“From the window where I stood, on the second floor of my house, I could see the bomb approaching exactly in my direction. It did not come fast, it was as if the movement slowed down for a split second during which you become fully aware of the extraordinariness of what is happening. The bomb looked like a family bomb, a large bomb surrounded by small bombs, the type of bomb which explodes into all directions when reaching its target. Just before it would enter it exploded on the telephone pole in front of my house. Fragments flew in all directions but my house and my life and that of my family were saved. Since that moment I do not believe anybody who says that he does not believe in God.” 

Ri’baal, a teacher at a government school who lives in Beit Jala, relates what happened to him at the beginning of the week. Usually, as soon as shooting starts, he and his family leave for the basement of the house which they had transformed into a provisional shelter. This time, however, there was hardly any time left to go down. Outside on the street a masked young man had been shooting in the air with a revolver. He fired lightening shots, as if to warn somebody. Was he a collaborator? Ri’baal does not know, but what is the point of shooting with a revolver to a target, Gilo, a few kilometers away? According to Haaretz next day, there were two interpretations of the events. According to one, a collaborator fired warning shots into the air after observing armed Tanzim walking in the streets, apparently in order to warn the Israeli army. The other interpretation said that the Tanzim first shot and that the Israeli army immediately “responded.”

Language can play tricks. What kind of “response” are we talking about? Are “response” and “retaliation” appropriate words for the horror visited upon civilians? During that same Monday night, another house was shelled where the inhabitants were not so lucky. Fleeing in panic out of their collapsing house they did not realize that one of their sons stayed behind. Immediately afterwards Beit Jala scouts patrolled the damaged houses – they are instructed to do so – and found the dismembered corpse of the son. Some parts of the body were found the following day. The son belonged to a Moslem family from the Hebron countryside who had moved to Beit Jala to open a vegetable shop there.

      * * *

It is sometimes said that Beit Jala is a Christian town hemmed in between Israelis and Palestinian Moslems, or, more in general, that Palestinian “Christians” are persecuted by “Moslems.” For almost all people here, such interpretations are a gross distortion of reality. First of all, Beit Jala is not exclusively Christian anymore. After emigration of a great deal of the population in the course of the 20th century – there are more inhabitants from Beit Jala living in Santiago de Chile than in Beit Jala itself -  and the arrival of Palestinian Moslem refugees and other migrants, the population is now thoroughly mixed Christian-Moslem. More fundamentally, the way Palestinians understand the categories of “Moslem” and “Christian” is somewhat different from such categories as applied in the West. There, Moslems and Christians belong to different nationalities or “ethnic” backgrounds; Moslems and Christians are each other’s “Other.” That is not the case in Palestine. Here Moslems and Christians share the same language, national history and popular culture - even religious culture, as both religions share many local holy persons. There are various social and cultural differences – the Christians often receive better education in foreign languages and are better connected – but it is impossible to divide Moslems and Christians schematically as if they constitute two clearly separated groups with different interests and orientations. The Christian private schools and a host of Christian social institutions here take care of both Moslems and Christians who interact daily on an equal base. I myself am involved as an advisor in a project which aims to make Moslem and Christian students more open towards each other’s religious culture. The social mingling could indeed be improved – it sometimes happens that quarrels on the school courtyard follow the lines of religious distinction – but such problems are a far cry from any talk about “persecution of a minority.” In fact, Palestinians are somewhat reluctant to be linguistically categorized as “Moslems” or “Christians.” Some ten-fifteen years ago it was quite common in some mixed Moslem-Christian areas not even to know one’s religion. 

Ri’baal, the teacher, is a Moslem who has a Jewish mother who converted to Islam. He still has Jewish family in the Talpiot quarter of Jerusalem where his father had a house that he was forced to evacuate during the 1948 war. In a way, Ri’baal embodies the Jewish and Moslem history of Palestine while living in the traditionally Christian town of Beit Jala! I know him as an excellent social studies teacher who criticizes the curriculum for not paying enough attention to European history. His looks are European. In his free time he is busy with youth scouts and youth camps, a Palestinian nationalist always curious to know more about his environment. It is somehow inappropriate to put a fixed label on such a person. This does of course not mean that religious categories are irrelevant, but only that they have to be used cautiously and sensitively. 

