“My god. It was a massacre.”
“Oh, we were used to massacres. We suffered them all the time. Ibrahim had been right when he said that non-violence would cause the Israelis to fight amongst themselves, because they would no longer be able to believe their myths and would have to confront their own morality. But Ibrahim was dead. Did this mean it was all over? We had no idea of what to do next.”
“You marched on Jerusalem after all.”
“Of course we did. That is official history, but it was not a simple decision. I was appointed to the ruling Committee of Twenty.”
“Come now, old man, you are making fun of us. The tank stopped just before killing you, and then you become one of the leaders of the movement that changed our nation. And which particular cabinet post did you have, father-in-law?”
“The position of the tank was crucial, and it was the reason why I was appointed to the Committee, which consisted of the twenty living people closest to the tank after it came to a halt. Who made that appointment? That is the important thing. Have you ever heard of Yusuf Khalidi?”
“Vaguely. But I can’t place the name.”
“Of course you can,” says Fatima. “He was an important leader at the time of the March of the Hundred Thousand. He was shot by a member of the Kach Party shortly after the establishment of Israel-Palestine.”
“He was not just a leader,” Mustapha continues, “he was the leader of the whole successful movement. He was the real Father of the Nation. He is the one we should all revere, but he was too clever for the vested interests. It may have been the Kach Party who actually killed him, but many more mainstream politicians would have wanted him out of the way. While Ibrahim was the mad tactician and showman, Yusuf was the strategist and arch-schemer. He understood that Ibrahim had hit on a weakness in the enormous Israeli military machine, but he also had a very clear idea of where he wanted to go and how to achieve it. The Israeli military command must have been shaken by events – by the internecine killing – but they were most certainly relieved that Ibrahim was dead, and they probably gave orders to the tank crews for exactly that reason. They thought the movement was Ibrahim. First they wanted to avoid making him a martyr, but once the movement looked strong and also unpredictable, they wanted him out of the way. They were right in the sense that he had created the movement out of nothing, but I strongly believe that had he lived, it would have floundered. Yusuf spoke to us from a burned-out tank. Our aim, he said, was not a tiny Palestinian state but a united country covering all the territory of the old mandate, in which both Jew and Palestinian would live together in complete equality. It would be a secular state, and Arabic and Hebrew would be the official languages. It was he who ordered the burial of all the martyrs, both Jewish and Arab. Ibrahim and his fellow martyrs were originally buried amongst the infantrymen, but the Israeli army later removed their own dead to another cemetery. Now, of course there is the Ibrahim Mausoleum, but then it was a more modest affair. Still Yusuf had it done in style while he quietly worked to have discipline reimposed along with a sense of purpose.
“His idea of making a committee of twenty random leaders was also a clever move. He had ideas and we had none. Most of us were young, and we soon adored his clever mind and generosity. It was said, and it could well be true, that he had never previously supported non-violent action. It was even claimed that he had been an official of some importance in Hamas. This too is quite believable, because he had the kind of organisational abilities that are rarely innate and are more often the product of training. I also believe that he had never been particularly religious, but he was wise enough to know that the movement had been born of religious passions, and he would have to maintain the illusion of religious orthodoxy. He was therefore punctilious in his prayers and as strict in following the outward dictates of Islam as Ibrahim had been in following those of Christianity. Above all, he understood the importance of not threatening Jews. He had learned from Ibrahim that they had to be won over – or rather enough of them had to be won over to make a difference.
“He immediately told us that we would be marching on Jerusalem and not Nablus. ‘That was madness,’ he said to us. That was the only criticism I heard him make of Ibrahim, but I think he had been exasperated by the man’s reliance on the word of God rather than the rational considerations of a human brain. He invited the Israeli soldiers to join us and throw away their weapons. This too caused many different reactions. A few did just that. Others said they were returning to their units and would accept whatever punishment was inflicted on them. Others still were very conscious that they were now effectively outlaws, but quixotically wanted to protect us. They marched along with us but at a distance. They carried their arms and kept a great deal of military supplies in trucks they had commandeered. Their presence made Yusuf very nervous, but he stopped short of giving them a direct order to leave. ‘A group of highly trained military men without a clear purpose is always a risk, and our plans rely entirely on the avoidance of violence. The Israelis will eventually come up with methods to defeat us, that is why we must strike at their heart immediately.’ The Israelis must have thought they had destroyed our movement by destroying Ibrahim. They probably thought that having him out of the way was worth the upset his death caused amongst increasingly hostile ‘international opinion’. But actually they had given us a superb leader. That was luck and that was the randomness of history.
