"We're kidnapping you!"

5th June 2009



(The wall, behind it are the rooftops of an Israeli settlement)


“We’re kidnapping you!” The Palestinian man pulled me and the two Americans into the backseat of a dark car and we sped away…to a trendy Ramallah restaurant.

(Did that opener send up any red flags?)

The wall separating Palestine from Israel flew past Sharif’s car, the graffiti melting into a continuous stream of colors of pain and hope. Sharif’s music rattled his tiny Asian-make car, and we Americans settled into the backseat; I let my eyes roam over the streaming wall, rising and falling with the roadway speeding beneath. It was one of those timeless moments I sought to internalize, until Sharif interrupted our reverie by pointing out an architecturally unusual section of the wall: “Look, the Israelis are trying to get all creative with building the wall!"




(Graffiti on the wall - "free Palestine, from Palestine with love", etc.)

Later, at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, he and his friend Nidal showed us mock terrorist videos they made in high school: young Nidal and Rami stood defiantly in front of a Palestinian flag draped in the background, hattas (koffiyas) and flags wrapped around their faces to disguise their identity. Holding a shaking piece of paper to the camera, Nidal read his last testament as a soon-to-be martyr, and Rami offered an occasional rousing “Allahu akbar!” In the dozens of outtakes, they doubled over in laughter or broke into dance moves. In one spoof, Rami huddled behind Nidal’s desk, pressing a yarmulke to his scalp, speaking to the camera as if he were an Israeli reporter while Nidal, off-camera, pelted him with various bedroom objects – pillows, crumpled pieces of paper, school textbooks.

I could not begin to recall and relate all the wisecracks and parodies my new Palestinian friends related to me, with a bewildering mixture of good humor and melancholy. As Omar, our host in Ramallah, ran his finger along the trench cut by a stray Israeli bullet through the stone framing his bedroom window (his house adjoins a military service road), or where a car bomb had exploded across the valley, or related events of the second Intifada as we drove through the city, it was with this strange mixture of enthusiasm and sadness.

There was no laughter, however, at Arafat’s tomb. Noisy Ramallah disappeared behind us through the gates as we stepped onto the eerily silent tile platform. A quote by Darwish, the late Palestinian poet, was engraved on a granite slab near the entrance. A solitary building, modeled after the Kaabah, but in the smoothest white stone rather than gleaming obsidian, rose before a reflection pool. Inside, we stood before the tomb guarded by two Palestinian soldiers, and we were silent, our various political beliefs put to rest. The only sound was the gentle flapping of three Palestinian flags billowing in the breeze, pressing outward like soldiers’ chests thrust forward and collapsing back into one another, inhaling, exhaling.





To learn more about the Separation Wall, check out NPR's four-part series "Israel's Barrier" at http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/israelbarrier/part4.html