In our project we purposefully decide not to talk about “Moslem-Christian co-existence,” as if there are two distinctly different groups who need to tolerate each other, but rather about learning “the rich Moslem-Christian religious heritage of Palestine.” And, as Giselle says, when you run to hide for safety, the last thing about which you think is whether your neighbour is Christian or Moslem. At St Joseph teachers recently had a vehement argument about whether or not the population of Beit Jala should protect itself and chase away the Tanzim. But that is not a discussion along religious lines. Elsewhere in Palestine, too, the local population, both Moslem or Christian, have a very ambiguous relation towards the Tanzim. Nobody wants his or her house to be damaged. Giselle and Ri’baal are of the opinion that as long as Palestinians have arms which are totally inappropriate to confront Israeli high tech equipment, they should not fight. 

The bombings on Beit Jala on Monday and Tuesday night were directed at various different places of the town. At present nobody in Beit Jala feels certain that what happened to the boy could not happen to anybody else. Teachers from Beit Jala whom I know, such as Giselle, Sawsan, Sana’a and Reem, are clearly afraid. Fuad says that all Beit Jala people now have difficulty to concentrate. What they experience is the accumulated effects of distress and shock over a period of several months, and continuous uncertainty whether their own life or their family’s life is in danger. Unsurprisingly, people of Beit Jala now tend to adopt stronger political opinions. Sawsan says that home pets in the US have more rights than Palestinians. Sana’a is fed up to see that she and her teachers in Battir village have to once again walk for 1,5 km along an unsafe settler road and daily climb over dirt mounds or blocks of concrete. Those who want to travel from Hebron to Bethlehem can expect a journey of several hours through the fields. One teacher at the Freres has a family member from Bethlehem who is director of a bank branch in Hebron. He now stays in Bethlehem during the weekend and in a Hebron hotel during working days. Political issues become more emotionally charged. For instance, Israel last week announced that it would cut on the water supply due to a general shortage in the area. “How nice,” people say, “settlers use 16 times more water per capita than Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel freely uses water from aquifers under Palestinian grounds in the West Bank, it is the sole master of water allocation in the area, and then decides to cut the water to the Palestinian areas!”  More than ever, such acts of discrimination are difficult for people to swallow. 

      * * *

On Tuesday a Belgian-Dutch delegation of Pax Christi International pays a visit to the Freres School where we organize a meeting with a large group of educators and students. The bishop of Rotterdam is among the visitors. They are all well-informed about the collective punishment measures to which the Palestinians are subjected and express their solidarity with the Palestinians. A student attending says that from all the many Israelis he knows only very few do not consider Palestinians as ”subhuman.” One of the delegation members, a university professor in international law, takes issue with this, saying that a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had told the delegation that he considered Palestinian youth the main victims of the conflict. His remark elicits the lively discussion which the professor perhaps intended. The Palestinians assert that the Israeli representative is shedding crocodile’s tears after Israel killed so many Palestinian youth. During the meeting we hear shelling. 

In the days before the visit of the new American foreign minister, Colin Powell, to the region, Sharon’s circle of advisors introduce a new term: “breathing closure.” This is said to be a closure which allows for the transport of medicines, fuel and other necessities. Once I brainstormed with an educational organization to issue a dictionary with Orwellian language categories applied onto the Palestinian situation. If there is something that does not breathe, it is a closure. Maybe people here too have to play tricks with language. In the Al Quds newspaper, the “Americans for Justice in Palestine” extend an “open invitation” to the US Secretary of State to “spend one night under Israeli occupation.” “Amenities will include: a live show of US apache helicopters targeting civilian populations. Rooms with panoramic view of illegal Israeli settlements (please keep away from windows after sunset). A scenic tour of our back roads, courtesy of the Israeli Occupation forces (includes a live show of vigilante settlers in action).“

