De Britse fotograaf die Rich Wiles, die op de Wetbank leeft, mailde me het volgende bericht:'Behind the Wall - “They Cannot Stop Our Dreams…”
This is a story about two people who were raised in houses less than 300 metres apart, but who were not raised in their homes for they were banished from their land, two people who lived in the area of Aida Camp, two people who have known each other for their entire lives but who have grown closer with the passing of time. Neither of these two young people have moved from their houses yet as time has brought them much closer together so greater time now also separates them, sometimes hours, sometimes weeks, and sometime months…
Mahadi and Susu are cousins, and refugees from the village of Al Malha which is located no more than five or six kilometers from Aida Camp. They both grew up to all intents and purposes in Aida Camp but whilst Mahadi lived inside the camp itself Susu lived in a house much older than any house here as it greatly predates Al Nakba. Her house stands alone amongst olive groves and fruit trees whilst Mahadi’s is sandwiched between others without anything green in sight. Mahadi is now 26 and like everybody else of his generation from the area spent much of his youth in the large expanse of Bethlehem’s land adjacent to Aida Camp around Susu’s house. This land offered space and fresh air that was startlingly evident only in its absence amongst the cramped streets and alleyways just metres away. But over the last few years this fresh air has become hollow, and the spaciousness has turned to emptiness, as the Apartheid Wall took route around Aida Camp isolating Susu’s house, and a large swathe of Bethlehem, onto the Israeli side of this grotesque creation. At first it was just a fence and often Susu and her sisters would go to speak to the IOF soldiers guarding the worksite who would sometimes let them pass on their way into Aida. Other times a refusal meant a detour one way or the other to a section not yet complete, but usually they were still able to get to their school, their friends, and their other family members inside the camp. Susu studied at the Basic Girls School in Aida but this only runs up to Tawjihi years (the final two exam years of education) so from 2005 she studied in Bethlehem but her younger sisters still study here. By 2005 any chance of passing the Wall straight into the camp had vanished as it was by that time complete, and nine metres of solid concrete with no gate, But the completion of the Wall was not the only dramatic realisation for Mahadi and his younger cousin. Susu’s journey to school now involved a walk much longer than the 200 metres that stood between her house and the gates of the Basic Girls School. She was forced to follow the Wall’s route every morning up the hill to the large gate at what had become the new ‘entrance’ to Bethlehem, despite the fact that Bethlehem actually stood on either side of the gate. Mahadi still saw her most days after she had walked back down on this side of the Wall to bring her sisters to school and began to ‘notice’ her more, he soon realised he was falling in love with her. Following tradition in Palestine it is not unusual for cousins to marry so Mahadi spoke to Susu’s grandfather with whom she lived and asked for his blessing:
“He was very happy because he said I was a good man and he knew me well. He told me that I could see her when they came into the camp because his son – Susu’s uncle, lives in the camp. He knew that I couldn’t go there, to their house, anymore…”
Both Mahadi’s and Susu’s houses are inside the West Bank so both had West Bank ID’s but now that the Wall had been built things had changed. Mahadi was unable to walk from the camp straight to his fiancés house because the path was now blocked by a huge symbol of modern-day Apartheid and when he tried to walk through the gate which was now acting as the new entry to, and exit from, Bethlehem he was stopped by the IOF manning the gate and told he couldn’t pass because he didn’t have ‘permission’. ‘Permission’ now meant an Al Quds (Jerusalem) ID, Israel was now claiming that this part of Bethlehem was in fact part of Al Quds so separate permission was needed, permission which could only be obtained from the Occupation authorities themselves. As easily as that, Israel had grown almost over night as it stole the land and claimed it as its own, much as it has been doing ever since 1948 when the two young lovers’ parents were chased from Al Malha.
