I am a Palestinian.
I am practicing this statement. I realize that I never say that single naked statement. I always feel compelled to modify it, like I am a Palestinian Christian, or I am an Israeli Arab, or I am an American Palestinian.
This has confused some people. I spent six months preparing some students to travel to the West Bank, and talked all about the history, political and religious issues of the region. After spending a week in Hebron and Bethlehem, one of my students told me that he had not realized that I was a Palestinian. He knew that I was something else, and that I wasn’t Jewish, but didn’t realize that I was one of the, you know, Palestinians. He had known me for three years and he didn’t know that I was a Palestinian.
This is, of course, my fault. I have a way of reading people, of knowing what is socially comfortable and uncomfortable, and of being diplomatic. I don’t want to commit the faux-pas. There are few things more horrifying, I have learned, than rattling along in a new culture and suddenly realizing that everyone is staring at you like you have toilet paper attached to your pants. I didn’t know that was rude, you want to say, but you know that no one will believe you. I spend much of my time studying my world, trying to avoid these situations, trying to make others feel comfortable. I have succeeded. They are all very comfortable.
Words that make people squirm: wall. occupation. desperation.
I live right outside of Washington, DC, so you would think that people are comfortable around politics. But politics here are very different. People chose a side the way people chose a sports team, and then they cheer very loudly from the sidelines, Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other. Some are hard core fans, others just pick a team because they need something to wear to the game. What I have found is this: it’s impolite to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. You cannot say what you really think about the war unless the person nearby agrees with you already. So, you feel people out, check to see what color they are wearing before making comments. This is a great system: everyone stays cool and comfortable.
Now, there are times when you can have a political argument, say, at a politically charged dinner party. But if you want to be polite about it, you need to preface it with lots of humble, defacing statements about everyone having a perspective, etc.
I know it’s just my perspective, being a Palestinian and all, but have you noticed that massive concrete wall with an armed surveillance tower that is snaking around my village?
It doesn’t seem to work.
There are reasons for the wall, they tell me. There is security. There is Yasser Arafat. I nod, and I say, have you seen the wall? Do you remember dancing in front of your television when the Berlin Wall came down? Is it okay with you that you are paying to put up a new one?
Ah, that was different. And they tell me all of the reasons why—that was Communism and this is Palestinian. I nod. What happens, do you think, to the woman who used to look out her kitchen window and see olive groves, and now looks up from her potatoes and sees the concrete wall and barbed wire? Does she thank God every morning?
But of course, I don’t say many of these things because soon my friends shift in their seats and wish that I would move on to another topic. They want me to say that there are two sides to every story and that it is understandable and justifiable and that nothing is perfect and that we all have to just get along. Especially at dinner parties.
And I say that yes, there are two sides, but how would we know what the other side looks like since we are locked into our side of the wall? And I tell them that living behind a wall is so horrifying that we draw pictures on the wall, pictures of hills and trees and flowers and kites and we write under the picture, “This is our home.”
I am practicing this statement. I realize that I never say that single naked statement. I always feel compelled to modify it, like I am a Palestinian Christian, or I am an Israeli Arab, or I am an American Palestinian.
This has confused some people. I spent six months preparing some students to travel to the West Bank, and talked all about the history, political and religious issues of the region. After spending a week in Hebron and Bethlehem, one of my students told me that he had not realized that I was a Palestinian. He knew that I was something else, and that I wasn’t Jewish, but didn’t realize that I was one of the, you know, Palestinians. He had known me for three years and he didn’t know that I was a Palestinian.
This is, of course, my fault. I have a way of reading people, of knowing what is socially comfortable and uncomfortable, and of being diplomatic. I don’t want to commit the faux-pas. There are few things more horrifying, I have learned, than rattling along in a new culture and suddenly realizing that everyone is staring at you like you have toilet paper attached to your pants. I didn’t know that was rude, you want to say, but you know that no one will believe you. I spend much of my time studying my world, trying to avoid these situations, trying to make others feel comfortable. I have succeeded. They are all very comfortable.
Words that make people squirm: wall. occupation. desperation.
I live right outside of Washington, DC, so you would think that people are comfortable around politics. But politics here are very different. People chose a side the way people chose a sports team, and then they cheer very loudly from the sidelines, Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other. Some are hard core fans, others just pick a team because they need something to wear to the game. What I have found is this: it’s impolite to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. You cannot say what you really think about the war unless the person nearby agrees with you already. So, you feel people out, check to see what color they are wearing before making comments. This is a great system: everyone stays cool and comfortable.
Now, there are times when you can have a political argument, say, at a politically charged dinner party. But if you want to be polite about it, you need to preface it with lots of humble, defacing statements about everyone having a perspective, etc.
I know it’s just my perspective, being a Palestinian and all, but have you noticed that massive concrete wall with an armed surveillance tower that is snaking around my village?
It doesn’t seem to work.
There are reasons for the wall, they tell me. There is security. There is Yasser Arafat. I nod, and I say, have you seen the wall? Do you remember dancing in front of your television when the Berlin Wall came down? Is it okay with you that you are paying to put up a new one?
Ah, that was different. And they tell me all of the reasons why—that was Communism and this is Palestinian. I nod. What happens, do you think, to the woman who used to look out her kitchen window and see olive groves, and now looks up from her potatoes and sees the concrete wall and barbed wire? Does she thank God every morning?
But of course, I don’t say many of these things because soon my friends shift in their seats and wish that I would move on to another topic. They want me to say that there are two sides to every story and that it is understandable and justifiable and that nothing is perfect and that we all have to just get along. Especially at dinner parties.
And I say that yes, there are two sides, but how would we know what the other side looks like since we are locked into our side of the wall? And I tell them that living behind a wall is so horrifying that we draw pictures on the wall, pictures of hills and trees and flowers and kites and we write under the picture, “This is our home.”
Despite my arm-long list of places where I have lived, this too is my home.
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