Each Day Another Disaster Politics and Everyday Life in a Palestinian Refuge Camp in the West Bank Nina Gren Doctoral Disertation ISBN 978-91-628-7827-6 htp://hdl.handle.net/207/20202 © Nina Gren University of Gothenburg Schol of Global Studies Social Anthropology Abstract Each Day Another Disaster: Politics and Everyday Life in a Palestinian Refuge Camp in the West Bank. By Nina Gren. Doctoral disertation in Social Anthropology 209, Schol of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Box 70, 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden. This anthropological study examines the ways in which Palestinian camp refuges maintain everyday life in a situation that is characterized by chronic disruption, fear and mistrust. It explores how these refuges make sense of displacement and violence and how they uphold a sense of agency in constraining circumstances. One year of ethnographic fieldwork was caried out in a West Bank refuge camp during the intifada al-aqsa and this yielded unique data consisting of interviews and field-notes from participant observation. The thesis shows how these people deal with repeated emergencies and it elucidates their strugle to recreate ‘normal order’ and continuity. The maintenance of daily routine, tactics of resilience, comunity, memory and morality are significant building blocks in this proces. The data show the creative and often ambivalent means that people use to establish felings of hope and trust in spite of dificult conditions. For the camp inhabitants, several dilemas arise out of the tension betwen personal life goals and colective political aims. One such dilema concerned return to the refuges’ vilages of origin. More than 60 years after their flight, return continues to be a political and existential theme. However, many refuges are now atempting to establish new homes outside the camp in their pursuit of a more permanent life. Another major dilema concerns the proper way to resist Israel during a militarised uprising; ‘ordinary’ people try, by practicing ‘steadfastnes’, to reconcile a desire to remain political subjects with a wish to avoid becoming militia or martyrs. The refuges’ focal endeavour is to salvage integrity as they experience that both their physical and national existence are under threat. Key words: anthropology, Palestinian camp refuges, West Bank, intifada al-aqsa, political violence, everyday life, constrained agency, normal order, resilience, return. CONTENTS Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Maps 1. Introduction…………………………………….. 1 -Focus and Purpose……………………………………………………………...... 3 -Conducting Research in a Debated Field ………. …..5 The ‘Conflict’ as a Concealing Concept………………………………………. 5 The Battle over Legitimate Violence… .. 6 -Being Camp Refuges under Violent Ocupation………………………………...….. 8 ‘People Out of place’ in the National Order of Things …………….. 8 The Meaning and Consequences of Violence……………………………..... 10 Constrained Agency……………………… ……………. 1 -Coming to Terms with Violence and Insecurity in Daily Life……………………...... 12 Tactics of Resilience……………………………………………. 12 Resistance and Endurance …………… 16 Making New Homes While Imagining Return……………….... 17 The Aftermath of Resignation: Ilusio as in Hope for the Future………..... 18 -Outline of the Thesis……………………………………………………………….. 19 2. Dheishe: Refuge Camp and Fieldsite…………………… 21 -Dheishe –a Society of its Own…………………………………………………… 21 Politics in Dheishe…… …………… 24 Experiences of Violence during the Intifada Al-Aqsa………….. 28 -Dheishe in a Local Context: the Bethlehem District…………………………... 30 -Doing Fieldwork in Dheishe……………………………… … 3 3. A Disputed History and a Historical Failure………………….. 43 -Al-Nakba means Disaster……………………………………………………………. 43 -In the Aftermath of Flight: The West Bank under Jordanian Rule … 47 –The Palestinian National Project and National Imageries after 1948……………….. 49 -Ocupation 1967…………………………………………………… … 51 -The First Intifada (1987-194)……… ……………. 56 -The Oslo Proces and Palestinian State-building……………………………….. 60 -Intifada Al-Aqsa………………………………… ……… 65 4. Disintegration of Life: Becoming and Remaining Refuge…..……….. 69 -Dheishean Refuge-nes…………………………………………………………….. 69 -Chaos of Flight………… … … 70 A Cultural Trauma…………………………………………………………… 72 Gendering Al-Nakba: Threatened Children and Los of Honour… . 74 -Labeling Camp Refuges……………………………………………………………. 76 Emplacement in a Refuge Camp …………………. 79 The Dynamics of Lingering Vilages………………………. 80 A Comunity of Fate…………… ………………….. 86 5. Living with Violence and Insecurity in Everyday Life…………… 89 Betwen Emergency and Normality…………………………………………. 89 -Experiencing Ongoing Crisis……………… ……………… 90 The Absence of a Proper Life ………………………………………….. 