Dear friends,
Sunday, 19 February 2006. Morning. The Israeli government is convening to confirm a premeditated scenario: punishing the Palestinian Authority for having democratically elected the (heavily flawed and objectionable) Hamas movement into power. Hamas is, of course, the creation of the Israeli security forces who, not too long ago, fostered it to counter the Fatah, which Israel didn’t wish to be declared as a partner for peace. By the same logic, the declared economic and political blockade of the Palestinian Authority is at this very moment breeding the force which will replace Hamas once the inevitable happens (in spite of the seemingly determined statements of both sides), and Hamas will become, sometime in the future, the partner for peace talks with Israel. However, we are still on Sunday, 19 February, and the already effected blockade has other implications. A cultural blockade is one of them.
At the time the government is convening, we drive towards the West Bank. A very short drive from our safe home in Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, to make the 3pm inauguration ceremony of The Freedom Theatre at the heart of the Jenin refugee camp, a drive which on a straight route should take us no longer than 45 minutes, we leave home at 10am. The reason is there is no straight route to reach the opening. Not that there is a lack of wide, convenient roads leading from Tel Aviv to Jenin. Yet they are not meant for us, Israelis who would like to join in a solidarity ceremony with Palestinians. In the occupied West Bank, behind the famous separation wall, there are basically two networks of roads: one for the Palestinians going to their villages and towns, and one for the settlers, going to their fortified settlements. I leave it to your educated guess to gather which is the more modern, convenient one.
An Israeli Jew who wishes to go for a solidarity function in a Palestinian town does not fall into either of these categories, hence s/he is forbidden from entering the West Bank, unless by lying to the inquisitive soldiers at the crossing point that s/he is going to visit family or friend in one of the many Jewish settlements dispersed throughout the Palestinian territory. Provided by such a cover story we are heading to a meeting point with our Palestinian minibus driver, who leads us to his village, where our cars may be left securely, and then drives us to Jenin. A whole network of Palestinian cab drivers, on the narrow roads passing through impoverished villages on our way, are informing each other about sudden roadblocks put on our route.
Our experienced driver knows little paths and bypasses, and we are lucky to reach the theatre, located at the heart of the Jenin refugee camp, well ahead of time, where we are received enthusiastically by a host of children hanging about, before their newly installed cultural centre is inaugurated, and the local hosts and the artists still immersed in last minute preparations for the event.
Perhaps most excited and busy is Juliano Mer-Khamis, my former student, and now one of the leading stage and film actors in Israel. His mother, Arna Mer-Khamis, was an exceptional person: daughter to a famous Jewish family, whose father is remembered as the founder of the flourishing Dead Sea Industries, she married Palestinian Communist intellectual Saliba Khamis, and their three sons are a very rare breed of Jewish-Palestinians.
During the first intifada, the “children rising” of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Arna initiated a brave and exceptional enterprise: she founded a children “alternative” educational centre at the heart of the Jenin refugee camp, where the kids under siege, amidst shootings of the Israeli troops and stone throwing by the Palestinians, fostered their creative and learning activities, and eventually a children theatre was formed. The little kids of the first intifada grew up to become the grown teenagers of the second intifada. Many of them were killed, in the various circumstances surrounding the struggle of the Palestinians to liberate themselves from the prolonged occupation.
Almost ten years on, Juliano took his mother, Arna, then dying of cancer, for a last visit to the Jenin refugee camp. Out of this visit, together with filmed evidence from the first intifada, grew his film Arna Children, a moving document of bravery and creativity, which has since won prizes in New York and Toronto, and was shown all over the world. The little theatre was totally demolished in 2002, during the Israeli military operation notoriously known as “Defence Wall,” in which the Jenin refugee camp suffered a significantly heavy loss of life and material damage.
Now, a provisional venue was located, a Swedish registered NGO was formed, as well as an international board including Mahmoud Darwish, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Elias Khoury and other good people, and the theatre, meant for children and adults, was reborn like a phoenix. It is now being inaugurated in its provisional locus, and a space has already been allocated in the camp for a more ambitious building, already planned, and awaiting donations to be completed.
