Ramallah
Today’s been an easy day tour-wise, at least for me. After last night’s discussion of overscheduling, we got to sleep longer this morning. Then we walked just a few blocks away to SHAML, the Palestinian Refugee and Diaspora Center. The director, Sari Hanafi, described their work documenting the status of Palestinian refugees (through oral histories and other means) and analyzing the complexity of dealing with refugee problems. Hanafi distinguished between the center’s work on the sociology of Return from more political treatment of the right of Return. The whole issue seems to me to go to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Another attendee at the meeting whose last name I don’t remember was part of the negotiating team the last time Israelis and Palestinians discussed the issue. He candidly noted that “Return is a fantasy” because in so many cases there is nothing to return to, houses and entire villages having been demolished. Given the choice, he noted, many refugees would go to Canada rather than Israel. He and Hanafi both discussed how having the “right” to return didn’t mean most refugees would actually move. Hanafi’s discussion of what factors make refugees in general return when given the chance made a lot of sense to me.
Saleem made another point I hadn’t heard before. Although Israeli resistance to Palestinian return is generally attributed to Israel’s fear of losing its character as a Jewish state (something that increasingly seems to be a long-term impossibility), Israeli negotiators also worried that an influx of religious Muslims could tilt the political balance in another way: They could form a coalition with Israel’s Jewish religious political parties, which represent a minority of Israelis. A joint Jewish-Islamic religious coalition could escalate religious dominance. Just as marriage in Israel is now regulated completely by religious authorities, with no civil marriage allowed, at some point in the future much more could be left completely to each religious community to decide on its own, leaving nonreligious Israelis subjected to even more religious control.
After the meeting a bunch of us wandered through downtown Ramallah, taking photos, trying to decipher the many election campaign posters (like those at our hotel, in the photo), buying newspapers, eating the cheapest falafel I ever had (three shekels, about 20 cents). At one point an older man started screaming at us, apparently offended by one woman’s hip-revealing clothing. We moved on, though, without incident. Indeed, although wherever we go we attract attention, especially from children (who most often want us to take their pictures) and beggars, we’ve had generally easy interactions. Not everyone is happy to see us — resentment fills more eyes than is sometimes comfortable — but no one has had any problems even when temporarily separated from the group. One woman today got lost today and asked someone for directions back to the hotel; he insisted on driving her back here, and she accepted despite knowing she wouldn’t have in the States.
I decided to prolong my easy day and, after a short talk on water issues (about Israel’s overuse of West Bank water and corresponding restrictions on Palestinian water use, another sad story of power and powerlessness), I took a nap instead of joining the group’s afternoon agenda. I missed a talk on medical issues, and then a visit to Yasser Arafat’s grave, which would have been interesting to see despite my difficulty looking past Arafat’s many faults.
Now I’m doing this blog thing, though it looks like the hotel’s wireless connection, which worked earlier, is now down, so I’m not sure when I’ll get this posted. In a couple of hours we meet for a late New Year’s Eve dinner. I wonder if we’ll be able to tell the difference between fireworks and shooting.
Happy New Year.
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? ISAMISTS. ONE FOOL DRAWS A CARTOON IN DENMARK THAT OFFENDS THE RELIGION OF ISLAM AND ALL OF DENMARK SHOULD BE BLOWN UP. I SAY. IF THIS IS THE WAY ISLAMIC PEOPLE THINK THEN… RIGHT BACK AT YA. ALL OF YA. THEY WANT THE END OF THE WORLD THEN LETS GIVE IT TO THEM. THERE IS NO PLACE IN THE WORLD FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE REASONED WITH.