92 -Extending the Limits of Normality……… ……………………... 95 Keping up Daily Routines: Zaynab’s Morning……………………. 95 Naturalizing Violations…………………………………. 97 Challenging Abnormality: Risk-taking……………………….. 9 Normalizing Violent Death and Prison Experiences………………….. 101 -The Isue of Trust……………………………………………………….. 105 Fear of Outsiders and of Conspiracy… …………………….. 106 Fear from Within………………………………………… 109 The Threat of Colaborators ………………………….. 12 Cultural Norms that Counter Distrust………………… 17 6. The Making of New Homes………………….……….. 121 -To Build a House is to Make a Life……………………………………………… 121 Economic Constrains on Establishing New Homes …………….. 123 Notions and Patterns of Marriages……………………………………. 125 Marriage in a Politicised Context……………… 127 Cultural and Political Conotations of Wedings…………………………… 129 -Imprisonment Delaying Life…………………………………………... 131 Interupting the Path to Manhod ………………………….. 13 Questioning Virginity………………………… ………. 134 -The Importance of Having Children… …………………………….. 135 Preference for Sons………………………………………… 136 A Dual Nationalistic Discourse on Reproduction…………………….. 136 Contested Childbirth………………………… ……….. 138 -Home as a Political Stage ………………………….. 139 Demolitions and Invasions of Homes……………………………. 139 A Stage for Empowerment…………………… . 142 -Geting by through Sociality and Reciprocity………………………. 143 The House as a Kin Unit………………………………………… 14 Ideals and Reality of Kin Unity…………… …….. 146 The Ned of Proximity to Uphold Obligations ……………………….. 147 Feding Relationships and Morality……………… ……… 149 7. Return and the Desire for Rots………………………... 153 -The Refuge Isue and the Right of Return………………………………….. 153 Israeli Concerns…………………… ………………….. 156 -Dheishean Voices on Return …………………………………. 157 Imagining Return………………… …………………… 158 -Understanding Return Within an Ideology of Rooted-nes………………….. 163 Return as Political Resistance………………………………………………. 164 Countering Dishonour: A Symbolic Healing… ……….. 164 The Ilusio of Return…………………………………………………….. 16 -Staying in Camps and Remainig on the Land….. …………………. 167 Urgent Material Conditions………………………………………………… 170 -Moving out of the Camp……… …………….. 171 -Losing Land, Recovering Land…………………………………………….. 174 The Craze for Land…… ……………… 174 Land and Betrayal …………………………………….. 176 To Compensate for Lost Land …………….. 17 Temporary Return and Symbolic Links to the Land…………….. 178 8. Beyond Resistance………………………………... 181 -Sumud –Being Steadfast………………………………………………………. 181 -An Ambivalent Afirmation of Life …………. 183 A Reorientation since the First Intifada…………………………………….. 184 With a Sense of Humour………………… ………… 186 ith a Distant or Divine Hope… ……………………………….. 18 -Continuing to Resist……………………………………………….. 191 Alternatives to Military Resistance… …………………………….. 191 ‘Wakening the Outside World’………………… ……… 192 9. Reconstituting a Moral Order………………………… 197 -A Chain of Catastrophic Events…………………………………………………… 197 -The Camp as a Moral Community… … 19 -Morality in Everyday Practice………………………………………………………. 201 A Gendered Labour Division and Complementary Roles …………….. 202 Multiple Moral Spaces……………………………………………… 204 -Palestinian Moral Superiority ……………….. 205 A Depraved Western Society…..………………………………….. 206 Imorality of Israelis…………… ……………. 207 Defending Israelis………………………………………….. 21 -Eroding Morality Due to Contamination… …………….. 212 Questioned Work in Israel…………………………………………………. 214 Moral Flaws of Dheishe…… …………. 217 -Gendering Political Morality………………………………………………….. 218 The Crisis of Political Motherhod ……………………. 219 The Crisis of Fatherhod……………………… 20 10. The Making of Martyrs…………………………….. 25 Dheishean Martyr Terminology………………………………………….. 26 -Acentuating Violent Death………… …………….. 26 Glorified Martyrs: a Politico-religious Discourse…………………………. 29 The Armed Strugle and the Emergence of Suicide Bombings…………….. 231 Death as a Release from Life………………………………………….. 232 Sacrifice and the Ilusio f Violence……… …………… 234 -The Social Making of a Martyr – An Extraordinary Death…………………………. 235 Martyr Legends as oral Naratives…………………………….. 236 Special Traits in Stories About Suicide Bombers…………………. 238 Practices Associated with Martyrdom……………………. 241 Moral Capital and Social Suport to Families of Martyrs…………………… 243 -Dilemas with Martyrs…………………………………………………………. 245 The Eficiency of Martyrdom Operations ………………….. 246 Suicide or Resistance?................................................. 247 The Concern with Kiling Civilians…………………………………………. 248 1. Concluding Discusion…………………………….. 253 -Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Violation…………………………………….. 254 -Strugling Against Temporarines………………………….. 25 -Having a Life or Being a Good Patriot?.................................................. 