Intensive Arabic Semester

Photos & text:  Lydia Aisenberg

Left: East Barta’a under the Palestinian Authority and below: West Barta’a in the State of Israel

The first intifada (Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993) began in Gaza and very quickly spread throughout the whole of the West Bank.  Unlike the second intifada of the year 2000, the Israeli Arab population did not physically join the Palestinian attempt to ‘shake off’ as the Arabic word means, the as then 20-year Israeli presence in Gaza and the West Bank.

In the Wadi Ara village of Barta’a, part of which having ended up on the West Bank side of the 1949 drawn Armistice Line and part on the Israeli side, the Palestinian East Barta’ans participated in the intifada whilst their close family members on the Israeli side, citizens of the State of Israel, watched in fear and trepidation as IDF soldiers climbed on to the roofs of their houses and launched tear gas shells over the Armistice Line - a one and half meter deep ditch that runs between the two portions of the village - in order to quell disturbances on the other side.

The 6-year long intifada took a heavy toll on the relationship between the Arab Muslim residents of East and West Barta’a, all of whom members of the same extended family, or hamula as known locally - best translation of that Arabic word, clan.  After a period of time and the Kabha’s on the Israeli side refusing to join in the stone and rock throwing, burning of tires and forages into nearby Jewish communities to damage property, the local mosque in East Barta’a began to not only call local folks to prayer five times a day over the loudspeakers just as easily heard in West Barta’a, but in between tried to entice their Israeli citizenship holding family members to join in and “fight the fight, push the Jews into the sea and return Palestine to the Palestinians.”

When there was no response to the come-and-join call, the Palestinians – holders of Jordanian citizenship after that country annexed the West Bank in April, 1950 – began to call them traitors.

In the mid-1980s I began working at the Givat Haviva Educational Center situated in Wadi Ara founded in 1949 by the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz movement with a major focus on fostering positive relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.  Before the intifada broke out I felt very much at home taking groups of overseas students, academics, journalists, youth movement members, educators and many others from abroad to the what had been a rather sleepy off-the-beaten track village, a stone’s throw – excuse the pun – from the main Route 65 highway, a busy thoroughfare passing between the Menashe and Amir mountain ranges.  The tours continued, but with limited numbers of people, for the whole intifada period.

The complications of being an Arab born this or that side of the ditch that was designated to become the deepest of divides between those people has always fascinated me and no less so most of those I have accompanied there, through thick and thin periods of the on-going conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

During the first intifada whilst walking with a group of some 20 black American educators in East Barta’a close to the ditch, a young boy – about ten years old – suddenly threw an egg-sized stone in our direction.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him raise his hand but my reflexes were not quick enough to get out of the way and the stone connected with the side of my head.  It hurt – both physically and emotionally.

Interestingly enough the black American teachers were positive the stone had been aimed at them, because they were black!  As a splitting headache developed at the same rate as a golf-ball sized bump on my head, a discussion broke out as to really whom he had intended to hit – I guess I still believe it was aimed at me - the Israeli - and they to this day well over 20 years later, will probably tell you it was meant for them but the kid had a lousy throwing arm.

Looking back on that incident I now realize just how much of a watershed experience that was.  I never told my husband about the rock on my head or complained to him about the headache and was thankful that my hair was long, the bump on the right side of my head well covered.  I didn’t tell him because I knew he would ask me to stop working at Givat Haviva and being involved in Israeli-Palestinian educational projects after this particular encounter of a rather nasty kind.

I made the decision to continue not because I am of a particularly stubborn nature – which I suppose I am actually – but based on the fact that I could not, would not, let a 10 year-old be the one who would alter my belief that once people meet and listen to each other there is often an acceptance that the other has a right to a different narrative but also discover they share a great deal in common upon which it is possible to begin to build positively if they so desire. 

The rock-slinging boy would now be somewhere in his early 30s.  I wonder if he has ever given any thought to the day he chucked that rock and why the lady he managed to clobber is still bringing so many people to Barta’a, to meet and speak with those living on either side of their and our divide.

The remnants of a Palestinian flag flap droopily at the end of metal pole above the girl’s high school in East Barta’a.  The school comes under the Palestinian Ministry of Education and when school is in the flag goes up.

Inside a large courtyard devoid of any greenery and the walls rough concrete, a number of teachers make their way from classrooms to the gate.  Two groups of teenage school girls, six or seven in each group, sit against the wall on either side of a corner.  In both groups they are gathered around a weeping mate, trying to calm them with hugs and whispering words of support.

Must be the day of exam results I think to myself.  The poor girls haven’t made good enough grades, bawling their eyes out in disappointment I shouldn’t wonder.

