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Dear NPR News
Crossing the River I don’t know if I had expected to hear an appropriately evocative soundtrack of the sort that accompanies dramatic moments in movies. I remember being intensely aware only of the peeling sound of tires on concrete and the strains of the narrow metal bridge as the bus carried us across the River Jordan. September 6, 1996, was a day I had waited for and imagined for most of my 25 years. It was the day I entered Palestine. The Sheikh Hussein crossing between Israel and Jordan, far to the north of Amman and Jerusalem, is supposed to resemble a “normal” international border where tourists cross as a matter of routine. It has bureaux de change and a mural of giant doves emblazoned with the words “Peace, Shalom, Salaam.” But it is a parody of a border. The other passengers and I were merely pretending to be tourists with our single-entry tourist visas granting us 14-day visits. As the bus bounced across the metal bridge as though on a rusty spring mattress, the watchtowers and machine gun posts reminded us where we were going. As soon as we stepped off the bus, I was singled out by the Israeli police, who all looked identical in fashionable Oakley sunglasses and crew cuts. My cousin Zaki, in his early sixties, was allowed to go through the regular line with the other passengers, mostly older Palestinians with Jordanian or Israeli citizenship coming or going to visit relatives and lives left behind on the other side of the river. I was taken aside to a metal trestle table where all my belongings were laid out. The Israeli officer addressed me in heavily accented, incomprehensible Arabic. He barked an order several times, to which I could only respond with bafflement. Finally, exasperated, he pointed at his sunglasses. “Ah!” I said in Hebrew, “you want me to remove my sunglasses!” I took them off, and he spoke now in Hebrew, “A Jordanian who speaks Hebrew? That I have never seen.” “Don’t be so surprised,” I answered entirely untruthfully, “most of us speak it. It is just like an easy dialect of Arabic.” After a thorough examination of my clothes, batteries, razor blades, books (I made sure to bring several of my favorites by Edward Said, as I had just heard that the Palestinian Authority had banned them), and a lot of questions, I was asked to proceed to passport control. “Where are you going?” the woman asked. “To Jerusalem,” I replied. “How long do you plan to stay in Israel?” “I do not plan to spend any time in Israel. I shall spend all of my time in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.” This elicited only a glare, and a warning: “Do not exceed 14 days or you will not get another visa.” As soon as we got to Jerusalem, I asked Zaki to take me to Lifta, my mother’s village. Lifta was a town of approximately 8,000 people located just to the northwest of Jerusalem, not far from Deir Yassin. It was one of the first Palestinian towns to be attacked by Zionist forces in late December 1947. By January 1948, the residents had fled the frequent terrorist attacks and sought shelter with friends and neighbors on safer ground. My grandfather took his family to stay in the Baq’a neighborhood of Jerusalem—until the massacre at Deir Yassin. “Then we left,” my mother says, and—like all who tell this story—adds, “We didn’t think we would ever see our home again.” My mother’s family went to Jordan, which proved to be a safe haven. Because my grandfather owned property in the West Bank and Jordan, the family was able to get back on its feet, despite the loss of everything they had in Lifta and West Jerusalem. Lifta was built on a steep incline. Much of the upper village, where my mother’s family lived, has been demolished or incorporated into Jewish West Jerusalem. Jewish families now inhabit the finest houses. The lower village remains derelict, but largely intact, waiting for its inhabitants to return and finish what they were doing the day they left 50 years ago. Marked by a sign erected by the Israeli Committee to Protect Nature, a rocky path leads down into the village, winding among empty houses and long grass. High above, the Israelis are building an overpass, and the entrance to Lifta is a staging ground for construction crews and bulldozers. Lower Lifta is uninhabited except by the crickets and lizards that never left. In the center is a waterhole where young Orthodox Jewish men come to swim, away from prying eyes.
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