256 -How May One Remain a Political Subject?............................................. 257 -Existence and Politics………………………………………………………………. 258 References……………………………………………………………………………….. 261 Acknowledgements This work would not have ben posible without the kind suport of a number of individuals and institutes to whom I extend my thanks. The main funding for my doctoral project was provided by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency (KBM) and the Swedish International Development Coperation Agency (Sida/SAREC). The Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation and the University of Gothenburg contributed generously from their funds to cover fieldwork expenses and travel costs. The Swedish Foundation for International Coperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) made it posible for me to spend a valuable period of networking and intelectual exchange with the researchers at the Centre of Forced Migration and Refuge Studies at the American University in Cairo in 205. The Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRI) provided for a monthly visit to Jerusalem in 206. Thanks for coments and backing from felow anthropologists and other coleagues at the Schol of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. My supervisor Profesor Marita Eastmond has guided me through my doctoral studies with high academic standards and a vast experience of research about refuges and societies in crisis. Her wilingnes to engage in burning research isues remains an inspiration to me. I am also obliged to Profesor Helena Lindholm Schulz and Asociate Profesor Michael Schulz for their insightful perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian context. Doctor Norma Masriye Hazboun, Bethlehem University has ben a god friend and suportive coleague; thanks! I also deeply valued my discusions with Profesor Sharif Kanana, Bir Zeit University; he never hesitated to share his knowledge on Palestinian society and culture. I apreciated the generous asistance of Profesor Eyal Ben Ari and Doctor Maya Rosenfeld, Hebrew University. The coments on diferent chapters of Profesor Barbara Harel-Bond, Asociate Profesor Jörgen Helman and Doctor Sylva Frisk were very helpful. Thanks to Profesor Kaj Århem and Asociate Profesor Alexandra Kent who read earlier versions of this thesis. I also owe Alexandra Kent for her competent corection of my English and Sven-Olof Dahlgren for help with transliteration of Arabic terms. The humour and companionship of felow PhD students have at times ben priceles. In particular, I want to thank Cecilia Bergstedt, María Eugenia González, Doctor Mikael Johanson, Doctor Maria Malmström and Kristina Näsén. During fieldwork, Palestinian friends, whose names I have decided not to disclose, in Bethlehem and Jerusalem backed me up. Without my two local field asistants, this work would definitely not have ben caried out. I am tremendously grateful for al their eforts. Many thanks are due to Karin Halin for welcoming me to her home in Jerusalem whenever I neded during my stay in the West Bank. A big hug to Alice Jaraiseh for her warmth as wel as for reflections on her own experiences as Swedish-Palestinian. Thanks also to my mother Berit Axelson for her courage to pay me a visit during ongoing intifada. It was a welcomed break in my fieldwork routine but through her eyes I also gained new insights about Dheishe. I am obliged to my brother Daniel Axelson for managing practicalities at home while I have ben abroad and for being such a nice brother more generaly. Thanks are due to my father Stig Axelson who incesantly (and sometimes to my own surprise) believes in me. Apreciations also go to Christofer Lämgren and the Leth family for their hospitality when I neded hide-outs while writing. Sara Anderson and Sofia Erikson have ben god friends in times of despair and tok on the tiring task of profreading. Although imposible to mention everyone by name, I am grateful to the rest of my family and many friends for suport and patience during periods of both physical and ‘mental’ absence from y part. Special thanks to L. for sharing his family with me and for lots of god advice, kindnes and Palestinian fod! Last but most importantly, I want to direct my warmest thoughts and thanks to my informants and friends in Dheishe whose names I am not fre to reveal. I wil never forget, and I’m afraid I wil never be able to return, al the help, friendlines, generosity and encouragement the camp residents ofered me. I sincerely hope that I have done justice to their experiences and thoughts. Any misinterpretation is of course my own. This thesis is dedicated to my host family in Dheishe with al my afection. A