Habibi Don't Love Me

to Omar & Anees



By Tala Abu Rahmeh

“Habibi don’t see me”

Suheir Hammad

I went to Yaffa on Friday night. I have a permit that expires next month, so my friends are taking me all over the place to milk it before I become illegal. It’s almost funny that my ability to drive 20 minutes outside of Ramallah in the direction of Jerusalem will actually expire on a specific date.

I have always avoided Yaffa, I never had a relationship with the city aside from my family’s stories of being uprooted from their homes and the smell of the sea, but every time I go there I feel incredibly rejected, like nothing I will ever be or say will ever make me worthy of this city. It is obviously an unhealthy relationship.

After we approached a row of stunning lights shining from Ben Gurion Airport, our car slowly began sinking into Yaffa’s streets that were dimmed in anticipation of Saturday. There was something incredibly sad about such an ordinary ritual, like a child being forced to sleep and go to a terrible school in the morning.

Sensing my anxiety, my friend Anees drove us to the beach. Since I have little to no knowledge of the city I had no idea we got there until he parked. I never told either of my friends that I was terrified of the sea at night, but for some reason I wasn’t scared. Perhaps it was that feeling of having so little to lose that hung upon my entire space.

We stood there for a bit and all I could think of was how inadequate I felt. I kept wondering that if this city saw me, really saw me, wouldn’t it at least love me a little? A scarier thought chocked me for a second, what if it did see me, and found nothing worthy of love? That would be the ultimate nightmare.

After our night in Yaffa was over, we drove all the way on road 1 accompanied by some songs, a little sadness, three jumbo slices of pizza, and a promise “to do this again.”

I haven’t felt myself since that day, and maybe I won’t for a while, but tonight I’m sending a prayer of love to the city that won’t love me, to those who fight so hard against hate, for those who love themselves no matter how mutilated they feel (and those who don’t), for my four grandparents who lived and died in the shadows of Yaffa’s oranges, and for all of us, may we all be loved, precisely and plentifully.

Feast of the Sacrifice

By: David Moser

In Abu Dis, during the Eid, when the children have been given gifts, the parents take rest, and for two days the streets are run by boys with guns.

They stand next to boxes of yellow oranges and green cucumbers, and against the Jerusalem stone of homes, with black rifles strapped on their shoulders and pistols in their hands. They dash across filthy empty streets where on most days men drive their cars, racing from wall to wall. Sometimes the boys hide behind garbage dumpsters and shoot at the windows of passing vehicles. Sometimes they shoot each other.

Of course, the guns are toys, for who would give guns to boys?

“Bo bo bo (come here),” one of the teenagers says, parroting the Hebrew he has heard from soldiers as he points his plastic pellet shooting weapon at me while his friends smile, impressed. Before he says another word, I take my passport from my jeans pocket and pass it to him. He pretends to flip through, and gives it back with a grin at my one-upmanship.

I have also had thoughts of how it would be to be in the army.

Years ago, I had a dream. I was an Israeli soldier, uniformed in olive green, alone amidst urban battle. I was standing against an outer wall of a boxy building and glanced around the corner to see two Palestinians, one man and one woman, who I knew were ready to kill me. These weren’t anonymous fighters, but people I knew in real life, and even dreaming I knew they would never hurt me, if they could only know who I was behind the uniform. But I had to turn the corner. If I turned and spoke to them, they would shoot me before they could see who I was. So I had to shoot first, at my friends.

I did it. I turned and fired at them, hitting both the man and the woman. Rather than fall dead, or even begin to bleed, they sat speaking softly and smiling to each other, unaware of what I had done to them. But they had been shot nonetheless, and would surely die in a matter of seconds. I could not take back the bullets, and panicked at the thought that as they passed from life to death, they would see that it was me who had sent them there. In my terror and humiliation, I started shooting again, and as the dream went dark, fired round after round in prayer that I could kill them before they knew who I was.

When I woke up, the sky was already blue.

Roast Beef Eid

By: Tala Abu Rahmeh

I was on the phone with my great aunt this morning, she was talking about how happy her grandchildren were with Eid Al-Adha, all dressed up and running around the streets of the village collecting tiny gifts and cookies.