“On the road to Jerusalem, the Israeli government continuously sent negotiators just as it had done on the road to Jenin, but this time they were very senior. Ministers appeared and left exasperated. They were beginning to realise that Yusuf was dangerous. He was always polite, and liked to joke with them. They forced themselves to laugh, but were at a loss. Should they kill him too? Wouldn’t that just produce another even more formidable leader? I don’t think it would have. We Arabs were lucky to have had Ibrahim, and now we were even luckier to have found Yusuf. I doubt that our luck would have lasted, but the Israeli leaders were not clever men. For sixty-four years they had relied on military superiority, and that superiority had grown to a level so absurdly colossal that they no longer had to think. Suddenly the situation appeared to them much more complex than it really was, and Yusuf was an expert at knowing when to show his hand and when to keep it hidden. These negotiators rushed off not because Yusuf had not offered them something, but because they were quite incapable of making a decision. They also believed that he would be stopped by the wall, but when we approached it was suddenly demolished by explosive, just like God divided the Red Sea for the people of Israel. Yusuf once appeared to suggest that it was the work of our infantrymen who hovered around like our guardian angels, and in any event Yusuf did not leave things to divine intervention. He just quietly said in his elliptic manner, ‘I was right not to offend them, and they have proved their worth.’ This showed how close he had come to getting them to leave. It must have been a difficult decision for him, but in the end he got it right. We members of the ruling committee just rubber-stamped his decisions, but he talked us through his reasoning and always treated us with the utmost respect, as indeed he did almost everyone he met.
“We read in the papers that the Israeli army had shot the infantrymen who returned to their barracks. This was not only a terrible act; it was also stupid of them. The army was made up of ordinary people, and ordinary people were now beginning to shift in their opinions. You might not know about these events, Leon, but at the time there was not a person in Israel or the Occupied Territories who did not. The executions merely alienated the army, confirmed the resolve of the deserters who protected us and increased the disorientation on which Yusuf was relying. He knew it could not last, and that he had to bring about an immediate change or everything would be lost.
“At last we approached the city, and I shall never forget that moment. It was one of fear – not for oneself but for our momentous movement whose aims now looked achievable – and one of incredulity, as after all, there were
only a few weeks dividing us from the rally we had attended in Ramallah and a time when there was not even hope of one day being able to hope. I thought then that if I survived I would speak of little else for the rest of my life, but instead the rest of my life has been about survival – not the survival I thought of then, which was no more than prolonging one’s physical existence, but the survival we all struggle with even in affluent countries that are not riven by conflicts. It has not been a bad life, because, as I said, I have not expected very much. Many of my fellow marchers have felt cheated and constantly tell me so, but then they did not feel that tank get so close. They did not lose so many friends and relations. They did not witness events as closely as I did, and therefore they do not know how close-run it was.
“The army never stood against us again. Whether that was a decision from above or simply a lack of conviction amongst the ranks is something I cannot say. Very probably the soldiers did not know that this would mean the end of their racist state, and if they had known that their privileges would at least be weakened, then they might have acted differently. Maybe that is churlish on my part. I think that they were like Ibrahim; they did not know where their actions were taking them, and that is why they were no match for Yusuf. It is firm leadership, and not cruelty and military might, that overcomes all obstacles.”
“Sounds like an argument for a strong state to me,” says Leon. “I think your Yusuf might have disappointed you, if he had lived.”
“You might be right, but I think not.”
“You clearly loved him. What did you feel when he was assassinated?”
“Devastated. I was devastated,” some of Mustapha’s bitterness reawakes with his words. “I wept for days, and would have taken revenge. That’s how irrational we are. Nearly four hundred men and women were crushed beneath tanks, and I had no desire for revenge, but the death of one man almost destroyed my belief in non-violence.”
“But it didn’t?”
“No. Because you just get back to life. You get back to the difficulties of life. A man’s life is always partly detached from contemporary history, even the life of a man like me who for a brief period was at the centre of things.”
“So you didn’t encounter any more resistance.”
“Not from the army, but organised groups attacked us with weapons and many people died. This increased the divisions in Israeli society, and our guardian angels continued to defend us. They too lost some of their men, but others joined them. Yusuf let them fight. He just wanted the Knesset. We marched in. That is, five hundred of us entered and Yusuf told the others to stay outside. He announced that the parliament was dissolved and then there was bedlam. The Knesset members ranted and raved, but he immediately began to concede. Half of them had to go, he said, and an equal number of our people would take their place. The new Knesset would be a constituent assembly for a new country called Israel-Palestine. The Israelis were happy at least that their name came first; they were colluding in the demolition of all they held dear, and yet felt they were gaining concessions. Yusuf’s masterstroke was that he did not have himself nominated.”