Note on Transliteration In this study Arabic sounds have ben transcribed as folows: Vowels a like English a in hat â like English a in bar e like English e in send ê like English ay in say i like English i in sip o like English o in not ô like English o in note u like English u in ful û like English o in fol y like in Englis yes Consonants ṭ like English t, but with a rounding of the lips and with slightly greater stres ġ like a strongly aspirated gutural r ḥ like h in horde, but slightly more aspirated ḫ like German ch in ach, doch, or Scotch ch in loch ḍ like English d utered with a rounding of the lips and somewhat greater stres ś like English in fish, shal ṣ like English but with a rounding of the lips and somewhat greater stres ‘ an explosive articulation, made by compresing the air pasages deep down the throat q is in Cairo a catching of the breath j like in English j in jam The rest of the leters are pronounced as in English NB. Names of persons and places have ben transliterated in an anglicized way. Maps Map 1 Partition Plan 1947. Source: Bornstein 203a: 30 Map 2 Armistice Lines 1949. Source: Bornstein 203a: 31 Map 3 Palestinian Refuge Camps in the Midle East. Source: Schif 195: 2 Map 4 The Interim Israeli-Palestinian Agrement of 194. Source: Bornstein 203a: 32 Map 5 Restrictions surounding Bethlehem 206. Source: OCHA ww.ocha.org 1 1. Introduction A chily wind is sweping in from the arid hils east of Bethlehem, making Um Ayman wrap her cardigan closer around her body. With one hand, she is holding her youngest son’s hand and in the other she is carying a plastic bag ful of fresh egs from the West Bank countryside. This evening she and her son are on their way home to the refuge camp Dheishe after a visit to Um Ayman’s oldest daughter, who lives with her husband and baby in a vilage not very far away. Um Ayman is in her late forties, a housewife and mother of eight. She was born in a Palestinian refuge camp in Jordan, but since her father maried her to her cousin more than 25 years ago she has lived in the West Bank. Nowadays her body is heavy and she moves with dificulty but her face loks surprisingly young. When you se her daughters, it is easy to imagine how Um Ayman loked before giving birth to al her children and before sicknes and wory caught up with her. Um Ayman and the young boy are hurying up; they want to get home, to the warmth of their crowded house and to a nice cup of swet mint tea. The taxi driver who brought them here has droped them of at the wrong place. This is not where they usualy get out after having pased the checkpoint. But Um Ayman isn’t woried even though it is almost to dark to se one’s steps. She knows the road down to the bus that leaves for the camp and it is just a bit further down the hil. ‘Who’s there?’ shouts someone in Hebrew in the darknes. A second later, the voice is heard again, ‘You there, stop!’ Um Ayman is startled out of her thoughts. ‘Who? Me?’ she shouts back towards the sound. ‘Yes, you! Stop!’ And now, she can se the soldier ahead of her. He is about the same age as her tenage son and is pointing a heavy gun at them. They freze and their world sems to have colapsed for a moment before the soldier’s voice is heard again: ‘Ok, you can go!’ * Later that evening, Um Ayman, shaken, recounted these events to her children and me over and over again. The stoping of a Palestinian civilian in the midst of his or her daily routine by a heavily armed Israeli soldier is a comon enough experience in the West Bank but it begs a number of questions, central to this study, about living life in an extraordinary situation. How is ‘everyday life’ maintained in unpredictable and violent suroundings, where there is so much fear and mistrust? How do people make sense of and handle continuing violence and years of hardship and want? Um Ayman’s family and others from their vilage were among the Palestinians who were displaced in 1948. That year marked the establishment of the state of Israel on part of the disputed British Mandate, and this led to hostilities betwen Jewish and Arab forces. During the war, betwen 70, 00 and 80, 00 Palestinians fled from their homes, events Palestinians remember as al-nakba or the disaster in English. In the early 1950s the United Nations established 2 numerous refuge camps al over the Middle East for the porest Palestinian refuge population. Dheishe camp, the site of fieldwork for this study, gathered destitute Muslim peasants who had lost their homes and land; they originated from ore than forty diferent vilages south of Jerusalem. Some of the lost vilages are only kilometres away from the camp, inside today’s Israel. Dheishe is the largest of thre refuge