I walked up my street in Ramallah around
A white, unmarked minivan with civilian car plates was parked in the middle of the street, blocking the road, less than 5 metres from my house.
An Israeli soldier, in a commando helmet (think US soldiers in
“Stop there! Don’t come any closer!”
I pointed towards my house with my sandwich, dripping tahini.
“I’m going to my house! Right over there!”
“Stay where you are!”
Grmbl, grmbl. I leaned on my crutch, licked the tahini off my fingers, and resumed eating my sandwich. Another soldier emerged from behind the van. I could see people - soldiers? - running in and out of the building under construction right across from my house. On the other side of the road, an army jeep and a blue police car, also blocked the street.
Another guy came up to me, and stopped short.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. There are soldiers running into this building”, and I pointed (again with the tahini-dripping sandwich...) to the building under construction.
“Shhh! Don’t point to them! Don’t piss off those guys! We’ll eat shit!” (ra7 nakol khara!)
I didn’t respond. And two minutes later, all the soldiers came running out of the building, hopped into the army jeep and the white van, and drove off.
By now, my shawarma was cold. Damn Occupation!
We walked up to the guards of the construction site, trying to figure out what happened - and were joined by three other passersby.
(And at that moment, I felt very Palestinian...)
“Nothing. They sat us on our knees, hands on our heads, then made us face lie down - ah, my shirt is all dirty now! Dammit! - then searched the place.”
“The army is on high alert, these days, I hear”.
“they’re conducting random searches everywhere, I am told”.
“What kind of soldiers were these, special forces?”
“Intelligence”
“they must have received a tip-off”.
The last comment I found particularly interesting.
14 comments:
The last comment reminded me of the movie 'paraside now' about palestians who collaborate with Israelis....
Ruining a shawarma should be grounds for imprisonment in any country. Can we all at least agree on that?
Make shwarma - not war!
Vertigo: the phenomenon still very much exists, and is just as perverse. And just like the guy in Paradise Now was complaining how he's always been mistreated for his father being a collaborator, the stigma of collaboration with the Israeli army is indeed a trans-generational matter...
And there's a lot more to be said on the subject, including how collaborators are recruited, etc... it's nasty business.
Benji: Very much so!!
Liza: Someday, we'll have a banner with this slogan.
And we'll take it Hebron. That should be fun. :)
Hebron... Sure... If the settlers don't get you, my mother will. Can't we take it to Tel Aviv instead? :-)
Cold shawarma....I'm so sorry....glad to see you got back safely. Well, 'safely' being relative--walking up to a raid-in-progess probably doesn't engender feelings of "safe."
Mo-ha-med, you are amazing! You manage to remain so sanguine after having a shwarama ruined? Forgive my poor attempt at understatement, after reading a few posts I see know it is a trait seemingly unaffected by all the junk going on.
Seeing Liza's comment, now I know where I have seen your unique spelling before. Ahlan, ahlan. :)
Its a very interesting phenomenon... the only time I heard of such thing was when I saw the movie, and even while I was watching it I was a little bit confused but I have never heard of that before. It is very interesting.. and no western news would cover that.
Ah. all that understanding for the value of a shawarma warms my heart.
So a little recommendation: when in Ramallah, get your Shawarma from Al-Ameed, on Manara Square. The bastard charges 11 shekels instead of the normal 10 (market price, dammit!) but it's oh-so-worth it.
Liza - we'll take it to the Diamond exchange quarters. We'll see shawarma for rough diamonds. ;)
Kinzi - it took a lot of self-control, and a big bar of chocolate, to get over the trauma. Ah, the hazards of a dangerous life...
a delight to read you here, welcome to the blog!
Vertigo - I just go this book about collaborators, and reading the recruitment methods - often forcible - it kinda reminded of the East Germany (Have you seen the excellent "the life of others"?) they will threaten your life, threaten to expose you, blackmail you, and also promise you with financial and other rewards (like, a permit for you to go work as a construction worker in Israel or stuff like that...) and once you're in, you can't get out... it's pretty nasty, to be honest..
frequent roadblocks through telaviv as well
relatively speaking
Huh?
Sa7tein sa7tein! Shawerma should be used as international currency.. So relatively speaking, ( :P ) How hard would it be for a Jordanian to get a Visa or whatnot? I would love to visit! Bas from all I'm hearing would we (me & my husband) make it out alive?
Hello Anonymous,
It wouldn't be much of an equal international currency. Because some some shawermas are equal than others. :)
I don't know if it's hard to get a visa for Jordanians - it probably is. Then there's probably some permit you need to get from the Jordanian authorities or something, so ask there.
And yes, you'll make it alive fine. Palestine is an extremely welcoming place and the only risk from being there - if you don't do anything irrational - is not wanting to go home. :)
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