On TV, there were images of the Eid festivities in Gaza city. A pregnant looking correspondent asked a child about what he wanted to eat in celebration of this holiday, “Shawerma” he said, one of the cheapest foods one can buy. On a holiday where people boast their huge tables crowded with meat and cookies, this kid wanted a cheap sandwich.

I was in the back of the car, driving to my aunt’s huge lunch, when I started thinking about hope, or perhaps, how hope works. Driving to our small family lunch were people who lost their sister, their moms, their fathers, and said goodbye to traveling daughters (not knowing whether they’ll ever come back), and here we were, on the road to celebrate a holiday of food and hope.

It occurred to me then that (hope) could be the running theme of the city; less than a few years ago, Ramallah was collecting its rubble like pieces of blown up children, thinking that it might never survive the agony of lost limbs and loves, but look at us now, the whole city, heck, the whole country, is going to lunch somewhere.

When we got to my aunt’s house, there were three huge platters on the dinning room table; stuffed zucchini and grape leaves, thickly sliced roast beef, some goat’s well baked internal organs (yup, we eat that), salads, hummus, and a plate of cooked dandelions dipped in tahini (yes, we eat that too, they are really good for you, you should try them sometime).

I filled my plate with salad and dandelions; the less complicated foods. I stared at my plate for a while and thought, this time around, and after so much loss, I’m thankful for the less complicated things. Tiny love notes, kind phone calls, warm music, long novels, funny kids, good poems, and of course, delicious food, prepared with at least an ounce of optimism. Most importantly, I’m thankful for the ability to be grateful, despite my deep inability to not mark this as the fourth Eid without my mother.

As for you, little child from Gaza, I hope you get to eat a huge Shawerma sandwich, filled with fresh vegetables and heaps of outstanding (dripping-all-over-your new clothes) tahini.

On the Bus

by: David Moser

“Welcome, welcome. There is space. You can stand.” He says.

I step onto the blue carpeted bus. Palestinian bus. Jerusalem bound. I pay my six shekels, get my ticket, and stand at the front. The seats are filled with women from the university. The men huddle by the door.

“Where are you from?”

“America.”

“America. I love America. Especially Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas?”

“Yes. I love the poker.” He rubs his right thumb and index finger together. He raises his thick black eyebrows and purses his lips.

“Really? Do you play poker?”

He nods once.

“Are you good?”

He raises his chin and makes eye contact. “What do you study at the university?” He asks.

“I am a teacher. I teach writing. In English.”

“Ahh, welcome. Really, I love your country very much. But you make fuck up in Iraq. You make fuck up in Pakistan. You make fuck up in Afghanistan. But I hate Bin Laden. He is total mother fucker. And you, do you love Israel? “

“I live here in Abu Dis.”

“Yes, Abu Dis, Israel. Do you love it here in Israel?"

I look at him knowingly.

“What country is this?” He asks.

“I thought it was Palestine.”

He smiles a wide, toothy smile, touches my shoulder then shakes my right hand. “Yes this is Palestine. Israel, it is nothing. It will be gone in ten years. Believe me. In ten years.”

“How? How will it be gone? Will you beat Netanyahu at poker?”

He smiles again. He makes the fingers of both his hands into guns. Lines them up with the left in front and the right in back like he is aiming a rifle. “Me and my brother, we will do it.”

“You will do what? Someone will kill you. And then what?”

“No. We will shoot them. All of them.” He looks at the floor. We roll down a hill, guided by curving asphalt, into a rocky valley. Two leather skinned men face Mecca in afternoon prayer from the roof of a two story house they have built all day. The sun is still high.

“Are you married?” He slides his right pointer and thumb down his left ring finger.

“No. I’m not married.”

“How old are you?”

“Guess.”

He looks at my nose, my eyes. “Twenty…six.”

“Twenty five.”

“Will you marry next year?”

“Enshalla.”

He rubs his two index fingers together. He asks, “Are you Fatah or Hamas?”

