An Unlikely Friendship
Aug. 12th, 2014 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ymarkovThe following is a translation of this Hebrew Facebook post.
Здесь русский перевод.
July 22 2014
I come to tell you a long story that I’ve kept inside me since the first day of this action.
Many of my friends who call themselves leftists diligently tell me of Israel’s army crimes and the “humanitarian holocaust” we have inflicted on the Palestinian people. One woman whose name I won’t mention even reacted to my today’s post, in which I excoriate Hamas (possibly it’s not entirely correct) by saying: “There’s enough poison on the Web.” Well, I think there’s not enough poison on the Web, because my hatred of Hamas is cause not just by Hamas’ hatred of me; it’s caused by what they do with their own people, who already have it hard living in Gaza.
Hamas has turned the life of Gazans into hell on earth. Hamas has trampled on their rights, their dignity, has turned them into cannon fodder, into living shields. It bothers them and forces them to obey, and woe to the resistor.
So how can one say that Hamas represents Gazans? It’s not so! Hamas has turned into a monster before which Gazans quake! Yes, no less than before the Zionist enemy.
How do I know this? That’s what you can learn from what I will tell you now. Whether you believe me or not, I do not wish death on the Gazans, because they’re people too, and it’s awful to wish death on another. So before you start up BS about the “slaughter by IDF in Gaza,” remember that Gazans have not one, but two enemies, and Hamas is the crueler of them.
I met Bashir in Los Angeles at the Harley-Davidson 90th anniversary show. I had a T-shirt with Hebrew writing, and I noticed a person who watched me with a strange expression. I already don’t remember how we started talking; when he told me his name was Bashir I had a negative first reaction, but as we started discussing our mutual love – motorcycles – he started opening up more and more.
He came there from Gaza, from Shudjaya (not Sudjaya as we like to call it here). He had worked construction in Israel for several years and saved money to become an electronics engineer. Two years in the USA already, he was close to finishing. He told me that he had lived in Tel Aviv for a long time, working construction and in restaurants, and like it usually is with Israelis, we soon discovered mutual acquaintances.
That’s how my friendship with Bashir started. We would meet for a sandwich, since he didn’t drink. “Forbidden!” he would say, and I would accept with a sigh the fact that we couldn’t have an evening drink together. After a short time he introduced Fatan to me.
Fatan was from a rich Bethlehem family that, absurdly, made its fortune from selling souvenirs to Christian pilgirms. It also had a small hotel. A well-off family. Fatan studied in Bir Zeit University and came to Berkley through an exchange program. She was a very smart girl. Strangely, it was funny wto watch Bashir court Fatan. She would joke with me, saying that in reality I was a Palestinian, too, since I came from Palestine …
To my regret, the time came for me to return to Israel. We kept up a not too tight telephonic relationship.
Bashir was very enthusiastic about everything that was in the air prior to Oslo. “Your General Rabin is the man. You’ll see, he’ll make something good here.” I was skeptical, and told Bashir that we’ll see. In the end, he was right and the Oslo agreement was signed.
Next week he told me with joy that his brother and some other people from the Palestinian Autonomy were coming to Israel, and that he was going back to Shudjaya. “I have a surprise for you,” he told me. “Fatan and I decided to get married. Her family made some problems, but inshallah, everything will be fine.” I couldn’t come to the wedding.
In subsequent years he told me how they were building Gaza, about Fatan’s first pregnancy, that her parents were sending them a lot of money to build their house but beg them to leave Gaza and settle in Bethlehem, close to them.
And then the Al-Aksa Intifada happened. I called him to ask how he was. Funnily, I was standing on an APC’s running board, looking at Ramallah. In an unfriendly tone he said: “This pig Sharon of yours comes to destroy everything.” I didn’t know what to tell him and only asked him to take care of himself. He added some non-committal phrases and hung up.
Our conversations continued, but even less often. One day he told me that he was sick of the PA and its corrupted officials. “They drive around in Mercedeses, while … valla, if not for the money from Fatan’s parents, we’d be without food. I’ve been unemployed for half a year already, and I can’t work in Israel. Those whores take everything for themselves, but now we have Hamas and they will straighten out the corruption. I will vote for them.”
