Letter from Bethlehem (35)

Toine van Teeffelen

October 4, 2002

We were happy to receive the first very small drips of rain which, the peasants say, should arrive after the Feast of the Cross on September 27. However, the present atmosphere is more pregnant of rumours than of rain. During each taxi ride in Bethlehem another piece of latest news is offered. This week everybody was talking about Arafat coming to Bethlehem; apparently so that he would be here well ahead in time for Christmas, or so as to avoid the traveling problems a war on Iraq would create, or even to find protection in the Nativity Church. Reactions were mixed. In fact, they were mostly negative because people expected curfews to come once again. Who needs another siege of the Church, someone commented. Mary pities Arafat but says that the corruption coming from his surroundings cannot be justified. At the end of the week the rumour was out of the air.

Other rumours are about a coming census in the Rachel Tomb area. After the Israeli cabinet's decision to annex the area, a few thousands inhabitants living in the heart of Bethlehem now suddenly face the possibility to become inhabitants of Jerusalem – or to leave their residence, an option which many think will be likelier. The census may be the first step of implementing the annexation. At the teacher room at St Joseph they asked why the Israelis do not simply lift Rachel's Tomb out of Bethlehem and put it in Jerusalem. Phantasies of the weak.

It is mainly the phantasies of the strong which circulate now a war in Iraq almost looks like a certainty. Some of the hidden agendas, Haaretz says, point to a Palestine that would be Israel (West Bank and Gaza annexed to Israel); a Jordan that would be Palestine (most Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza "transferred" to Jordan), and an Iraq that would be Jordan (the Hashemites ruling Iraq). My taxidriver asks my name and then says in exasperation: "Toine, are the Arabs just [money] change?"

One day, there was the rumour that the war could come any moment since Jordan had closed the Allenby Bridge. What could that mean otherwise than that Jordan did not want the people from the West Bank going, fleeing, to Jordan in the wake of a war? In fact, at present West Bank Palestinians are only allowed to go to Jordan for medical or educational reasons or for transit to another country. Family visits are barely allowed..

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Rumours are a sign of powerlessness. You feel that overwhelming sense of powerlessness most palpably at the checkpoint. Last time I joined a queue in front of the soldiers. People were waiting at a distance of some twenty meters marked by a carton with the hand-written sign: "Wait here." People were checked one by one. The impatient among the waiters pressed the queue a few meters forwords. After the soldier finished with someone, some waiters urged a girl standing in front of the row: "Go, go!" But the girl hesitated as the soldier did not give a sign, then felt compelled to go, and walked the 20 meter only to return after the soldier told her that he had not yet given the sign. Impatiently the waiters clicked their tongues. Someone coming from the other direction, with his back towards the soldiers, gave the waiters an uncensored, meaningful look. A new group of soldiers very slowly replaced the old one, a procedure which extended the waiting time for another 10 minutes. Suddenly I realized that this whole ritual may not be temporarily at all but just another step on the road to separating Palestinians from Jerusalem. During the Oslo years, the checkpoints were never withdrawn even during prolonged quiet periods. The suicide bombings may now offer the justification for getting people accustomed to an increasingly more difficult access.

Sheer power is especially shown by arbitrary decisions. Mary lately heard about a man who approached the checkpoint with a baby in his arms. To his own surprise, he was waved through without being asked about his ID. The soldier told him that he looked like a modern Arab man and therefore could pass. In another absurdity, one of our neighbours was told that she needed to marry and have kids in order to be able to pass.

Lately I passed a checkpoint inside Jerusalem itself. Cars with Palestinians were separated from those with Jews. But how to do so since both drive yellow-plated cars? (Blue-plated cars from the West Bank are not allowed in Jerusalem). According to the driver, the police just chose older and cheaper cars for a thorough check in the side lane.

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As one way to face the powerlessness, a rally in support of the right to education was organized at the Church of Nativity plaza by a group of NGOs from the Bethlehem area, the Ministry of Education, other authorities and Moslem and Christian leaders authorities, including the Latin Patriarch Mgr Michel Sabbah. Some 500 hundred school children from all types of schools entered the square from different directions, wearing caps with "End Occupation" in Arabic and English, and banners with "Free Palestine." A banner about the school children's right to freedom was attached to helium-filled balloons. It was supposed to be ceremoniously lifted into the air; however, some school children practised expert knowledge of bursting balloons. Otherwise the meeting, under bearable weather conditions, was successful and got its message across. Later that same day, a demonstration of prisoner families wearing candles and chanting slogans walked on a Madbasseh Street plunged into darkness after a electricity cut. Has the time come to press for some civilian mass movement against the occupation?

Each day we also hear rows of honking cars; no demonstrations this time, but wedding processions. Despite the economic crisis and the very high costs of wedding receptions, the youth continue to marry.

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As she was a bridesmaid at Mary's cousin's wedding a month ago, Jara now thinks she is married too, and also the bride's sister.You marry when you dress beautifully, is her logic. She concludes that there is now no need to marry another time later on. After she learns that the bride has moved out of her parents' house, she is genuinely surprised: "Why can Mona [the bride's sister] and I also not leave the house now we are married?"