camps in the Bethlehem area, both in terms of geography and population. It is situated on a hilside and is about half a square kilometre in size. It houses some 9,00 registered refuges 1 . As the Palestinian population in the ocupied teritories is one of the fastest growing in the world, the majority of Dheisheans consists of children and youngsters. While new generations of refuges reckon refuge-nes and ‘original vilage’ through the patriline, many female camp inhabitants who have maried into the camp were either non-refuges or they came from other lost vilages than the forty mentioned above. Apart from a history of flight and deprivation, Dheishe also has a history of political activism and has frequently ben depicted as a ‘hard core camp’ both by its inhabitants and by others. Clashes betwen Israeli soldiers and Palestinian activists and army harasments of families in the camp were frequent during the first intifada (1987-194). Many camp residents have experienced political imprisonment in Israeli jails and most families have had their homes searched by the Israeli army. Wel after Israel had ocupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Um Ayman moved to the camp through her mariage. In this environment of poverty, military ocupation and Palestinian resistance, Um Ayman and her husband Abu Ayman together managed to maintain their everyday life; children were born and grew up, some of them atended higher education, and their household slowly expanded their house in the camp. Two of the oldest children are now establishing their own families. My fieldwork in 203 and 204 coincided with the second Palestinian uprising; this so caled intifada al-aqṣa 2 reignited the conflict betwen Palestinians and Israelis after some years of tranquility in the 190s, and it created victims and perpetrators on both sides. At this time, the hardships of daily life in the camp semed even more pronounced than before. The camp inhabitants experienced curfews, nightly arests, house demolitions, shotings as wel as threats and ocasional beatings by soldiers. They were stoped and held at checkpoints and roadblocks. 1 Acording to figures provided by the UN, Dheishe had a population of 12 045 registered refuges as of March 205 (ww.un.org/unrwa/refuges/westbank/dheisheh.html 19.1.207 19.26). As wil be discused in chapter 2, there were probably fewer people actualy living in the camp (personal comunication Husein Shahin the UNRWA head of the camp; PCBS 208: tabel 26). Many had moved out from Dheishe without changing their oficial place of living. 2 The intifada al-aqṣa is also frequently caled the second intifada or the Al Aqsa intifada in English. 3 Meanwhile, Israel was starting to construct a barier to separate the teritories from Israel 3 , or more corectly to separate Palestinians and Israelis from each others, thus further limiting Palestinian mobility. It was a time marked by fear and hopelesnes. These two years were comparatively calm in the Bethlehem area but only months earlier there had ben army intrusions, sieges and many people kiled by snipers and military atack-helicopters as wel as violent resistance in the camp through armed fighters and suicide bombers. Violence was never far of either in time or geographicaly; in the northern West Bank and the Gaza Strip there were new Palestinian casualties every day. Furthermore, Abu Ayman, a painter by profesion, could no longer work inside Israel and, like so many other Dheisheans who had depended on the Israeli labour market, he found himself unemployed and unable to provide for his family. The deteriorating economy in the Palestinian teritories, which was also due to diminishing tourism in the Bethlehem area, was threatening livelihod and the underpinings of social life. Due to restrictions on mobility and to outbursts of violence, Um Ayman and others strugled to maintain social and kin relations. Perhaps even more troubling are the dificulties of upholding normal life, comunity, hope and morality under these circumstances. Focus and Purpose How then is everyday life dealt with and made sense of by people who face displacement and continuous violence? This disertation focuses on Dheisheans’ experiences of and responses to such violent transformation and ongoing disruption of their lives. The aim is to examine their atempts to re-establish a sense of normal order and to negotiate the moral dilemas that they encounter. It is therefore concerned with the proceses of maintaining as wel as making sense of daily life. The thesis investigates how people with restricted posibilities to act try ‘to strike a balance betwen being an actor and being acted upon’ (Jackson 205: x). As wil be elaborated below, this thesis deals with agency under constraining conditions. In the face of overwhelming power asymetry and felings of being traped, people in Dheishe try to salvage a sense of integrity by combating asimilation or anihilation by Israel. They adopt practices and atitudes that may be considered ‘tactics of resilience’ (Scheper-Hughes 208) when they face displacement, violence and insecurity. However, in societies torn by hostilities, the practices employed to salvage the ‘ordinary’ and predictable order are deeply ambivalent. 