“So were you, as a member of the Committee of Twenty, a member of this constituent assembly?”
“I was.”
Fatima draws in her breath, “But father, you never told me that.”
“It was not a big deal. I followed Yusuf’s instructions and it was all over very quickly. He said that new elections were the most important thing. They had to be held before the establishment got over its shock and woke up to the fact that it had released the reins of power when there was really no need. Those elections were held three hectic weeks later, and I was not re-elected. My party, the Islamic Socialist Party, got very few votes and my political career was over before it even started.”
“The Islamic Socialist Party?”
“Yes, that was a mistake. Don’t mix religion and politics, you’re quite right. But after a political earthquake, new parties coalesce in a very erratic manner. I did not choose that party; it chose me. Anyway my heart was not in it. I am quite political, but I am not a politician. That was not my world and I was glad to leave it. The party split shortly afterwards, and I think the two factions continued to quarrel for some decades – but without me.”
“I have never denied that terrible things were done,” says Leon, “but that was fifty years ago. You people fail to move on, and that is what is holding Palestine back at the moment. We simply have to forget the past, however terrible.”
Leon feels that the argument is overwhelmingly convincing. It should be the end of the conversation. They should understand. But they don’t.
“You think that the Arabs are the ones who can’t forget – the only ones who can’t forget,” says Fatima, “but what about your grandfather? He won’t even come to see his grandchildren, your children, but still you’re happy that he has decided to speak to you. You chat on the phone to a man who despises your children.”
“A man can do wrong without being wholly bad. You have to understand his upbringing.”
“I don’t have to understand anything of the sort,” snaps Fatima, visibly angry, and Leon takes the warning. He has seen her like that on very few occasions, enough to know that the cost can be high if he doesn’t read the signal. He met Fatima when she was a personal assistant to one of the directors in the family firm where he worked part-time during his studies. He was attracted of course by her dark hair, intelligent eyes, curved Mediterranean nose and warm smile, but he was doubly attracted by her refusal to ever offer him one of those smiles. She told him later by way of explanation that she considered him “just another arrogant young Jewish boy”. He set about courting her with unfailing perseverance, and so she always retains an element of the upper hand she originally held, even after surrendering some of her power to adapt to her wifely role as she sees it. “I want you to go and see that grandfather of yours,” she says, but he knows it is an order.
“And you want me to take his grandchildren. Is that it?” he guesses.
“No, I want you to take my father.”
“Your father? Why should I take your father?”
“Because he was a witness to the birth of this unhappy country, and so was your grandfather. The only way you’re ever going to understand what happened is if you go through with this. There are books on those events in any bookshop, but you will never read them. You prefer to hide behind the ‘official version’; you prefer the comfort of ignorance. Our children have many, many relations who died because of those events. How can they ever understand if their father can’t? And if they do and you don’t, there will always be a rift between you and them.”
Leon presses the button on the intercom at the gate to his grandfather’s home and vast garden. It has been a long time since he was last there, but the long drive, once a symbol of certain welcome, looks threatening, especially when, in place of his grandfather and now-departed grandmother, he sees two large black dogs barking fiercely and running fast down the gravel. The gate has clicked open but he waits until his grandfather comes into view, walking vigorously in spite of his stick which he doesn’t use gingerly to take his weight, but as a prop to tap the ground in front of him – more an affectation of old age. Leon and his grandfather, David Rubinstein, greet each other without their once customary embraces and then the old men shake hands, each with an excess of courtesy. Rubinstein shouts at his dogs to calm them down and gestures that they should all go to his house, a sturdy villa in Californian style. In the meantime, an old woman has also come out not so much to greet them as to announce her presence. She shakes the visitors’ hands limply and stares at them with evident disapproval. It turns out that this is grandfather’s new partner – a lover for his old age. They process up the drive in awkward silence.
Once inside the home, the guests are seated in comfort and coffees produced.
“To what do I owe this honour?” asks Rubinstein with muted sarcasm. “In the company of your father-in-la
w too.” Leon feels that he is actually rather pleased by this change to his routine.
“I would have thought that your grandfather had made his feelings quite clear,” says the old lady.
“Be quiet,” he says, “I don’t want to upset our guests. I am very happy to see you both. But I am curious about the reason for the visit.”
“Fatima – my wife Fatima – has suggested that you only started talking to me again because you refuse to speak to your other grandson, who must now be what? – twenty?”
Can the Gods Cry? Page 9