“I am Democrats.”

“Democrats. But here, do you love Fatah or Hamas?”

“I don’t vote here. What about you? Fatah or Hamas?”

“Fatah.” He nods twice. “Hamas.” He says and squints his eyes, flares his nose, flicks his right palm open as if shooing a fly. “Do you know Ismail Haniyeh?”

“Yes. From Hamas. He is in Gaza.”

“Yes. He is a donkey. He is a big donkey.”

“That’s true.”

“You know Mohammad Dahlan?”

“Yes. From Fatah.”

“Yes. He is my father. I love him.”

“He is your father?”

“Yes. I am from Gaza. He is my father. I love him. Really.”

“If he is your father, why are you riding the bus?”

He laughs once. “He is not my father, but I do love him.” We enter the round-about in front of the settlement Ma’ale Adumim. A middle aged man with grey hair and a grey kippah drove his ocean blue sedan in front of our bus as he entered the settlement. My companion flicked his hand again.

“We are not terrorists here in Palestine. Right?” He was asking only what I thought. He knew already.

“You just said you plan on killing every Israeli.”

“No. This is not terrorism. This is an important thing.”

“So what is terrorism?”

“What Israel did in Gaza. What Israel does in Jerusalem.” He made only his right hand into a gun this time. “Every day.”

“Where do you live in Jerusalem?”

“Shuafat. My mother is from Hebron. Have you heard of the Jaber family?”

“Yes I have.”

“Do you love George Bush?”

I make eye contact. Scrunch my eyebrows. “No.”

“He is a good man! A great man!”

I elbow him lightly in the ribs and smile.

He smiles and nods. “He fucked every country.”

“And America too. He fucked America too.”

We drove slowly into the A-Za’im checkpoint. The contract security guards were changing shift. We stopped. The door opened. The whole bus emptied as we stepped into the hot afternoon, walked through the fenced passageway, showed ID to a female soldier with a brown ponytail and big hips. We stood outside the bus as the girls reentered. When we stepped back in, we took different places. There was someone between us, and we didn’t speak again.

...And Release

by: R.Kafri

I release you…I release me of you and search for peace away from anything that is you. I am letting you go. I am freeing you and me. I am turning my back to the dead end and moving into the open streets. I want to forget you in Ramallah, because I met you in Ramallah. I want me to dissolve into the city’s shadows until you no longer haunt my sleep, my food, my morning runs, until you forget me and I can no longer remember you. I am letting you go, not for you to come back, but for you to disappear into the dust of dug up streets, into the remains of old deserted buildings, into the ghosts of old homes turned into high rises, into the brightness of neon signs, the loudness of Thursday nights at Orjuwan, and the mist of argeeleh at Azure. Vanish! Please go and let me go… I release you to melt into the smells of hot Eiffel Knafeh, and sizzling Abu Khalil Falafel. I release you into the sounds of car horns, the call to prayer, and church bells ringing. I am releasing you into your city, my city…OUR city.

I walk through the streets hoping to forget you on the corner of Rukab or to accidently drop you at the Manara. I walk from one store to the other gradually picking up my pace hoping to shake you off. I want to discard you like an empty Zaman cup, like a half eaten shawirma sandwich from Abu Al Abed. Release me, let me go like a helium balloon so that the wind can pick me up and elevate me. Set me free so I am free to see you or not see you, to miss you or not miss you…

I release you, release me…

But oh how miserable I am! Because every time I let you go, I find a way to leave you behind, the city reminds me of you, for you are the city, and the city is me, and we are of each other….

Peace, peace, peace….and release

To the skeletons that haunt us, to the past that makes us, to the present that shapes us and to the future that fills us with hope, lets hope...

The View from my Room

*By David Moser

I have a room here in Palestine. In my room I have my water bottle I bought on a rainy day early last spring on the Jersey shore. My parents and brother and I were visiting my grandparents at Easter. My grandfather can’t walk more than a few steps now. We love him. He feels worse than he has to because he lets himself get dehydrated. It’s very hard on my grandmother to care for him all the time. After a while in the living room, with the TV turned up high, we get a bit of cabin fever. When it’s cold and cloudy like it was this Easter we don’t really want to go to the beach, so we go the mall. That’s where I bought my water bottle.