Soon after Susu’s grandfather had granted them permission to marry he came through to Aida Camp and sat with Mahadi’s family to read Al Fatha. Al Fatha is a traditional Islamic form of acceptance between two families for a marriage whereby the families will sit together and read verses from the Koran:
“After Al Fatha I saw her for ten minutes and we talked together. We were both so happy. Then she went home and I didn’t see her again for three months… This was March 2005 and they had put the big gate in the Wall, and wouldn’t give her ‘permission’”
Susu had West Bank ID so didn’t need permission to be in Aida Camp but in a stark and vivid demonstration of the Zionist land grab policy the Israeli authorities were now claiming that the land on the other side of the Wall where Susu’s house stood was no longer part of the West Bank or Bethlehem despite every internationally recognised agreement and border saying otherwise. According to this unilateral reclassification of land Susu now needed ‘permission’, by which they meant official permission to be in Al Quds, to be inside her own house. When she applied for ‘permission’ it was refused. So Susu had ‘permission’ (West Bank ID) to travel inside the West Bank only she couldn’t get into the West Bank since Israel had moved it, and the authorities were claiming she was now living in Israel but wouldn’t give her ‘permission’ (Al Quds permission) to be there. She was truly stuck in ‘no-mans-land’. This situation sounds ridiculous but sadly was Susu’s reality for a full three months during which time she was unable to leave her house. Had she tried to pass the checkpoint and enter the West Bank she could have been arrested for being in ‘Israel’ without ‘permission’, or thrown into the prison that the West Bank had now become, and banned from leaving again and returning to her own house. Had she been caught in Al Quds itself she would have received the same treatment. Whilst this sounds incredibly complicated it was devastatingly simple for Susu now unable not only to reach her newly engaged fiancé but also a prisoner within her own home terrified that if the IOF raided her house she would be arrested for being in her home illegally…
Mahadi was distraught and tried numerous ways to reach her:
“I tried to pass the checkpoint many times but they always refused me. I tried to get Al Quds ‘permission’ but the only way was if I could get a hospital appointment in the city. I only wanted the ‘permission’ so I could get to her, I didn’t want to go to Al Quds. I went to see a doctor in Bethlehem and managed to get a referral to Al Makassad hospital (in Al Quds) so I took that to Acion (the Occupation Authorities Administration in Gush Etzion Settlement – responsible for issuing ‘permissions’). They told me to come back in three days which I did and was then told to see the ‘security’ who said I didn’t need the referral to Al Makassad as I could get the treatment in Bethlehem.”
He spoke to Susu on the phone everyday and had tried every official route possible to reach her. He began to look for other ways and in his desperation he went underground, quite literally:
“I had heard that some workers had been getting through a drainage tunnel near the camp and passing underneath the Wall. I found the tunnel and the gate was open so I entered it quickly. It was about 15 metres long but as I got to the other end I found it was blocked. I was so sad and depressed. I kept asking myself why was it not open, and wondering what else I could do. Then one night workers told me it was open and that they had got through. I ran there as quickly as possible but I found this end was now blocked. I thought to myself ‘not even a mouse could get through here’!’
A laugh echoes out of Mahadi as he tells me this before he stops himself and rephrases his metaphor:
“No, not a mouse, not even a fly could have got through there!!”
Again he laughs. The desperation of Mahadi’s attempts are clear and for many people would not be the source of humour, but for Mahadi its probably better than the alternative, and anyway he likes to laugh, I know that from our occasional meetings in the streets around the camp or here in Lajee Center where we sit together now as he relays his story to me.