3 The Barier has partly ben erected on the Gren Line, which is the armistice line at the war of 1967, partly on what is considered ocupied teritory. What to cal this construction is a controversial isue. Israel prefers to term it Separation Fence. Most international organizations cal it Separation Barier, while Palestinians and others name it the Wal (i.e. al-jidâr in Arabic). 4 Using thre themes, this thesis investigates the complex isues that Dheisheans confront in their everyday lives in the intifada al-aqṣa. Firstly, it explores how people try to create a sense of ‘normal life’ through daily routines and how they try to maintain hope and endurance. Secondly, this study examines proceses of social continuity in terms of kinship. Thirdly, it loks at the way in which Dheiseans nourish a local identity and sense of moral comunity as camp refuges. In contrast to the international media reports about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, my focus is on quotidian routine rather than on spectacular violence. However, when violence intrudes I have tried to understand its significance and intertwining in the daily life of the camp residents. Although the first ethnographic field study in Palestinian society was caried out as early as the 1920s (Granqvist 1931, 1935), ethnographic studies about Palestinians are scarce, especialy for refuges in the West Bank and even more in the Gaza Strip. Even fewer studies deal with life in the camps 4 ; the political circumstances have often discouraged researchers from conducting extensive field studies. This means that there is very litle basic ethnographic data regarding such isues as kinship, socialization and comunity formation in the context of camps in the ocupied teritories. Palestinian camp refuges in the ocupied teritories are of great anthropological interest because their liminal condition has particular political implications and cultural meanings. Compared to most other studies of Palestinian camp refuges in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to date, this disertation builds on extended fieldwork conducted inside a refuge camp. It is an experience-near ethnographic acount of the daily eforts of camp inhabitants to secure survival and meaning in a historical seting that is yet to be fuly explored. To my knowledge, this study is also the only one of its kind to have ben caried out during this period 5 . The intifada al-aqṣa constitutes a new and more militarized phase of the Palestinian strugle for statehod and it has dramaticaly changed everyday life in the Palestinian teritories. In such a situation, Dheishe as a politicized site was an interesting place to revisit, since I had caried out a briefer fieldwork there in 200, before the new uprising. A more prosaic argument for focusing on Palestinian camp refuges is that their fate is often claimed to be crucial to the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The refuges’ envisioned return to their home vilages inside present Israel and the question of compensation for los of property remain disputed and highly politicized isues (e.g. Aruri ed. 201). 4 The few exceptions with a specific focus on camp refuges are Marx (1978), FAFO report (197), Rosenfeld (204), Jarar (203). Rosenfeld is the only one who has done a lengthy ethnographic field study more recently. Studies have ben devoted to Palestinian refuges outside the ocupied teritories, for instance in Jordan (Farah 199), in Lebanon (Sayigh 1979, 194, 205; Petet 191, 205a), in Egypt (El Abed 203), Kuwait (Ghabra 1987) and in Israel (Slyomovics 198; Ben Ze’ev 204, 205). 5 As far as I know, the ones who have yet published in English building on fieldwork in the ocupied teritories during intifada al-aqṣa are Alen (208), Bishara (208), Junka (206) and Kely (204, 208). 5 Conducting Research in a Debated Field Once I had embarked on this project I realized that virtualy everyone, everywhere sems to have an opinion on the situation in Israel/Palestine. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the headlines almost every day, al over the world. However, intense media coverage of conflicts does not automaticaly enhance knowledge about events or about the lives of people who are forced to live under war-like conditions. Indeed, the media reporting sometimes obscures more than it clarifies. As noted by Philo and Bery (204), one of the dificulties faced by journalists who report on Israel/Palestine is that the causes of the conflict are subject to constant debate; there is no single acount that is acepted by everyone. Almost everything is contested. Many researchers have devoted time and efort to investigating the political situation in this region; it could even be argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has ben over-researched in some academic fields, such as political science and history. It is, however, revealing that most of these works have focused on macro-level proceses and that very few have tried to examine the everyday lives of the people concerned using participant observation as their main field method. This study is intended to addres this gap. In this thesis, special atention is paid to the links betwen macro and micro-levels of social life. As Grenhouse et al. (202) note, ‘political transformations provide more than the context […]. They also provide the contents as upheavals of change reveal that large-scale, so-caled structures include the everyday lives of ordinary people – not merely the arenas in which their lives unfold’ (ibid.: 7). For ‘ordinary’ people, the posibilities to control these proceses or to chose how to act may be limited; their strategies of everyday life interplay with external forces. The ‘Conflict’ as a Concealing Concept The situation in the ocupied teritories often resembles something other than war or even armed conflict, despite the casualties on both sides 6 . The terms and concepts media agencies, the ‘international comunity’ and the concerned public use to describe the order of things in this part of the world are frequently misleading and hide a more complex reality (cf. Philo & Bery 204; Dor 205). On one level, the relations betwen Israelis and Palestinians can be understod as a traditional conflict betwen two national projects that I wil return to later. The situation may also be understod as a regional conflict that involves not only Palestinians and Israelis, but also Arab neighbouring countries and Western countries that wish to exercise influence in the Middle East. On yet another level, the asymetry of power betwen Israelis and Palestinians points at 6 However, acording to the definition of the Upsala Conflict Data Program, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is for sure an active armed conflict, since there are more than 25 batle-related deaths a year (se htp:/ww.pcr.u.se/research/UCDP/data_and_publications/definitions_al.htm 13.05.209 10.08) 6 other posible readings of the ‘conflict’. Many Palestinians and others, including a growing number of researchers (e.g. Abdo & Yuval-Davis 195; Kretzmer 202), would not hesitate to cal Israel a setler comunity that is involved in a colonial project that Palestinians resist. Comparisons with Apartheid South Africa are comon (e.g. Carter 206). To many Israelis and Jews in the diaspora, on the other hand, the establishment and national project of Israel constitutes a Jewish national and sometimes religious homecoming, which was originaly a response to anti-Semitic agresion in Europe and elsewhere. Israel, moreover, portrays the conflict as a war for national survival fought betwen two equal parties (Heacok 203; Philo & Bery 204: 160). Palestinians also frequently understand the conflict in terms of survival in the face of a threat of extinction and they underline the power discrepancies betwen themselves and Israelis. Outside of Israel/Palestine the conflict is often depicted as being about religion. However, I would view it as being primarily about state-building and the control of teritory, of land and borders (cf. Halper 206; Segal & Weizman 203), although atempts to dominate teritory often cary religious conotations (cf. Khalidi 197: 13f; Benevenisti 200: 285f). The disagrement betwen those who compare Israel/Palestine with Apartheid South Africa and those who view it as a Jewish homecoming to an empty land could not be greater. Most would agre that Israel has ben ocupying Gaza and the West Bank 7 since 1967. However, the nature of this ocupation has changed, especialy since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 194 gave Palestinians some limited self-rule while Israel maintained control over borders and most of the West Bank. The Battle over Legitimate Violence Like the Colombian situation described by Martin (200), there is in the Israeli-Palestinian situation a tradition of