I can sit in my room here and notice my bottle and remember that afternoon with my parents and brother and how we laughed about how we dislike the mall. That afternoon my brother moved an expensive copy of the Bible to the “Religious Fiction” section of the Borders Express.

On my desk here I have a postcard of the Cloisters in New York. I lived in Inwood off and on for nine months and spent afternoons in Fort Tryon Park reading short stories and noticing the seasons changing. That’s where I read the first story of Dubliners and thought of how cruel the sun is to leave us as it does after the summer. How quickly it seems to lose interest. Of course the first cool day feels great. To be warmed by our bodies inside of wool or cotton rather than the fire of the sun. We warm ourselves! But by March we are very cold. The park is also where I sat and thought of how Tegan too cooled to me. I walked through the park when my heart was still beating hard knowing I was moving to Palestine. I walked there before I told my parents.

From my room, I hear fireworks most nights. The first time I was very scared. My first night here I heard booms from the street. After the booms I heard bottles breaking. I was nervous and didn’t know what I could be hearing. It wasn’t fireworks. It sounded like demolition maybe. I didn’t know what demolition sounded like. I went to sleep. My second night here I was taken out for argelia and tea. We smoked a block from the huge ugly wall those who follow events here, hear so much about. It’s covered in political paint: slogans, maps, promises. That night my hosts drove me home. We turned a corner and found Israeli soldiers blocking the intersection to my building. One of them pointed his rifle at us and screamed “lech lech lech” (go go go) as he approached our car. It was dark. I think he was scared. The other soldiers kept focus on the men down the block. The men down the block stood behind dumpsters tipped on their sides in the road to block the army jeeps. They knew the soldiers would come that night. The dumpsters make booms as they are pushed on their sides and bottles fall out and break. It hadn’t been demolition. We made a three point turn and drove away from the fighting. I was in the back seat and shaking. We drove to the back roads. I asked my host if he was scared. He told me only a little, and that Kevin Costner was one of his favorite actors. I thought of Field of Dreams and playing baseball with my father. On weekends he took me to the little league field and pitched to me and hit me ground balls. There were no soldiers on the back roads. When I got to my apartment my hands were still shaking when I unlocked the door. And still when I locked it behind me.

The third night here I stayed in. I spent the night with my laptop. I like telling people that Barack Obama gave me my laptop. A year ago I was in Poplar Bluff working for the campaign. I spent days organizing democrats and nights reporting numbers and printing canvassing materials. By the end of the campaign I had a guard with a gun at the office twenty four hours a day. It was also a scary place to be at night. I don’t tell many Palestinians that Barack Obama gave me my computer. Many would not be impressed. It was the third night that I first heard fireworks. I didn’t know they were fireworks. I did know there had been street fighting the night before. I thought the new booms were guns. I would have enjoyed a quiet night, and think many others might have also, but a wedding calls for fireworks here, and the show goes on. The happy nights and the terrible ones both come with booms. Many years on the Fourth of July, my parents took my brother and me to see the Pittsfield Mets play in Wahconah Park. They were a triple A team, full of young, hard-working players chasing their major league dreams in a park named after a princess of an exiled and exterminated Indian tribe in a city depressed by addiction and the closure of the General Electric plant. After the Fourth of July games, fans could walk onto the field and watch the largest fireworks display in the county. I remember feeling the booms in my ribs and leaning against my parents. I only came up to their chests then. After the fireworks we would avoid the heaviest of departure traffic by going through the back streets of residential Pittsfield. In that neighborhood, fat old white women watched us pass from their porches where they had also watched the fireworks. On those car rides home, I usually fell asleep.

*David Moser works at Al Quds University and lives in Abu Dis, where he talks to people in the streets and looks at the mountains of Jordan.