During the three months that Susu had no ‘permission’ Mahadi would ring her everyday. Often he would go up onto the rooftop of a friend’s house in Aida Camp near to the Wall. From there he could see Susu’s house and she would stand outside of her house next to the front door. Her house, surrounded by olive trees and fresh air, looks like paradise compared to the camp, but for Susu it had become even more of a prison than Aida. Mahadi says he couldn’t see the land though:
“I couldn’t see the trees or the land, I was blind to it all, all I could see was her… We would wave to each other, it made me so sad and angry. I wanted to find ways to pass the 150 metres that separated us. I thought about climbing the Wall somehow, about making a ladder, but the Wall is covered with cameras and watchtowers and it would have cost me my life! She would tell me that she dreamt about me going to her house so we could be together and she could cook for me and I could take her gifts. It made her so sad that we couldn’t be like normal engaged couples, I just wanted to drink tea that was made by her hands…”
Eventually Susu got ‘permission’ so was able to come to Aida Camp to visit Mahadi again but they then faced more problems. She could walk from her house directly to the checkpoint which didn’t take too long but when she came to leave she found the IOF would not let her walk the same route back claiming it was a ‘military area’ so she was forced to take a huge detour which could take up to three hours. Susu was understandably frightened to walk alone when there were so many soldiers around and often didn’t want to take the risk. Instead they would both walk up to the gate and stand either side of a metal fence, with two and a half metres separating them, so they could at least see each other and talk:
“We often talked about the Wall and how it made us feel bad. I couldn’t even touch her hand, but we talked about other people too and how some people couldn’t even get this close to each other. I hate this Wall and what it does to people!”
On occasion Mahadi would stand waiting at the gate for hours for Susu if the IOF chose to keep her away or blocked her path for some reason. He particularly remembers two occasions during the autumn when he had gone dressed in just a shirt only to see the heavens open and heavy rain begin to fall, but still he waited, and waited. As the rain soaked through to his skin he kept thinking he would stay just five more minutes, then five more minutes, then five more minutes. He later found out that the IOF had not let her approach the gate for some reason.
Susu completed her Tawjihi this summer and is now 19. She comes into Aida around once a week but leaves early because it is dangerous in the dark. When the IOF impose closure on the West Bank all Al Quds ‘permissions’ become invalid so if Susu is in Aida when this happens she must stay here until the total closure finishes, if she is at home she must still stay indoors as again according to Israel she would technically be inside ‘Israel’ without ‘permission’ so could be arrested. She is currently being given ‘permission’ papers that are renewable every three months and when they expire her grandfather goes to Accion to renew them.
Another restriction placed upon her is that Palestinians are not allowed to take local grocery products like food out of the West Bank through the checkpoint. This has happened to Susu several times and the IOF tell her she must buy her food inside ‘Israel’ which means paying Israeli taxes and much higher prices plus of course also having to pay for transport to get there and back.
Earlier this year I went to Mahadi and Susu’s engagement party in Bethlehem. Mahadi is currently working hard in his work as a lorry driver to save money for their marriage which is planned for May 2008. He is also spending a lot of time getting their future apartment together, he wants everything to be perfect when they finally do get married. She will then leave the olive trees and fruits of her land and come to live in Aida Camp, but according to Mahadi she is not worrying about leaving it behind:
“She spent all here life here before the Wall. Now she has space there but no people. Paradise without people is not paradise.”
The struggles that Mahadi and Susu and been put through for their relationship are abhorrent, but as Mahadi himself said ‘others cannot even get this close’. Families and relationships all over Palestine have been torn apart by the Apartheid Wall, travel restrictions, ‘permission’ denials, family ‘reunification’ denials, and other forms of separation. It is part of the Zionist policy of sucking the life out of people, of making life so desperate, miserable, and intolerable, that people are forced to leave. It fits into the evils of ethnic cleansing that began over 60 years ago, and I say over 60 years ago because Zionist militias were ‘cleansing’ Palestinian villages even before the State of Israel was officially created in 1948. But in Mahadi and Susu their plans have more than met their match, as they have, and will continue to do, with millions of Palestinians who refuse to give up. All the inhumane actions and restrictions of the Occupation prevent and stop many aspects of Palestinian life but some things and simply unstoppable. The undeniable spirit of Palestine’s people is one such factor. The Wall may stop movement and physically imprison people but some things can fly. Some elements of humanity simply cannot be shackled.
Ask Mahadi what he thinks about giving up, about if he ever thought it was just an impossible relationship, and you will see a glimpse of this irrepressible spirit:
“We have faced difficulties but this makes our love stronger. It makes me love her more because the Wall will not stop our dreams. They cannot stop our dreams…”'
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