Some of the girls smile and say ‘Salaam’ as I pass by.  Most of them are dressed in traditional clothing, some dark colors others quite lively, and all have head coverings.  They are not at all fazed at the sight of someone who could almost be their grandmother in age but certainly not in appearance as very much doubt any of the young ladies grannies would be wearing jeans, a tee shirt and no head covering. 

The office of the local council is situated just off the school courtyard, as is the mosque, madras and a well-baby clinic.  A sign on the wall in English and Arabic states that work carried out in the area was done by a certain contractor on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

I’ve come to meet Marwan Kabha a local businessman and one of the founders the East Barta’a Council.  The council office is also off the school courtyard and somewhat dwarfed by the enormous yellow domed mosque built in recent years to replace a much smaller that collapsed on the same site some years ago.

Marwan explains that the girls weeping their hearts out are seniors who have finished their high-school education and overcome with emotion at graduating.

“This is the last day of the school year, for them the very last day of school altogether.  They are very sad to leave the premises for the final time as schoolgirls,” explains Marwan the owner of a number of shoe shops in the rapidly expanding village. 

Conducting a conversation with Marwan Kabha is not too easy as apart from his mobile phone constantly ringing almost everybody passing by seems to want to ask or tell him something – and he patiently finds time for all of them.

“There is so much going on now what with the end of the school year, building projects, permits to be renewed and the finalization of a sewage project we hope to see working very soon,” he explains.

The sewage system is actually situated in a meter-deep ditch that was mistakenly taken for the continuation of the deep valley behind the village by representatives of Israel, Egypt and the United Nations meeting in Rhodes and drawing up the 1949 Armistice Line.  That mistake was to become a more than costly one for the villagers of Barta’a as the ditch became a divide between two parts of the village, one part slated to end up in the State of Israel and the other to be annexed by Jordan.

Basically the hundreds of villagers – all from the same extended family - were divided into two different countries, were to receive different citizenships from each other and the two countries would continue to be in conflict for many years.  What were around 400 in 1949 has become around the 9,000 mark in 2011, one third on the Israeli side of the divide and two-thirds nowadays under the PA in the West Bank.

A few middle-aged women teachers approach Marwan with a number of questions.  One of them looks distinctly European, her attractive face sporting not a small amount of makeup through which freckles still quite prominent, whilst another teacher who is black, scrutinizes the Israeli visitor from head to toe.

“Who are you and where are you from?” she asks in English peering closely at the Magen David around my neck.

“I am Israeli and from the Givat Haviva Peace Education Center,” I reply.

“What are you doing here?” she asks but before I can reply states that she is from the Jenin refugee camp and then rushes off behind the other ladies who are leaving the courtyard.

Marwan begins to address the questions I had asked before the teachers approached but before he actually gets any words out of his mouth a rather attractive young girl wearing slacks, long sleeved cotton shirt and scarf pulled tightly over her head, rushes up to tell him something.  From the way she is looking at him and patting his arm as she speaks, it is obvious she is his daughter.

When she turns to carry on wherever she is going, a group of young men struggle to carry a photocopying machine down the steep flight of stairs leading to the second floor of the madras behind us.  A few of the young men say shalom and one stops for a short chat in English and tells of working in Israeli supermarkets during the summer holidays and reels off the names of kibbutzim and towns where he has spent time packing shelves and carrying customers heavy bags.

When there is a slight break in the people traffic going through the courtyard and the mobile taking some time out, a chance for Marwan to explain about the relationship between the local East Barta’a Council and the Palestinian Authority in Jenin – about 20 kilometers away but a security fence and checkpoint between them.

What does it mean for the Council to be answerable to the Palestinian Authority and do you receive a salary from them?

“Salary, are you kidding.  For those of us in the council it’s more a case of it costing us money rather than making money! The Palestinian Authority are responsible for the infrastructure and civil administration here in East Barta’a as we are an Area B in accordance with the Oslo agreement,” he explains.

“Every new building we want to construct means applying for building permission in Jenin, plans need to be submitted, passed and licenses issued.  All the official paperwork for births, marriages and deaths needs to be processed in Jenin as does the arranging of all the different kinds of permits for the residents of East Barta’a.”

Marwan is personally responsible for following through on all the permits – and they are many.  Palestinians living in the area need to carry papers allowing them to remain in their homes, a permit that needs renewing every year.  They also need permits to be able to pass through the checkpoint to go to the banks, hospitals, clinics, do shopping and visit relatives on the other side of the security fence.  There are those in the village who are allowed to work in Israel but need special permits to cross over the – or rather walk over – the ditch that is the Green Line running diagonally through the village.  All this paperwork Marwan does on behalf of the local residents – a job he took upon himself when the elderly village mayor who dealt with such things before the council was formed, died.