I became angry. I told him that with all due respect to Hamas, I didn’t trust them, that they looked scary to me. Bashir disagreed: “Hamas are religious people, honest men, not like those pigs from the PA. Do you know how much zakat (charity) they dispense to people? Just here in Shudjaya they’ve fixed the houses of all the elderly …” “Bashir,” I said to him, “this doesn’t come free, they have their own interest.” We disagreed, and Bashir went to vote for Hamas. During the first days he told me how Hamas began straightening everything out, how they exiled all the criminals from Gaza (meaning Fatah people, who definitely earned that moniker.) And then the Kassams began …
It was hard to talk to Bashir when Sderot was being hit from his home, from Gaza. I mentioned that there were civilians in Sderot, and he said: “What do you want? You, too, fire on us.”
Gradually our calls became very infrequent. Usually he would call, but after he hadn’t called for a long time, I decided to dial him myself. At first he didn’t want to admit it, but then he told me that the situation was getting worse and worse, and that Hamas people were establishing a terror regime in the city. “It’s forbidden for anyone to open his mouth,” he said in a pained whisper.
One day he called me, and this time he was in really low spirits. He told me that his firstborn son had been drafted into Hamas’s youth brigade; he tried to prevent it with no success. He confessed that he knew how they were brainwashing the youngsters, and that he didn’t want his son to become a shahid. “I’ve put so much into this child. All this time I kept him from all the young lowlifes we have here. He’s a model student. Why? Why does he want to go with them?”
Operation Cast Lead was like thunder out of a clear sky. As usual, when I spoke to Bashir I asked him to take care, I told him that the Israeli army was going there to stomp on Hamas. His response was : “Kulu min Allah!”
I was in an area relatively far from Shudjaya, in Zaitun, when I got a call from Bashir, and he sounded frightened. “Hamas is on my roof,” he said in a frightened whisper. “Zionist tanks are firing on everything here. A bit more time, and a tank will fire a shell into my house.” “Run from there!” I told Bashir. “Take Fatan and the kids and run, run to Zaitun. It won’t be bad at all there.”
“I’m afraid,” Bashir said. “Hamas people told us that whoever flees his house will be branded a coward and prosecuted … I can’t.”
I tried calling some guys I knew. It’s funny, but I had no idea which of those houses could be Bashir’s, and the commanders in the area couldn’t understand what this crazy reserve officer wanted to explain about some house that can’t be shelled.
Once Cast Lead was over, Bashir’s phone conversations began telling about the real Gaza – Hamas’ Gaza. He told me about people who dared say that not everything there was fine, and then disappeared in the middle of the night … About the new laws that sent to the two new large prisons, built by Hamas, people guilty of “adultery,” “treason,” and the worst crime: “assisting America or the Zionist enemy.” About how his son was forced to participate in a Hamas execution. About Hamas men raping girls who were then jailed for “adultery.” About how a girl without a head covering can get beaten with sticks in the middle of the road, about how Hamas men roar around on motorcycles, Land Rovers, and Mercedeses, all stolen in Israel, with clubs in their hands, attacking anyone they want, sometimes beating up people just for fun.
During Cast Lead Bashir’s house was hit and the roof collapsed. My heart hurt for all the stuff that Fatan’s parents had given them: antique furniture, rare rugs. He told me that he wanted to fix the house but that Hamas had all the concrete, and when I asked why Hamas needed so much concrete, he was silent. He roofed the house with wooden planks and tin. “One day everything will be in order, mashallah, and I will repair the roof like it needs to. The only concrete you can get is smuggled through tunnels in Rafiah, and it costs a lot. But they say there will be concrete in a little while.”
A week later Fatan called me. She spoke English to me, as usual, but her voice made it clear that she was hysterical. “They took him!” she cried into the phone. “They took Bashir, my husband. Allah only knows what they want from him. Bashir’s father, Abu-Feisal, came here, he tried to keep them from taking him. They beat him up with clubs, an 80-year-old man! I’m afraid of what they’ll do to Bashir … Allah help me!”
