“This is a little one-sided,” says Leon. But his wife’s eyes silence him again.
“I am not saying that the Palestinians are inherently better than every other people. Nor are they any worse. But suffering does temporarily make a people better and more introspective, just as power makes them smug, uncaring and materialistic. Jews, of all people, should know that, given how they suffered in Europe.”
“Okay, okay. So what happened next? How did Ibrahim Safieh get crushed by a tank? Was there violence? A lot of people say Israeli soldiers were killed.”
“Not by us. But I will explain it all in good order. You must be patient, Leon.”
“So you camped out like a bunch of boy scouts. What next?” Leon isn’t used to the old man adopting such a confident and didactic tone. He, Leon, is the educated man. His father was an industrialist, but he is a professor of Russian literature. A wealthy man, he feels that he has done a great deal by taking in the old man after his mother-in-law died, and nobody can deny that Leon is a kind and decent man in all his dealings. He is a man almost without prejudice, but he has his own reasons for not examining the past. His maternal grandfather spent fifteen years in prison because he failed to report to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee that he had taken part in the unprovoked massacre of ten Palestinian farm-workers and a child in a remote part of the West Bank. He liked – indeed loved – the man, who was generous to a fault, but not when Leon married an Arab. For five years the grandfather would not speak to his grandson, and he has never wanted to see his great-grandchildren. Leon’s other grandfather had been possibly less racist – or at least less violently racist, but he made himself wealthy from the confiscation of Arab lands. A skilful businessman with good political connections, he has never had to return a single hectare. Leon is a direct beneficiary of stolen wealth. Somewhere in his psyche he is aware of this, but no one – not even the Arabs – want to revive the programme of restoring land to pre-1948 owners. It proved to be as corrupt in the reversal as it had been brutal in the original expropriation. Only the powerful regained land and it was often not their own. False papers were created. Together, Jewish and Arab lawyers grew rich out of the restoration of Arab lands to the “wrong owners”. Powerful Jews and powerful Arabs became even more powerful, but at least the demarcation between the powerful and powerless followed racist distinctions less closely. The powerless were ignored.
“Well,” the old man continues, “the next day was very different. We awoke with a sense of victory. It says a lot about those times that a twenty-mile walk late into the night was considered a victory. We were tired but exhilarated. The Israelis had set up a provisional checkpoint during the night and it was flanked by a large troop of soldiers and military equipment. Ibrahim, unusually devout for a Palestinian Christian, said his prayers publicly and was joined by some of our own clerics. He gathered us on the road again and formed us into a column that was fifteen to twenty people wide. He then asked us to march to the checkpoint. When we reached it, an Israeli officer came forward and ordered us to stop, but Ibrahim simply removed the pistol from his hand, emptied the magazine, and threw it away. He then embraced the owner of the weapon and called him his brother, before continuing briskly on his way as though the checkpoint did not exist. The officer grimaced, not knowing how to react. We followed and, copying his gesture, we embraced the other soldiers and disarmed them if they would allow us to do this without force. After passing the checkpoint, we found a second line of soldiers with rifles already pointed.
“A single shot rang out and the man walking next to Ibrahim fell to the ground. When a second shot killed two men, Ibrahim speeded up his already brisk pace, but did not break into a run. He had a tactical instinct which did not however make up for his lack of strategy. Soon it was clear that the Israelis had orders not to shoot Ibrahim, because the riflemen were now cutting down swathes of human beings on both sides of him. This caused some people, particularly those who had always been sceptical of his non-violent methods, to accuse him of conspiring with Israelis, but events were to prove them wrong.
