Only this time it was going to be much worse.
“Settlers! We are under attack! Safa is under attack, come help us!” It was a distress message carried from the mosque next door to the next one down the valley, and from there to the neighboring villages in a kind of village-to-village Morse-code. It was faster than cell phones, and it was also infinitely more terrifying than the gunfire already echoing across the hills.
Waking the kids, I rushed them into the safety room to join the growing crowd, including Manar and Rawan, who ran in to talk to me in the kitchen. They told me that all of the village men and boys were heading to the edge of the village to try and head off the settlers before they could get in among the houses. At that, the three of us ran up to the roof and looked north toward the ridge between Safa and the Bat Ayin, where plumes of smoke rose against the blue sky.
It was then that I heard a noise similar to the private airplanes I was used to back home (something I never saw in the Holy Land). Looking up, I spotted it, but instead of a Cessna, it was a drone flying directly above me, circling over the house like a vulture.
Now I was really scared, and I ran as fast as I could downstairs to seal the door to the safety room, telling Amani not to open it from inside unless she was sure it was me or someone else she knew, scaring her so badly that she jerked the door closed before I could move my hand from the doorjamb, slamming it hard on my fingers.
There was obviously so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I could ignore the new, odd shape—and after a few moments—the pain in my pinky finger, obviously broken just above the middle joint.
Word spread that my house was the place to go, and more people—mostly women and children—continued to stream in, betting that it would be safer to be with the American (after all, most of them had seen how much power my passport had that night at the intersection), even if the safety room was full. Not wanting to keep anyone outside, some of them took up door watch in the garage, ready to shut the steel if they spotted settlers coming.
Not knowing what was going on outside was unbearable, so Manar and I ran upstairs once again, just in time to see a mass of people in white come up over the ridge armed with automatic rifles. Although we couldn’t see the “front line” over the ridge, the men and boys seemed to be holding them back for a few minutes with slingshots and stones. It wasn’t long before they were running in our direction, though, chased by the settlers. Now, the military had arrived, too—advancing down the road, using live fire, percussion grenades and tear gas.
Soon, what seemed to be the entire male population of Safa was running past the front of my house, followed by a gaggle of journalists wearing blue-helmets and bulletproof vests marked PRESS, furiously snapping photos of the men as they tried to dig in at the orchard across the street for a new volley of stones. Somehow, the settlers seemed to have paused—perhaps put off by the growing cloud of tear gas that was being shot at the villagers. It was drifting now, becoming an effective, if temporary, barrier between the two groups.
The soldiers, however, continued to advance, but were driven into Huda’s house by the stone throwers, which they quickly emptied of the remaining family members with a sound bomb and a cloud of tear gas.
Huda was the next person to make for my house, carrying her eight-year-old son, who was overcome by the gas. And now the action was front-row between my driveway and Huda’s home, the upper floor of which was quickly being destroyed by the soldiers smashing out windows and screens to shoot at the stone throwers. The stone throwers, oblivious in their fury, were smashing the home’s outer stone work, which was falling in huge chunks to the cement walkway below.
Unable to watch her home being destroyed, and traumatized to see it suddenly occupied, Huda ran for her house as the press turned to film her hitting her own face in despair, oblivious to the danger as she made for her back door. Luckily, Manar and I ran out to stop her before she could burst in on the soldiers, and we dragged her back to my house, missing a slipper—which she’d somehow lost as we pulled her back—screaming toward her home, “Shoot me! Shoot me!”
It was then that the soldiers decided to abandon Huda’s house for mine, presumably because it was the highest point around and directly above the orchard where the stone-throwers were hiding. In fact, I think it was one of them who sneaked through the field next to my house to come and warn us that the soldiers were at the front door, ready to break in the iron-clad frame.
By then, the press had moved into position in front of the house, snapping pictures of the Israeli unit hunkered down and ready to storm in while Safa’s women, children, sick and disabled cowered inside. Realizing that if they came in, we would have nowhere to go but outside into the bullets, the gas, and the settlers, I decided to try to dissuade them before they got in. I ran out, still in my prayer scarf and pajamas, to once again use my “let’s be reasonable now” mantra the best that I could—this time on camera.
Later that night, my husband watched the evening news and saw a film clip of me trying to persuade the soldiers to kindly remove their jack from my front door—which, amazingly, they did. He called that night, demanding I return to Seattle with the kids.
Part
Five
The Road to Jerusalem
CHAPTER 31
Pressing On…
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
-MARCUS ANNAEUS SENECA
The dust settled, and Safa swept up from the attack and assessed the damage. In all, it had been relatively light. Two people had been critically wounded by gunfire, and others were gone, hauled away to prison for questioning, including a mentally disabled nephew and his brother, who were beaten with an iron bar on the way to detention.
Then, there was the property damage: smashed windows, stolen property (cell phones were particularly popular with sticky fingered soldiers), and some fire damage to trees and fields. All of the windows, screens, and stone work were destroyed on the second floor of Huda’s home (which had taken them more than five years to build on the family’s meager incomes).