“Why was he arrested?” I asked.
“They said he is a helper of Americans and Zionists, that he’s been to the USA and now he tries to corrupt the youth … But I know the truth, it’s because he didn’t let our son attend Hamas youth rallies. Ya, Hillel, I’m afraid!”
Bashir was in Hamas’ hands for about three months and was freed in the end when his family collected enough money to grease the right wheels …
When Bashir could speak to me again, he sounded like an old, weak man. His son Hashem rejects him and calls him “traitor” and “Zionists’ helper.” “He no longer respects me,” he told me; there was disappointment and pain in his voice.
He was afraid for Vafa, their 17-year-old oldest daughter, that she would be taken by force. While he was in prison, Hamas policemen came to their house and confiscated Fatan’s jewelry, jewelry that was supposed to become their daughters’ dowry. One day Fatan called me herself, an extraordinary act for a Moslem woman, and told me that Bashir didn’t want to tell me about the brutal beatings he’d endured in prison. His legs were broken, and he almost couldn’t function normally; really he could only walk with a cane.
11 days ago was my last conversation with Bashir. I begged him to flee from there, didn’t matter where – Egypt, wherever. He laughed a bitter laugh: “Hamas will never let me leave here, and now the Egyptians closed their border except for emergencies, which is to say – not for anything. And where could I run?”
After that conversation I have tried to contact Bashir or Fatan without success. They don’t answer the phone. Not on Facebook, either. (Bashir never friended me on Facebook; he said he didn’t want trouble.)
I thought of using changed names in this story, but decided not to, for a simple reason: I know that many of my friends are on the left, so perhaps they have friends there, in Gaza, who can tell me of the fate of Fatan, Bashir, and their five children. I beg whoever has friends there who may know of their fate, to tell me as soon as you can.
And you Gazans – I know that there are many “Bashirs” among you that suffer from Hamas’ iron hand to this day. Would there not be among Gazans, known as men and sons of men, even one who would dare oppose what Hamas is doing to them? Do you not desire a good future for your children? And maybe, just maybe, like in the good days, return to the times when you could work in Israel, or at least times when you could speak without fear.
Здесь русский перевод.
July 22 2014
I come to tell you a long story that I’ve kept inside me since the first day of this action.
Many of my friends who call themselves leftists diligently tell me of Israel’s army crimes and the “humanitarian holocaust” we have inflicted on the Palestinian people. One woman whose name I won’t mention even reacted to my today’s post, in which I excoriate Hamas (possibly it’s not entirely correct) by saying: “There’s enough poison on the Web.” Well, I think there’s not enough poison on the Web, because my hatred of Hamas is cause not just by Hamas’ hatred of me; it’s caused by what they do with their own people, who already have it hard living in Gaza.
Hamas has turned the life of Gazans into hell on earth. Hamas has trampled on their rights, their dignity, has turned them into cannon fodder, into living shields. It bothers them and forces them to obey, and woe to the resistor.
So how can one say that Hamas represents Gazans? It’s not so! Hamas has turned into a monster before which Gazans quake! Yes, no less than before the Zionist enemy.
How do I know this? That’s what you can learn from what I will tell you now. Whether you believe me or not, I do not wish death on the Gazans, because they’re people too, and it’s awful to wish death on another. So before you start up BS about the “slaughter by IDF in Gaza,” remember that Gazans have not one, but two enemies, and Hamas is the crueler of them.
I met Bashir in Los Angeles at the Harley-Davidson 90th anniversary show. I had a T-shirt with Hebrew writing, and I noticed a person who watched me with a strange expression. I already don’t remember how we started talking; when he told me his name was Bashir I had a negative first reaction, but as we started discussing our mutual love – motorcycles – he started opening up more and more.
He came there from Gaza, from Shudjaya (not Sudjaya as we like to call it here). He had worked construction in Israel for several years and saved money to become an electronics engineer. Two years in the USA already, he was close to finishing. He told me that he had lived in Tel Aviv for a long time, working construction and in restaurants, and like it usually is with Israelis, we soon discovered mutual acquaintances.