“We were now on top of the soldiers and some broke into a rout. Others kept their positions, but their arms were no longer of any use. This was a crucial moment, and we were still relatively undisciplined. We had suffered and were angry. It would have taken very little for that anger to turn into revenge, and the non-violent movement would have died there and then, as the Israelis no doubt wanted. But Ibrahim wasted no time. Again he hugged a soldier who had fallen into rougher hands. ‘Leave him,’ he said, ‘he was following orders. One day the court will try those who today have broken the law. They will be punished in accordance with the law. We are not the law, and we must act peacefully at all times.’ He said these things in Hebrew, so that the soldiers would understand. They were visibly relieved, as they were now all surrounded by a great mass of incensed Palestinians. They did not grimace in disgust, as the first officer had done at the checkpoint, but often returned the embrace enthusiastically. ‘These are the orders,’ said one of the officers as he held up an envelope. Another officer shouted, ‘Traitor.’ We began to realise the extent of our victory and how we had disoriented our enemy. The orders confirmed what we already knew – the soldiers had been instructed to open fire and to provoke our violent reaction. In this they had failed.
“We lost sixty-seven dead that day. I can remember many of them. One was a cousin of mine. He wasn’t that interested in politics, and I was the one who had persuaded him to come. I no longer felt elated, although Ibrahim and some of his close followers clearly did. They were right, I suppose. We had achieved a lot, and if we had killed even one of those soldiers, we would have lost everything. They were right, but it did not feel like that to me. Whatever way we did this, we were going to pay a high price.
“We met few real obstacles on the rest of the way to Jenin. The Israelis sent negotiators, and the international press were allowed to follow us. The Israelis understood from these negotiations that we would disband on reaching Jenin, and they were now determined to show the world how liberal they were – something that did not come easily to them. They tried to stop the people from supplying us with food, and they forced us into a tortuous and gruelling route, but we still got to Jenin. Ibrahim organised one of his rallies, and it may be that the Israelis were not entirely wrong when they said that he had agreed to disband the march once he got to Jenin. They still thought that this was an interlude, rather than an event that would change our lives and theirs.
“Ibrahim delivered one of his typical speeches. In fact, he was in some ways very predictable. The crowd was massive. At Jenin there was a huge refugee camp. You would have thought that things could not have been worse for Palestinians, but they were in these camps. The only water was rainwater, and the eight o’clock curfew brought terrors every night: light-bombs and soldiers running on the tin roofs above the refugees’ heads. They were always dignified people – dignified by terrible suffering. They broke out of the camp to join us; perhaps they sensed that something at last was going to change. Once again, Ibrahim fell on his knees and spoke of a vision. This time we would march on Nablus. The Israelis were furious, and we were a little perplexed. If we marched on Nablus, we would be marching unarmed towards some of the most ruthless and murderous people in a land not known for its restraint. Nablus was a large city with a small but vicious settler community, and nothing achieved there would be lasting. By road we would have to return the way we came and then take one of the roads leading to the east. The alternative was a gruelling overland journey with few supplies and ideal terrain for the Israelis to harass us without restraint; surely the press would not follow us across such open country. Everyone had thought that after Jenin, we would march on Jerusalem, where decisions were made and the Israeli community was more divided. Some of the Jews there were quite happy to close their ears and eyes to things happening in other parts of the country, but if they happened in front of them, they would not approve. Some wou
ld object, and as soon as we had a reasonably substantial Jewish constituency on our side, we would be halfway to achieving what we wanted.
“Along the march, some people had been leaving, but others had been joining. After the announcement of the march on Nablus, many people slipped away. I thought about it, but did not know what to do. I think I would have returned home, if my cousin had not been killed. I felt guilty. But also, I think, I wanted to see how it was all going to end. I was no longer confident, and mass hysteria had given way to more rational argument. We were angry with Ibrahim, and perhaps I was even stupid enough to believe some of the rumours about him. It was a long time ago. He was a brave man, no doubt of that. Although I also think he was a deeply damaged person and probably half mad. But it takes a madman to change a mad world.
“We had only walked about ten miles out of Jenin when we came up against a column of Israeli tanks. A pompous Israeli officer came forward and told us to return to Jenin. He hectored us in Hebrew and ungainly Arabic. When Ibrahim tried to disarm him and embrace him, the officer responded by punching him in the stomach and then hitting him over the back of the neck with his pistol. At first, it appeared that Ibrahim was unconscious, but he soon started struggling to his feet and wiped a little blood away with his hand. He announced in perfect Hebrew that the officer was still his brother, although he kept his distance and did not attempt to embrace him another time. Ibrahim had just quarter of an hour of life left: that was the time the officer gave us to clear the area, before he marched back to the tank with a ridiculous swing of one arm, while the other held up the pistol in an equally comic position. On his return to the tanks, the officer started to shout a series of orders, as though he were a skilfully devised automaton. When the engines were started in all the tanks at almost the same time, Ibrahim decided to deploy one of Gandhi’s tactics. We were to lie on the ground at right angles to the direction of the rough path we had been walking on.
