When I think of the West Bank City of Nablus I recall an article I read a few years ago at a point when Nablus was under siege. I have this distinct image in my mind, a description from the article I read, of the sliding door of a grocery store barely open. A sign to residents that there was bread to be had, if one was willing to risk their life.
Nablus under curfew meant no one could leave their homes, the streets were patrolled, rather, overwhelmed by the Israel Defense Forces. Anyone who broke the curfew was assumed to be dangerous and ill-meaning and thus a target. A run to the grocery store turned literally into just that. Neither bread nor the return of the designated person to go to the store were guaranteed.
I never imagined that Nablus would be a place I would one day visit.
Sunday morning, my friend Joyce and I met at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv.
At nearly nine o'clock in the morning, late July, the city is already steaming and stewing with humidity. The sun is beating down upon the tops of hatless heads and passengers waiting at bus stops, upon vendors selling fruits, shoes and cookies, and African refugees hanging about in the nearby park.
Heading toward familiar Jerusalem, we had our instructions to Nablus from the friend we would visit who is currently volunteer teaching at a community center in Nablus that is run by Tomorrow's Youth Organization. Making our way from West Jerusalem to the East Jerusalem Bus Station, the excitement and anxiety kept us both light in our steps, despite the rising heat of the dry, more mild morning of summer in Jerusalem.
After a little bit of wandering about in search of Bus 18 to Ramallah, by the guidance of Najat at the PIJ, we scored two seats on the green and white-striped minibus that would take us through the Qalandia checkpoint and into the West Bank.
Already two years have passed since I traveled to Birzeit via Ramallah in order to interview a professor at the university there. Like many others, I noticed that from the checkpoint to downtown Ramallah, a tremendous amount of development has taken place.
Ramallah is exploding. What used to be a rather depressing few kilometers, from the border of Jerusalem to the heart of this bustling West Bank city, are now dotted with apartments and stores, furniture shops, restaurants and the ubiquitous car garages or repair shops that are so abundant in this part of Palestine.
Joyce and I got down from the bus and found our way, thanks to a few helpful folks and and American-Palestinian man who was waiting to make his way to Jerusalem, to the Ramallah bus station. Using our newly achieved Arabic literacy we managed to locate the proper bus that said Nablus-Ramallah in its windshield. Moments later we were seated and feeling giddy with accomplishment and success.
In all, the journey to Nablus took four hours, a considerable amount of time when taking into account that Nablus is but 44 kilometers or 27 miles from Tel Aviv. (Sixty kilometers from Jerusalem, through which we passed due to the situation.) However, these four hours were hardly dull, with the last leg offering a sense of great adventure.
The long blue bus with brown-gray and crusty interior smelled of stale cigarette smoke. But the company was anything but dull. A woman sitting in front of us, of questionable sanity, was going on and on about something we couldn't understand. The men sitting around us were goading her on, as she insisted that she occupy a row of two seats instead of one at the price of ten shekels. The bus driver suggested she pay another ten and then be fully entitled to her space. At one point a Chinese man sat down next to her, another rarity in these parts, but soon thereafter he found himself another spot in which to sit.
Two young men sitting behind us were clearly fascinated with these two foreign girls siting on the bus with them. As we pulled out of the station it was obvious that they would be commenting and indirectly interacting with us the whole way to Nablus. Once in awhile words like "America" or "hello" and other signals of communication were coming our way. If we were interested in the scenery passing by, they were interested in letting us know what we were seeing.
Palestine is hilly. Rolling hills of sparse vegetation, beautiful nonetheless. Terraced land with olive trees and every few kilometers, a lot of car wrecks in all sorts of disrepair.
Of course I was looking for this spider web system of apartheid roads for which so many in the world criticize Israel. But our route was rather direct and according to one of my professors, in the past few months many of the roads that were closed to Palestinians have been opened and there is more and more free passage through the area. I am sure that this is both accurate and also inaccurate. As I have mentioned before, when it comes to the settlements and the West Bank, at times, I have imagined it to be the wild wild west. What drives and determines policy or military action is confusing and there are always so many sides and stories accompanying each event, that I begin to liken the reporting of activity in the West Bank to "choose your own adventure" novels.
The first checkpoint we went through was empty, no soldiers and no stopping, just an empty concrete structure. But further along near an overpass between nothing and more nothing, seven I.D.F. soldiers were standing around with a truck between them. And after this, I noticed the settlements on the hilltops above us. Places like Shilo and Eli and a few others along the way. These structures had red-tiled slanted roofs without the characteristic black water tanks of Arab villages and cities. Signs began to appear in Hebrew and at the bus stops along the road, young Jewish-settler women were talking on cell phones waiting for Egged buses that I imagine expressly serve these settler populations.
Here I need to say that when I venture into these parts of Israel and Palestine, there is a sort of split that occurs in my psyche. I see everything. I note everything. I react mildly to everything, the things that surprise me, the things that I expect. I can only feel later and analyze later, and often it is painful and affects my mood and general well being for awhile. It is very difficult to take it all in. So much of it simply doesn't make sense. But, first, the visual observations.
I was surprised that we didn't reach a guarded checkpoint until very near to the entrance of Nablus. I thought the journey would be a frustrating stop and start with inspections and the like. It was not.
I was shocked to see white, clearly Jewish religious young women in their modest yet modern dress at the bus stops. I couldn't understand what the hell they were doing out there and why anyone would want to live in the middle of nowhere where they are not wanted and how they could believe and buy into this fanatical ideology that the Jews have the right to populate all of the Biblical Eretz Yisrael. And on the other side of the coin, how they believe that the Palestinians in between them have no right to be there. I recall a thought passing through my mind regarding the soldiers. What mother in her right mind living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, Holon or Ashdod wants her son to be standing with a weapon in the midst of Palestine to protect people whose ideology she herself deems crazy and unwarranted?
And of course the inevitable, how can this be going on? I just couldn't and still can't understand. And frankly, I don't want to understand why these fewer than 300,000 people (because apparently there are different strands of settler feelings and policies on being in illegal settlements), with every day of their lives, feel entitled to put Israel in a position in which the conflict can never end. In which the hands of Israel are tied as global civil society challenges, more and more, whether or not the State of Israel is a legitimate thing or not.
Accusations of apartheid although inaccurate and misdiagnosed are nonetheless spreading throughout academic and social circles. The Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) Campaign against Israel has recently expanded its efforts to protest against Israeli academics and cultural events. This is above and beyond the boycotting of West Bank products, which is a reasonable approach in trying to remove any economic incentive to perpetuating the occupation. Now though, this is a movement attempting to get the world, not to rally around the realization of the Palestinian state, but rather to fight for the erosion of favor, interest, curiosity and inclusion of Israel, and all that is Israeli, in the global community. A simple phrase in Hebrew allows for verdict on that realization, "Lo moomlatz," not recommended.
Returning to the journey. The bus began the approach to Nablus. On the right side of the road at the tops of lampposts and poles there were faded posters of young men who had martyred themselves for the struggle for Palestine. Such young faces, with images of guns on either sides of their head and faded blue and red Arabic writing praising their efforts and their sacrifice. The checkpoint before the entrance into the city was manned with soldiers who waved us through and on our way.
We had finally arrived in Nablus.