That’s how my friendship with Bashir started. We would meet for a sandwich, since he didn’t drink. “Forbidden!” he would say, and I would accept with a sigh the fact that we couldn’t have an evening drink together. After a short time he introduced Fatan to me.
Fatan was from a rich Bethlehem family that, absurdly, made its fortune from selling souvenirs to Christian pilgirms. It also had a small hotel. A well-off family. Fatan studied in Bir Zeit University and came to Berkley through an exchange program. She was a very smart girl. Strangely, it was funny wto watch Bashir court Fatan. She would joke with me, saying that in reality I was a Palestinian, too, since I came from Palestine …
To my regret, the time came for me to return to Israel. We kept up a not too tight telephonic relationship.
Bashir was very enthusiastic about everything that was in the air prior to Oslo. “Your General Rabin is the man. You’ll see, he’ll make something good here.” I was skeptical, and told Bashir that we’ll see. In the end, he was right and the Oslo agreement was signed.
Next week he told me with joy that his brother and some other people from the Palestinian Autonomy were coming to Israel, and that he was going back to Shudjaya. “I have a surprise for you,” he told me. “Fatan and I decided to get married. Her family made some problems, but inshallah, everything will be fine.” I couldn’t come to the wedding.
In subsequent years he told me how they were building Gaza, about Fatan’s first pregnancy, that her parents were sending them a lot of money to build their house but beg them to leave Gaza and settle in Bethlehem, close to them.
And then the Al-Aksa Intifada happened. I called him to ask how he was. Funnily, I was standing on an APC’s running board, looking at Ramallah. In an unfriendly tone he said: “This pig Sharon of yours comes to destroy everything.” I didn’t know what to tell him and only asked him to take care of himself. He added some non-committal phrases and hung up.
Our conversations continued, but even less often. One day he told me that he was sick of the PA and its corrupted officials. “They drive around in Mercedeses, while … valla, if not for the money from Fatan’s parents, we’d be without food. I’ve been unemployed for half a year already, and I can’t work in Israel. Those whores take everything for themselves, but now we have Hamas and they will straighten out the corruption. I will vote for them.”
I became angry. I told him that with all due respect to Hamas, I didn’t trust them, that they looked scary to me. Bashir disagreed: “Hamas are religious people, honest men, not like those pigs from the PA. Do you know how much zakat (charity) they dispense to people? Just here in Shudjaya they’ve fixed the houses of all the elderly …” “Bashir,” I said to him, “this doesn’t come free, they have their own interest.” We disagreed, and Bashir went to vote for Hamas. During the first days he told me how Hamas began straightening everything out, how they exiled all the criminals from Gaza (meaning Fatah people, who definitely earned that moniker.) And then the Kassams began …
It was hard to talk to Bashir when Sderot was being hit from his home, from Gaza. I mentioned that there were civilians in Sderot, and he said: “What do you want? You, too, fire on us.”
Gradually our calls became very infrequent. Usually he would call, but after he hadn’t called for a long time, I decided to dial him myself. At first he didn’t want to admit it, but then he told me that the situation was getting worse and worse, and that Hamas people were establishing a terror regime in the city. “It’s forbidden for anyone to open his mouth,” he said in a pained whisper.
One day he called me, and this time he was in really low spirits. He told me that his firstborn son had been drafted into Hamas’s youth brigade; he tried to prevent it with no success. He confessed that he knew how they were brainwashing the youngsters, and that he didn’t want his son to become a shahid. “I’ve put so much into this child. All this time I kept him from all the young lowlifes we have here. He’s a model student. Why? Why does he want to go with them?”
Operation Cast Lead was like thunder out of a clear sky. As usual, when I spoke to Bashir I asked him to take care, I told him that the Israeli army was going there to stomp on Hamas. His response was : “Kulu min Allah!”
I was in an area relatively far from Shudjaya, in Zaitun, when I got a call from Bashir, and he sounded frightened. “Hamas is on my roof,” he said in a frightened whisper. “Zionist tanks are firing on everything here. A bit more time, and a tank will fire a shell into my house.” “Run from there!” I told Bashir. “Take Fatan and the kids and run, run to Zaitun. It won’t be bad at all there.”