“Just before I lay down I saw the first tank jump unsteadily forward. Black smoke came from an exhaust somewhere at the back. In part it just seemed like any other motor vehicle setting off on a journey; in part it was a great grey box of evil, as though the Israelis had designed a container for all their hatred and inhumanity. I was unprepared for what was going to happen. Those who were watching from the side described what happened next. The column slowly approached our unprotected prostrate bodies. Ibrahim had said that no one would drive over people lying on the ground, and so when the first tank was close to us, everyone expected it to stop. Perhaps the soldiers would get out and beat the people on the ground. Instead the tank suddenly accelerated as though to do what it wanted to do, it would have to take a run at it. There was screaming and then machine-gun fire and explosions. Suddenly the tank stopped. Why? I had no idea what was happening. Someone pulled me up from the ground, touching me as though desperate to know what a person so close to death might have felt like. I too, I suppose, perceived myself in a new light. That is how I have continued to feel that terrible event – throughout my long life I have always considered myself to be someone living on time that no longer belonged to me. Possibly I have enjoyed life a little more precisely because I no longer expected much from it. I was alive and that was enough. I looked down at the base of the tank and saw the blood leaking through the black grease of the tracks. Human bodies and human machinery. Defencelessness and the metallic technology of death.”
“That’s enough,” Leon says while standing up. “This all happened fifty years ago. Bad stuff was done on both sides, and nothing is to be gained by going over this again and again. We became the Republic of Israel-Palestine and then the Republic of Palestine. We have changed, and frankly you Palestinians have won, so why don’t you show a little magnanimity and put the past in the past.”
“We haven’t won at all,” Fatima shouts at her husband. “You Jews still own most of the land you stole, you run most of the industry and are in all the positions of most influence. Don’t tell us that we won. We still suffer.”
“Are you happy now, old man?” says Leon. “You’ve caused an argument between husband and wife. We never argued before you came to live with us. This can’t work, if all you want to do is talk of the misdeeds of my people – my people who have suffered at least as much as yours.”
“I have no wish to cause a rift between man and wife. I am telling the story as it was. Israelis and Palestinians. Both have their good and bad, and it was Israelis who stopped the tanks. This is what I want to tell you and more besides. Because the story is more complex and more interesting than what you find in our school books, which are themselves the result of yet another absurd negotiation. Not that I am against negotiation: if we can only get along through endless negotiation, then so be it. Better that than fighting, far better. But I am telling you, my family, what really happened. Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes,” says Fatima, “it’s about time Leon heard it too.”
“What do you mean the Israelis stopped the tanks? How could it be otherwise? They were driving them.”
“Ah, but not the same Israelis. The Israelis who stopped the tanks were not the ones who were driving them.”
“Explain.”
“A group of Israeli infantrymen jumped on the first tank. The tank crew had left their hatch on their turret open as they did not expect an attack by armed men. The infantrymen opened fire down the hatch and started to climb in. The soldiers in the tank behind had seen what was happening and fired their machine gun at the men still on the tank. Five of them died and fell to the ground. Then more infantrymen attacked the other tanks. This was not just a fight between right and wrong, between racism and integration and between humanity and fanaticism; it was also a fight between two military units – one infantry and one motorised artillery. Grenades were thrown down the hatches and machine-gun fire from other tanks mowed them down. Eventually the infantrymen took control, although I think they sustained more casualties. Forty-six of them died that day. I know that because we buried them. It was more difficult with our dead. We think that there were three hundred and eighty-five, but the bodies were so pulverised that we had to count them by asking people who was missing. As the march was made up of family groups and friends, the dead were often from groups that were entirely destroyed, so we cannot be sure about the exact figure. It was probably more.”