The most interesting bit of information, though, was that the killer had reportedly been found—an eighteen-year-old boy from a house down the road who reportedly had decided that he would simply walk into the settlement and kill the first person he could in revenge for a beating endured by a young relative months before.
I was surprised by how fast the kids—mine and everyone else’s—rebounded after the violence ended, or at least seemed to. The only lasting signs of trauma were the near constant “invasion” games that dominated the play time of virtually every child in the village, boys and girls, alike.
Although I seriously considered leaving, the news that the killer had been found made me reconsider, and although Ahmad wasn’t exactly happy with the decision, he didn’t force the issue. In fact, I was surprised when he told me that he respected my decision, adding, “When I saw you on the news…didn’t recognize you as my wife. You’ve changed.”
Maybe he was right.
A few days later I returned to work at the university, where news of my confrontation (accompanied by copies of the news footage on mobile phones) seemed to reach mythic levels, and I was suddenly the “American who turned back the soldiers.” Although it didn’t hurt my ego one bit, it did make me worry—after all, even as the wife and mother of Palestinian residents, I had no legal “right” to stay in the country and I could be arrested or deported without my kids for “trouble making.”
It was time to accept the fact that, after eleven months in Safa, and as much as I wasn’t yet ready to leave, it was time to start wrapping things up.
Ahmad and I decided on a departure date by the end of the summer, in just over three months’ time. I hadn’t made any progress in figuring out how to get into the Golden Gate or lay eyes on the underground chambers on the Temple Mount, and although I doubted that I would be able to succeed in this ridiculously difficult goal, I still couldn’t shake the id
ea. For some reason, seeing it meant something to me. I just hadn’t figured out what.
One thing all the excitement of the previous weeks had given me was perspective. I would have to start asking for what I wanted as I was. After all, in the big scheme of things, it didn’t really matter if I failed, or somebody said no to me because I was an “outsider,” not Muslim enough or Arab enough…real enough, good enough. To hell with it, I decided. Next time I was on campus I was going to introduce myself to the faculty at the Shari’a, or Islamic Law department, and see if they would be willing to help me on my little quest.
CHAPTER 32
Happy to Help
Many things are lost for want of asking.
- ENGLISH PROVERB
Hebron University’s Islamic Law department was on the fourth floor of a concrete building with a railing-less central staircase that reminded me of the one in my house—in other words, a death-trap waiting to happen. I didn’t know much about Islamic law, but I couldn’t help but think if there was anything in it that addressed little things like liability, they might want to spend a few shekels for a railing.
These were the musings with which I distracted myself as I waited for the dean of the department to finish a meeting with a colleague. Finally the secretary, a kind-looking woman who turned out to be from Safa, let me into the office, where an older man I took to be the dean, and a younger man wearing small, round glasses, sat at a computer, presumably helping his boss with what looked like some technical difficulties.
As I walked in, both men looked up at me, and I took in a breath and set about the business of introducing myself in my usual semi-coherent Arabic.
“Assalam wa alaikum” I said, “I was wondering if you might have a moment.”
As usual, my surprise accent seemed to have the magical power to evoke instant curiosity, and their eyebrows rose in unison. Immediately, the younger man, who introduced himself as Dr. Loai, offered to excuse himself—in English. Sensing that it might be better to keep him (and his English) around, I hastily pointed out that my mission wasn’t a personal one.
“Would you mind if we spoke English, then?” I asked, relieved at having the pressure of forming comprehensible Arabic sentences off of my shoulders; especially because I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to begin with.
“Why don’t you speak Arabic?” the dean asked, using a tone that made me feel as if he was asking, “Why don’t you breathe oxygen like the rest of us?”
Embarrassed, I hastened to explain myself and my linguistic sloth (after all, I’d just said I’d been a Muslim for over twenty years), telling him that I’d only lived in the country for a year. Still, he wasn’t buying it. So I sat back in my chair and clasped my hands tightly, bracing for the kind of lecture I used to get back home from the older mosque ladies, usually delivered in broken English, about my woeful inadequacy.
I sat, patiently waiting for the harangue to conclude, and by chance glanced over at Dr. Loai in time to catch his expression. It was a look that said I get it. It was subtle, but it was there. Suddenly, I had hope again. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Clearly frustrated with me and my lack of fluency in the language of our faith, the dean directed Dr. Loai, who turned out to be a practicing attorney as well as a professor, to help me with whatever I needed. So I decided to just spill my guts.
I sat across from Dr. Loai in the small office he shared with another professor, and once I told them the short version of my life story and how I converted and proceeded to explain my obsessive mission in all its misguided glory. Then I waited, expecting some sort of lecture about the volatile nature of the Mount, the difficulties involved, or maybe even a rebuke for the frivolity of my goal. What I got instead, though, was a simple offer of help.
“I’ll be happy to introduce you to some people who might be able to advise you,” he said. “Why don’t we meet next week, and we will see what we can set up.”
I happily agreed, and then hurried to a meeting about my first exam with the English Dean, who sprinkled the obviously “important” meeting with offers of cigarettes, comments on my fingernail polish, and a very slimy remark about how I “must have it easier than most women” because I didn’t have a husband to take care of. “And, Jennifer, how about going out to grab some lunch?”