Diaries of a Daily Commuter: Morning of Random Thoughts

by: R.Kafri

Disclaimer from author: I have been suffering from blogger's block for two weeks. The pressure to produce an entry did not help. The chaos we have experienced at work has left me uncentered and filled with random thoughts. I am sharing with you one of my free writes...This is in no way meant to be a literary piece of art.

Instructions for reading this blog: assume a very sarcastic posture. Please do not read too much into it. Read with a deep bored monotone with an occasional high pitch when asking questions. Again, do not read too much into it. Close your eyes and imagine the actual commute. Laugh (well let’s hope you will find this funny, if you don’t, wait for the next entry, perhaps that will be more of your style).

7:00 a.m. Morning coffee with milk, no sugar….No No anise cookie, too many calories…

SMS to Colleague: Meet me downstairs, on my way

Facebook Status update: Abu Dis

7:10 a.m. Exiting Ramallah…sound of heart breaking, no seriously, heart breaks. I have become a local, cannot get away from this city…that is sad…very sad….

7:15 a.m. Stuck in Qalandia traffic, no reason for traffic jam, yet stuck in traffic. Oh wait, Qalandia checkpoint is blocked, so there IS a reason.

Facebook Status update: stuck in Qalandia

To my right: the Wall. Favorite graphite entry: Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

Random thought crosses my mind. What if Israel had a Facebook account? Imagine the notifications:

Oppressed Palestinian just wrote on your wall

Angry and humiliated Palestinian drew on your wall.

Pissed off Palestinian woman posted a link on your wall

Solidarity expatriate posted the Apartheid application on your wall.

The US sent you a message: can you please please, pretty please keep the settlement freeze…love ya!

Angry, but very smart Palestinian just infiltrated your wall.

England just tagged you in a note: The Belfour Declaration

Hamas > Israel, you are going down with handmade rockets baby!!

Still at a standstill; to my left: The Camping Center. Tents, tarps, and all camping needs… A camping center in the middle of a refugee camp, anyone here sees the irony? (Note to self: excellent blog entry, must write about this sometime).

8:00 a.m. Finally made it outside of Qalandia; on the “open road” (if you call that an open road); more like an open death trap. It should have a disclaimer: Drive at your own risk, loose pot holes, high speed bumps and armed settlers. Why hasn’t anyone made this into a video game yet? Hmmmmm……

8:05 a.m. stopped again at Jaba3 checkpoint, no reason whatsoever. Ok this one is brief, back on the “open road,” if you call that an open road.

8:08 a.m. stuck behind a slow driving settler. Are you serious? You want to take our land, build on it illegally, banish us from our own roads, and then drive slowly on the ones we can actually use?! Get out of my face FOOL! My mental tirade, pleas, demands and threats make no significant different. The road finally turns into two lanes, if you call those two lanes.

8:18 a.m. Arrive in Hizmah…here is a question, what the hell is Hizmah?! (Must discuss in blog entry)

8:20 a.m. Back on the open road, if you call that an open road. Cars are flashing their lights at me. I am so popular this fine morning. Oh wait that means there are police on the road, and….

8:25 a.m. Stopped by Israeli police. He has the nerve to smile at me. I hand him my papers. He asks me if I know why he stopped me, and all I can think off, I bet I am about to find out.

Facebook status update: getting a ticket by Israeli police for ignoring a stop sign, please don’t tell my mother!!

Policemen hands ticket and says: “don’t ignore stop signs,” and I want to say, would like to ignore your entire state if I can!

8:35 a.m. Back on the open road, the only portion of the road that comes close to an open road. To my right a Jerusalem Exit. The Exit I can never take. Here is a thought, what do you call an exit you cannot take? According to the dictionary, exit is a passage out; a way to leave. But if this exit is never going to be my way out, or my way to leave, should I even be calling it an exit? Huh? What... I need coffee.

8: 45 a.m. Arrive in Azarriyyeh…Thank you USAID for the new controversial road! From your people to my people! (Please note the sarcasm) Only in Palestine can a road be controversial!

9:00 a.m. After squeezing my car through the old roads in Abu Dis, I am on campus.

Facebook status update: In Abu Dis; in other words NOT in Ramallah….