“A number of us realized that we needed to start to take care of things for ourselves, that our situation here in East Barta’a with the Green Line on one side and the security fence on the other meant that we were in a more than complicated situation and if we didn’t take the reins ourselves nothing would improve,” said Marwan before adding that whatever goes on in East Barta’a is known by the Palestinian Authority in Jenin.

The schools for the younger children and separate high-schools for boys and girls in the village all come under the Palestinian Ministry of Education and the locals cars are registered with the Palestinian Ministry of Transport although many of the plates in East Barta’a have the yellow Israeli issued ones.  Over the years there have been many marriages between East Barta’ans and West Barta’ans and other Arab folks from the immediate area on the Israeli side known as Wadi Ara.  About 50% of East Barta’a today has Israeli citizenship or Teodat Zehut (ID) through those marriages although for the last six or seven years no longer can Palestinians obtain Israeli citizenship through marriage as in the past.

What about collection of taxes and to whom do they go?

“Local businessmen pay some tax, well most of them do anyway,” he replies with a laugh.  Astonishingly there are no less than over a thousand ‘businesses’ working in East Barta’a today.  The ‘businesses’ are anything from a hole in the wall kiosk selling falafel to small shops selling herbs, fruit and vegetables, shoes, clothing, kitchen wear, furniture and a large selection of colorful decorative what-on-earth-would-I-need-that-for items imported from China, Korea and Taiwan.  Approaching the outskirts of the village in the direction of the checkpoint, huge areas filled with the twisted metal carcasses of every make of car one could possibly spot on the Israeli roads as well as other ‘businesses’ taking up large plots full of building materials, stone and marble pillars and balustrades popular with the Palestinian home builders as well as the Arab citizens in Israel.  The latter come in their droves to shop in East Barta’a where the prices are a lot lower than those in the nearby Arab towns and cities over the Green Line – just – in the State of Israel.  In the last year or so the number of Druze from Israel shopping in Barta’a has been very noticeable because of their traditional dress – women wearing long black dresses and white scarves loosely sitting on their heads, the men’s headdress being very similar to the Turkish tarbush – and the religious among them wearing baggy pants.

Things look pretty good in Barta’a but if one scratches a bit under the surface there’s a great deal more than meets the eye.  Many of the young Palestinians working there do not have permission to be on the Israeli side of the fence but they certainly are.  They cannot pass through a checkpoint and use a ‘smuggling service’ run by Israeli Arabs and some Jews – last year one religious Jewish woman living in a West Bank settlement was caught trying to smuggle Palestinian workers through a checkpoint.  They were squashed in to a false compartment built between the driver’s cab and the back portion of the vehicle.

I have been told by these young men that they pay anywhere between 250 – 400 shekels to get across from ‘over there to over here’ and of course the same amount exchanges hands once more when they want to pay a visit home.  For someone earning 10 shekels an hour that is a hell of a lot of money.

There are hundreds such Palestinians living and working on the Israeli side of the fence but mostly in the area that has sprung up and I have named Limboland – not here, not there … a large swath of land between security fence and Green Line.

Marwan can be found often at the checkpoint of Barta’a – either waiting for someone to come through from the Jenin area or when he is on his way to the Autonomous Palestinian city in order to get papers put in order and have the PA stamp of approval on decisions made by the East Barta’an Council.  I had met him at the checkpoint a few days earlier whilst accompanying a group of Norwegian students on a one-day study tour organized by Givat Haviva.

In the middle of the courtyard of the East Barta’a girl’s school there sits a very large and quite deep stagnant puddle – dark green algae covering most of it.  Apparently this has been caused by a rupture in the water pipes leading out of the mosque.  When I question Marwan about the stagnant water, a class A breeding ground for disease spreading mosquitoes, he proudly points out that in the near future that also will disappear once the new sewage system kicks into action.

Rightly proud of the progress made in East Barta’a the last year or so Marwan is painfully aware that there is still a considerable amount to be done with the infrastructure of the village, educational and health facilities of the residents but he says, he’s hopeful for the future of his portion of the divided village of Barta’a.

Having met teachers from that school some six months ago who said they had not been paid a salary from anywhere between one to two years, Marwan Kabha explained that because Israel had held up moving over the millions of shekels collected by the State from Palestinians working in Israel, importing goods through the ports of Israel, there had not been sufficient funds to pay the teachers.  “Most of the teachers have now been paid,” he says.  When I had spoken to the teachers not one of them made a connection between withheld taxes from Israel and their plight at the time.

About to leave, I point out to Marwan that his pride in the Palestinian part of Barta’a and the way things are panning out is very strongly felt and suggested that the tattered flag be replaced with a new one.

“Of course, before school starts again there will be a new flag for sure,” he replies, above the babble of chatter as another group of young men descend the steps of the madras, greeting Marwan as they pass.