“But this is extraordinary,” says Leon. “This could be a founding story. How come no one knows about this? This is a story of Israeli soldiers killing each other, while Arabs stand by. Come on, this would be dynamite if it were true.”
“It is true. Why does no one talk about it? Well, the answer is simple. Politicians. Politicians wanted to keep their own ethnic constituencies. On that both Israeli and Palestinian politicians were agreed. Perhaps it was the only thing they fully agreed about. They fudged their agreements on unification, a secular state, universal suffrage, equal property rights and an integrated army, but they wanted to keep some of the tensions, because they all represented certain groups. As the Palestinian community grew much larger with the returning refugees, Israelis wanted them divided into Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouins and so on. Stories of cross-community solidarity were not what they wanted. They wanted continuous argument, jostling and negotiation, negotiation, negotiation. But then again, I have seen many things I would never have dreamt of, so I don’t complain. We have come a long way, but I have always believed that every people is better than its politicians.”
“But how do you cover up something like that?”
“It hasn’t been totally covered up. You don’t know it, because you haven’t wanted to know about it. It is not part of the mainstream myth, but it is part of real history, and many Arabs and Jews must know about it. There were many witnesses on both sides, many books have been written and many documentaries have been made, but the majority did not want to hear about it after the establishment of Israel-Palestine. They were difficult years of continuing racism and unfulfilled ex
pectations. Even when history moves quickly, it moves slowly, because people do not really change overnight. They pretend to change, but they have been brought up to see things in a particular way and cannot change in their hearts, even if they would like to. Change is generational, and I am happy with what has happened. Only in the last ten to fifteen years do I feel that we could never go back. That’s why I welcomed your marriage. Everyone told me that I, as a veteran of the March of the Hundred Thousand, should have been angry. I should have felt betrayed. But I said, ‘Why? They are in love, and that is what they want to do. No one will stop them, and anyway I don’t want to, because this is the way forward. If we don’t want to be divided forever, we need to intermarry; we need to mix, but we haven’t mixed very much. Too little, in fact.’”
“You’re right, father. Sorry if I’m a bit prickly. You’re a very wise old man. Thank you for telling me your story,” Leon says with doubtful sincerity. The experience has been unpleasant and he would have preferred to have avoided it. Having been subjected to it, he now wants to bring it to a swift conclusion.
“But it’s not over. It’s only just beginning. I haven’t even finished telling you about that one incident. You said something about Arabs standing by. That’s exactly how it was. We were unarmed, and besides we were sworn to non-violence. We were like spectators, but the most stunning incident was just about to happen. The infantrymen brought the pompous officer to us. He was very arrogant and kept threatening them with all kinds of punishments. Another officer pointed to him and said, ‘This is Captain P, who is known to all of us for his brutality. He riddled a wounded girl with bullets, and was even tried by one of our courts.’ ‘And acquitted?’ one of us said. ‘Of course,’ the officer said, ‘but this time there will be no impunity.’ Captain P laughed, ‘And what court will ever try me?’ A young soldier moved forward abruptly and said, ‘This is the court that will try you.’ He had dark skin, and must have been a child of Arab Jews. He raised his gun and pointed it at Captain P’s head, and the captain immediately fell on his knees and tugged at the soldier’s trouser legs. ‘A Jew should never kill a Jew.’ ‘It has already started,’ and he took out a pistol to dispatch the captain at short range. The captain wept as he understood the inevitability of his death, and we just watched unable or unwilling to intervene. He fired one shot and the captain’s kneeling body crumpled the short distance to the ground. Then the soldier lifted the pistol to his own head and shouted in heavily accented English, ‘Israel is fucked.’ He shot himself and his body collapsed across that of the dead captain. Who was he? Why did he shout in English? I will never know. The only press at that stage was a lone reporter from the Jerusalem Post. It could be relied on to distort and massage the truth. As far as I know, no one reported that dramatic incident. You, Leon, are used to Haaretz in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English, with ‘The Voice of Palestine’ under each masthead, but it wasn’t always like that.”
Can the Gods Cry? Page 8