The Middle East has its own sense of time. Just after 3:30pm over 400 people densely filled the provisional building, carrying the sign of The Freedom Theatre. It was originally meant to be called “The Arna Free Theatre,” but Arna specified in her will she did not want nominal commemorations of this sort. The Freedom Theatre is a phrase well commemorating her central teaching in this centre, namely, the theatre liberates. About half the audience are children, truly reflecting the population of the Jenin refugee camp: 13,000 inhabitants, around 40% of whom are children. A funny group of three British clowns, affiliated with an international network called “Boomchucka Circus” whose stated mission is “Bringin smiles to children who don’t.” entertain the younger crowd in non-verbal performance. Then a line of local dignitaries greet the occasion: suddenly all factions on the Palestinian complex political scene, including the recent, bitter elections campaign, seem to dissolve: even the Hamas affiliated Mayor of Jenin is here to make a speech. Among the greetings a special message is from Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, blessing the important enterprise. The event proceeds to a one-man show by Palestinian author Ala Khlehel, performed by an emerging talent in the Palestinian/Israeli stage and film scene; Amer Khlehel, brother of the writer. A film he played in, Paradise Now, just recently is now nominated for the best foreign film in the imminent Academy Award (and aptly petitioned against by Jewish settlers and their supporters, in conjunction with their call for censorship on anything Palestinian, believing that boycott is objectionable only when directed against Israel). Now he plays here the satirical character of Diab, a fictional Palestinian anti-heroic figure. The author defines his play as one about the Arabs, their setbacks, their defeat and their catastrophe. After self-destructive inner fights, the Arabs look from afar at their captured land. Diab himself is imprisoned and put to work in the boiler room of an American steam ship, shuffling coal day and night. Yet throughout his imprisonment he insists that he alone liberated Palestine and sits on the throne of Tel Aviv. The satire may be lost on the young kids, but they too, like their parents and teachers, are fascinated by the charismatic performance. Applause. The Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp is open!
After an excited evening meal in Jenin, we all head home already in the dark. Our driver consults fellow drivers regarding sudden block roads. This time, very close to our destination, we learn there is one. We, who came from Tel Aviv to show our support to the enterprise, will have a lot of explanation to do, at the roadblock, and our Palestinian driver may be stopped there for a long time. Thus we leave him at his request to face the roadblock by himself, and for meeting him again on the main road we walk a trail in the hills, overtaking the roadblock, like criminals, or rather, like Palestinian workers who would like to reach Israel to find some cheap employment to bring some money home. The inevitable encounter with the border patrol does occur, however. We choose to tell the truth where we are coming from. The young soldiers of the border patrol, who drew their guns at the few silhouettes coming out of the shadows, proved much more sympathetic to the cause than those who commanded them to stop us from embracing it. Perhaps they were not yet brainwashed by universities which, while not officially recognizing the elected representatives of Arab students, refuse systematically to put signs in Arabic on campus (of which 20% of the students are Arabs), and closes its university theatre for becoming bi-lingual and mount plays in Arabic, boasts new programs for army and navy cadets who study in uniform on campus and appropriate a good portion of the students dormitories at the expense of those who can’t afford more expensive accommodation. And, anyway, we were Israelis going home, not Palestinians seeking work. After a short time we were again in our driver’s car, taking us to our cars. Our cover stories for the crossing (I was supposed to have given a lecture in a nearby settlement about “Current reality as reflected in literature and drama”) were not needed. In our cars, driving home, we looked Kosher enough.
Back home, we made the late night news. While we were in Jenin, encounters were going on all day in the Gaza borders and in nearby Nablus. The world commented on the decision of the Israeli government on a progressive economic blockade. 45 minutes, or half a day (as ma be the case) from our home, hundreds of Palestinian children went to bed after an unusual experience of having attended a theatre show. Some, perhaps,for the first time in their life. Not outstanding, perhaps. But a significant token that neither economic or cultural blockade, nor mounting a separation wall, will block life from flowing. The name of Arna is not posted on the provisional building of The Freedom Theatre she has founded, years back. And yet her true mission is alive, and commemorating her brave enterprise.
For better days, A. Oz
by:�Professor Avraham Oz�date:�2006-02-20