNA as a whole. Nobody knows what or who could replace the PNA. In fact, whether the PNA can collect finances and taxes is wholly in Israel’s hands. The Palestinian economy and many of its services are dependent upon Israeli decisions. Since the beginning of the latest Intifadah, the Palestinian economy lost 1,5 billion dollar due to the closure. At present, the garbage piles up in the streets of Bethlehem. First we thought that it was because municipality employees did not receive their salaries but it turned out that the Israelis do not allow the trucks to leave the city to dump the garbage. There is a risk that when basic services collapse, people become dissatisfied with everybody, friend and foe alike.

Last week a driver from Gaza drove his Israeli bus near Tel Aviv into a group of soldiers. A massacre. The man had no political history or political contacts. Even no family or friends who were in prison or were killed. He simply seemed to have become fed up with the situation. He wanted to get his rage out and decided to have as many members of the enemy dying with him. I see so many people around me who are barely able to stand the pressure. As Hanan Ashrawi said, people “implode”, become motionless or liveless, or they “explode,” in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable way. A few years ago, one of the Birzeit university students whom I taught at the time, did a brief research about the type of language people use to describe the conditions in which they live. In an interview with a group of villagers, they said that how they felt is like when you close up a cat in a house for a few days without food. What will the cat do when you unlock and open the door? He’ll squirm on the ground or jump at your neck. Since the time that I am here, I always tell people to avoid using metaphors like “on the verge of explosion (infijar)” or “living on a vulcano.” These are somehow quite stereotypical – the Middle East as the quintessential place of volatility and instability – and also dehumanizing. Of course the media use such short-hand expressions quite often to characterize the situation in the Middle East. How many times has it not been said that the West Bank or Gaza “explodes?” But as an educator, I think it is wrong to talk about yourself or your community as exploding, as if one is not or even cannot be in control of oneself, as if one just lives on one’s emotions. Even in the most desperate of circumstances, most people retain some sense of responsibility and control, and it is a task for all educators to stay in control of the language employed, at least the language they use themselves. Suzy tells that last week she overheard a group of children of four years talking among each other. They were sitting with their hands under their chin and with their elbows on the plastic edge of a garbage bin. They gave the impression as if they carried a whole world’s burden. One said, “The Israelis are ‘dogs’ (klaab) because they kill us, but the Arabs are ‘more dog’ (aklab) because they start shooting.” Suzy said: “Why do you say such things – you are an Arab yourself.” “No,” the child responded, “We are not Arabs, but Palestinians!” While picking up language of their parents, children develop their own logic. Meanwhile teachers complain about the rude expressions of the kids in class and on the street. 

Like many others, Mary often uses the word “suffocating” to describe the situation. You cannot breathe, move, use your senses, people are stifled. Last year, she jogged with her friend a few times a week through the streets of Bethlehem and Beit Jala. Nowadays this is not really possible. Police and others may stop them, thinking that they jog to camouflage entrance to forbidden places. Once Mary had a discussion with an Israeli patrol who caught us sneaking through Tantur. She said: “What you are doing is killing me day by day.” Killing me softly. Mary can sometimes use strong images of violence. I still remember my surprise during a dinner when she told me, “Don’t make a massacre out of your orange!” If the situation is violent, language becomes violent, too. But “suffocation” looks to me a right description. The closure closes off one’s feelings, mind, and horizon of experience. When I was a school kid myself, I was quite impressed by the novel “The Evenings” (De Avonden) of the Dutch author Gerard Reve. In Dutch society, it is a classic. It meticulously pictures the suffocation of Dutch society during the 1950s when young people had so little to do and were imprisoned in daily life routines against which they could only protest in hidden, subterfuge ways. Here it is somewhat similar, with the difference that there is of course more violent suppression, and also that while we live in a closure and a closed society, there are still lots of contacts with the world around us, through the computer and TV. As if one lives in a glasshouse with windows that cannot be opened. Suzy says that at her home her sisters and mother are used to loudly respond to the people on TV. Unfortunately, the wall of glass does not respond but always moves to the next picture.

In a Moslem-Christian project at the Freres School we try to provide an answer to the immobility and suffocation by developing programs which encourage students to use their senses. Fieldtrips, story-telling, making music. As far as it goes. Lately the kids from Al-Arroub could not come. Presently we are even offering students and teachers from Hebron to stay the night in Bethlehem at the Freres, because a journey of just half an hour in the late afternoon forms an insurmountable obstacle for them. For people from Hebron, many of whom suffer more than those in Bethlehem, a journey to Bethlehem has become somehow special now, in the same way as a journey to Jerusalem is special for Bethlehemites. “Please come to our workshop,” we tell people from the Hebron area. “We’ll offer you a free day out of your suffocation to live and breathe in Bethlehem!” 

These years I have become interested in a theology which says that people become real human beings, icons of God, when they develop their senses, when they hear, see, and feel better, in a more differentiated and more complete way. Becoming alive in the face of closure and suffocation. In fact, when organizing fieldtrips here, it is especially interesting for students to visit the holy places, the convents and mosques. There they still meet this silence, beauty and expanding atmosphere that the outside world lacks. Karishma and her friend Cindy, who is volunteer at an Israeli organization against torture, went to St Catherine’s church for the Sunday mass. There they saw the boys and girls dressed in their best clothes and, during the sermon glimpsing at each other through the corners of their eyes. With few socializing places around, the church’s courtyard and Nativity Square seem to be the natural meeting points of the sexes. I wonder about what the pressure of the situation means for the sexual feelings of the youth. In his diary one of the youth at our institute does not shy away from his feelings. He watches out for a “brunette” and asks whether we know one. We don’t. To show one’s feelings a little is better than when they are totally repressed. Lately, Karishma and Suzy hear of stories from female students being bothered by the guys on the street and in the taxi. Maybe that is not so special, but the stories are annoying and come up more frequently these days.

14 February: Valentine’s day. There is a crowd at the flowershop. Never, the owner says, did he get so many buyers on a Valentine’s Day. People buy flowers to console their parents, to create an uplifting moment in dark times, to court a secret. Valentine’s Day is also my birthday. The family is making a five star meal. Where the other senses have little way to go out and enjoy, cooking and tasting food get a lot of attention. During closures, most people sit, talk and eat. When you would put the Bethlehem population now collectively on a balance, it would show a considerable increase in weight after this four-month period of Intifadah. (I don’t know about the villages and camps, where there may be some real poverty). As a matter of fact, I myself have to go on diet. In the nearby shop Jeanet observes that a Moslem security guard buys a lot of alcohol. To arouse or to silence the senses?

The birthday party ends early, we’ll have to move before a possible round of bombing starts. Jara picked up the name of Peres from the TV, and now all the time says: “Happy Peres.” She combines “birthday” and “Peres” – in the Arabic language the “p” is pronounced as a “b.” She agrees that the bombings happen because St George is thundering on his drums in the clouds. Indeed, one of the bombings sounds like an enormous strike on a drum with echo. During evenings we quickly walk around the table, imitating characters of a Dutch video in which there is a special island on which people are only allowed to jog (“trimeiland”).  Jara knows the right answers to a game in which there is a tape that each time exclaims when the right button is pushed: “That’s right. You’re wonderful!” Each time, and that means hundreds of times, Jara repeats “wonderful!” in her best American-English accent. That’s what we need, cheering up a little. Lately, she also sings a song about “I see a war coming in August.” Don’t write about that in your diary, says Mary, people may think that the school is teaching them war songs. I ask her: “Shu (what)? Please tell me more about it.”