Umm…That would be a no.
I hung out in the Shari’a department as often as I could during class breaks, and after a couple of weeks, Dr. Loai finally arranged a meeting for me with a retired Waqf employee and author/ historian, Muhammad Abu Saleh. He encouraged me to be as clear and open as possible about what I was seeking to do. In other words, just ask.
During our meeting, however, it didn’t quite go as well as I’d hoped. In fact, when I mentioned the specific places I wanted to see, Abu Saleh dismissed the topic as altogether impossible, telling me that the Israeli authorities had made the places I was interested in completely off limits. Altogether, I couldn’t really tell if he was being sincere or evasive; on one hand he did promise to introduce me at the Waqf offices. But when I pressed him on the phone for a possible date, he admitted that he didn’t have a tasreeh, the permit West Bank Palestinians needed to visit the city, and that it would take a long time to apply for one.
Unfortunately, time was something I had less and less of every day.
So, after thinking it over, I finally decided to just take Dr. Loai’s advice and ask Abu Saleh for a contact there on the Mount that I could arrange to meet on my own, as well as the all-important permission to use his name as a reference. Thankfully, he agreed, telling me to present myself at the Trust’s offices and to ask to speak to the man in charge.
As Dr. Loai put it, “You are no longer Jennifer Jones, a stranger from America. You are a Hebron Islamic University lecturer, recommended by the university’s vice president, the Shari’a Department, and the respected Waqf historian, Muhammad Abu Saleh. You have a base here now, you belong.”
I didn’t know if it would be enough to buoy my case for access to the closed sites on the Temple Mount, but I did know it felt damn good to realize that he was right. I did belong, just as I was.
CHAPTER 33
Temple Mount Waqf
Insanity—a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
- R.D. LAING
One of the surprising things about Jerusalem is how awful the traffic is—much worse than anything I’d even seen in L.A. or Seattle, especially once you reached the inefficient roads surrounding the Old City. Unfortunately, the traffic on the day of my meeting with the Sheikh was even worse than normal, because it happened, unbeknownst to me, to be the day of a Papal visit to the Mount. This was not the greatest timing on my part, but I found a place to park my car, and speed-walked through the Old City to get to the appointment on time.
The one good thing about running late was that it made me too frustrated to be nervous. And that was a great thing, especially because I still didn’t know what I was going to say to the Sheikh in charge when I saw him. Then there was the fact that I just hated introducing myself to new people, a feeling now magnified by the fact that I had to force myself to do so in this complex and exclusively male domain—all in Arabic.
I made it across from the Damascus gate to the Mount in record time because I used the Via Dolorosa, the least crowded of the Old City streets. Still, although I’d worn what I thought were sensible flats, they turned out to be as slippery as butter on the cobblestones, causing me to trip-and-windmill like a cartoon character with no traction. Next time, I vowed, I’ll wear sneakers.
I managed to make it to one of the smaller entrances only a few minutes late, a deficiency an alert Ethiopian-Israeli policeman immediately sought to remedy. He not only searched my bag and checked my documents, but he decided that I wasn’t a Muslim and couldn’t go in. Unwilling to waste time arguing with him, however, I decided to leave and get in through another, larger entrance where I could enter without anyone taking notice of me.
&nb
sp; The Waqf offices were imposing from the get-go. They were located at the one of the entrances to the Mount, and I ascended a narrow stairway into a suite of offices built into an old building on the west side of the area. Taking a deep breath, I expected to be questioned immediately, but realized that the very strict interpretation of Islamic dress I had on made me temporarily invisible—long enough for me to stand in the office’s foyer and collect my thoughts.
Finally, I approached one of the guards, identifiable in their blue shirts, walkie-talkies and black pants, and told him in Arabic that I was looking for the offices of the Sheikh in charge of the Islamic Trust. I naively expected to meet his receptionist and perhaps wait for a few minutes until they could see me in. However, the guard was so obviously baffled by my foreign accent and Palestinian appearance that he walked me past the waiting area and straight into the Sheikh’s office, where he was in the midst of a huge meeting.
“No…No!” I protested, my stomach dropping as I glimpsed the large gathering inside. “I can wait until he’s finished…”
But the Sheikh, seated at a huge, wooden desk in the center of the room, seemed to hear my accent and motioned me in.
“Yes, sister,” he called from inside. “Come in.”
Reluctantly, I walked into the room where at least twenty men in business suits were seated in a large circle—an arrangement that forced me to stand in the middle as I faced the Sheikh at his desk.
“Salaam wa alaikum” I started, rushing to explain who referred me, followed by a vague, stumbling explanation about being a writer wanting to do a project on Temple Mount architecture and the Waqf—which was kind of true. It was just the best my Arabic and my addled mind could come up with under the pressure of so many eyes. Still, I half expected a bolt of lightning to come in through the window and cook me for lying by omission in such a holy place.
All Roads Lead to Jerusalem Page 18