Palestinians increasingly resist the way how others picture them. People have a keen sense of the rights denied them through language. On Friday I join a workshop on Moslem-Christian education at Palestinian schools. The discussion turns into a protest against the new Palestinian curriculum. It is said that the new curriculum contains too many facts, even more so than the Jordanian curriculum, and ignores the value of learning study skills, fieldtrips, and other non-formal ways of education. But more deeply, it is said to introduce a type of political language which is removed from people’s consciousness. The participants blame the Oslo Accords, which specified rules for developing the Palestinian curriuclum. One teacher remarks that she will never accept a kind of discourse in which she is not allowed to speak of Tiberias and Acco as Palestinian or Arab towns, even though they are now places in Israel proper. She recognizes Israel but she does not want to be cut off from her own historical and cultural roots. Just over fifty years ago the places mentioned were largely Arab cities. How can one forget this? How can a Palestinian curriculum forget this? Other participants agree. None of them are politically radical. They basically protest against being confined into identity categories such as West Bank and Gaza, Jerusalemite or non-Jerusalemite, belonging to area A, B, C, or H1 and H2 (in Hebron). All such categories are political and administrative, of relatively recent origin, and have the effect of profoundly fragmenting and negating the Palestinian cultural identity.  Once somebody told me: “The worst is that Palestinians subconsciously start to think that ‘I am from area A’ – Would that not be the depth of tragedy considering the rich cultural history of Palestine?” 

      * * *(

For a week, Karishma is ill, she never in her life felt so ill and weak. Fortunately, after taking antibiotics she is now much better. There are many people ill, at school and in the family. A virus circulates, and the cold does not help. Mary is ill too. She has the flue and an ear infection. Since her father’s death she lost weight. Jara plays doctor and inserts a glass ballpoint to take her temperature. Reading Mary’s temperature, she counts all the numbers she knows: one until ten, twenty, thirty. On Sunday we visit Jerusalem to see a doctor. We manage to pass the checkpoint without a problem by simply walking behind the back of the soldiers who check the cars. Jara says that she want to buy a rifle to shoot Israelis. Afterwards, when we take a taxi, she also blames the car’s jumping on the Israelis. Once again I lecture her, saying that there are also good Israelis, but in vain. Her opinion is settled. 

This week I meet at the checkpoint an Israeli of Dutch origin, Max, a guide whom I knew from the time we once jointly guided groups of Dutch reverends on a promotion tour. He just had left a German group who wanted to visit Bethlehem. As an Israeli guide, it is for him now too risky to go into Bethlehem. He gives me a ride to Jerusalem. He, too, is fed up with the situation; since four months he is without work, and now makes plans to leave to Amsterdam where his son lives. Lately he guided a group who wanted to visit Bethlehem. Some tourists told him that it could be their last opportunity. In the Christian fundamentalist mode of thinking, they thought that a struggle between Gog and Magog would visit the Holy Land. “If foreigners start thinking like this, what do I have to do here in this doomed country?” he says. I shake hands with him. 

At school, Jara meets Hind, a student and neighbour. She is always on the look out to give Jara a hand and bring her to class. Hind’s father is an author locally well-known for his poems about Moslem-Christian living together in Palestine. 

Mary’s cousin teases Jara by asking her name: What is your name? Jara says: “Jara Nathalie van Teeffelen.”  The cousin: “Lately I was in Holland and I saw somebody whose name is ‘Van Huizen.’” No, my name is Van Teeffelen, Jara persists. Grandma joins the discussion and tells her, “No, your name is ‘Morcos’. No, no, says Jara, but after a while she settles for “Jara Nathalie van Teeffelen-Morcos.” The longer, the better. I pity the teachers who will later on have to register her.