“I’m afraid,” Bashir said. “Hamas people told us that whoever flees his house will be branded a coward and prosecuted … I can’t.”
I tried calling some guys I knew. It’s funny, but I had no idea which of those houses could be Bashir’s, and the commanders in the area couldn’t understand what this crazy reserve officer wanted to explain about some house that can’t be shelled.
Once Cast Lead was over, Bashir’s phone conversations began telling about the real Gaza – Hamas’ Gaza. He told me about people who dared say that not everything there was fine, and then disappeared in the middle of the night … About the new laws that sent to the two new large prisons, built by Hamas, people guilty of “adultery,” “treason,” and the worst crime: “assisting America or the Zionist enemy.” About how his son was forced to participate in a Hamas execution. About Hamas men raping girls who were then jailed for “adultery.” About how a girl without a head covering can get beaten with sticks in the middle of the road, about how Hamas men roar around on motorcycles, Land Rovers, and Mercedeses, all stolen in Israel, with clubs in their hands, attacking anyone they want, sometimes beating up people just for fun.
During Cast Lead Bashir’s house was hit and the roof collapsed. My heart hurt for all the stuff that Fatan’s parents had given them: antique furniture, rare rugs. He told me that he wanted to fix the house but that Hamas had all the concrete, and when I asked why Hamas needed so much concrete, he was silent. He roofed the house with wooden planks and tin. “One day everything will be in order, mashallah, and I will repair the roof like it needs to. The only concrete you can get is smuggled through tunnels in Rafiah, and it costs a lot. But they say there will be concrete in a little while.”
A week later Fatan called me. She spoke English to me, as usual, but her voice made it clear that she was hysterical. “They took him!” she cried into the phone. “They took Bashir, my husband. Allah only knows what they want from him. Bashir’s father, Abu-Feisal, came here, he tried to keep them from taking him. They beat him up with clubs, an 80-year-old man! I’m afraid of what they’ll do to Bashir … Allah help me!”
“Why was he arrested?” I asked.
“They said he is a helper of Americans and Zionists, that he’s been to the USA and now he tries to corrupt the youth … But I know the truth, it’s because he didn’t let our son attend Hamas youth rallies. Ya, Hillel, I’m afraid!”
Bashir was in Hamas’ hands for about three months and was freed in the end when his family collected enough money to grease the right wheels …
When Bashir could speak to me again, he sounded like an old, weak man. His son Hashem rejects him and calls him “traitor” and “Zionists’ helper.” “He no longer respects me,” he told me; there was disappointment and pain in his voice.
He was afraid for Vafa, their 17-year-old oldest daughter, that she would be taken by force. While he was in prison, Hamas policemen came to their house and confiscated Fatan’s jewelry, jewelry that was supposed to become their daughters’ dowry. One day Fatan called me herself, an extraordinary act for a Moslem woman, and told me that Bashir didn’t want to tell me about the brutal beatings he’d endured in prison. His legs were broken, and he almost couldn’t function normally; really he could only walk with a cane.
11 days ago was my last conversation with Bashir. I begged him to flee from there, didn’t matter where – Egypt, wherever. He laughed a bitter laugh: “Hamas will never let me leave here, and now the Egyptians closed their border except for emergencies, which is to say – not for anything. And where could I run?”
After that conversation I have tried to contact Bashir or Fatan without success. They don’t answer the phone. Not on Facebook, either. (Bashir never friended me on Facebook; he said he didn’t want trouble.)
I thought of using changed names in this story, but decided not to, for a simple reason: I know that many of my friends are on the left, so perhaps they have friends there, in Gaza, who can tell me of the fate of Fatan, Bashir, and their five children. I beg whoever has friends there who may know of their fate, to tell me as soon as you can.
And you Gazans – I know that there are many “Bashirs” among you that suffer from Hamas’ iron hand to this day. Would there not be among Gazans, known as men and sons of men, even one who would dare oppose what Hamas is doing to them? Do you not desire a good future for your children? And maybe, just maybe, like in the good days, return to the times when you could work in Israel, or at least times when you could speak without fear.