violence. Such tradition may, ‘in terms of a particular historicaly shaped relation betwen order and violence […] take diferent expresions in the context of a specific political and institutional configuration’ (ibid.: 164). Martin (ibid.) argues that a tradition of violence does not imply a culture of violence, which may make violence sem inevitable, but notes how the ‘normal’ situation with chronic, moderate violence is sometimes broken by more extensive periods of extremely violent acts. There is never ‘peace’ betwen Israel and the Palestinians, just more or les violence; in other words, ‘the conflict’ is constant but is more or les inflamed. As holds true for many other conflicts and wars, the Israeli-Palestinian situation is fueled by memories of past loses and injustices; violence and power discrepancies have become a way of life. 7 Some Israelis refer to the West Bank by using the Biblical names Samaria and Judea. 7 The anthropologist David Riches (1986) notes that violence is in general a political and ideological designation and it is therefore not always recognized as violence by everyone. In the Palestinian-Israeli context, there is a continuous political dispute over how to define or justify the acts caried out by both sides. Are Palestinians using terorism or rightful resistance? Are Israeli soldiers acting within a framework of state teror or a defensive strategy to establish security for Israeli citizens? Is it a violation or simply legal procedure to demolish a house that has ben built without permision? What violence, comited by whom, is legitimate and under what circumstances? In the Israeli-Palestinian context, these questions are hotly debated. The Israeli state’s use of agresion towards Palestinians is often justified by Israeli neds for security and as responses to what Israelis refer to as terorism (Philo & Bery 204: 160). The Israeli ocupation is partly military since Israel uses its army to control the ocupied teritories, but some Israeli civilians, to be exact setlers, also exercise violence against Palestinians. The next two chapters discus how the Israeli ocupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip employs military, civilian and administrative means to control the teritories and its population while the Palestinians use both violent and non-violent forms of protest. From the Palestinian perspective, the violence they use is sen as the self-defence of the underdog; the ocupation has met with diferent forms of resistance, sometimes in the form of an armed strugle by paramilitary groups, ‘fredom fighters’ or ‘suicide bombers’ and sometimes in the form of non-violent civil disobedience. Jackson (205: 41f) argues that violence is generaly asociated with thre obligations of reciprocity (Maus 202); giving, receiving and repaying. This logic governs relations with both those we love and those we hate, providing reasons to give as wel as to take life. Using field material from Siera Leone, Jackson (ibid.: 59) concludes that ‘[…] violence generaly takes the form of retribution or payback, driven by the ned to reclaim something one imagines to have ben wrongfuly taken, and that is now owed. One’s very existence is felt to depend on making god this los’. In Palestine/Israel such notions of retribution and payback inform nationalistic discourses and violent practices, such as Israeli military intrusions and Palestinian rocket atacks. I propose that in their atempts to deal with violence and uncertainty, Dheisheans are neither merely victims of Israeli asaults nor simply perpetrators of violence but are social actors who find themselves in diferent situations marked by the power asymetry betwen Palestinians and Israelis. Both victims and perpetrators are categories to be used with great care and it should be noted that groups and individuals may end up in relationships or situations where one of these terms characterizes their acts. Neither victimhod nor perpetratorhod should, however, be perceived as permanent qualities; they are context-dependent, situational and relational. In my 8 experience, very few Palestinians would wish to be described as only pasive victims but would prefer outsiders to acknowledge them as people with goals and strategies, even though they are in an unfavourable position. Two conditions in particular, refuge-nes and ocupation, limit the scope of action of people in the camp. Being Camp Refuges under Violent Ocupation For Palestinian refuges in Dheishe, the profound uncertainty of their situation derives from multiple ambiguities. Esential here is the open-ended liminality of camp life as a ‘temporary’ status and although it has already lasted over four generations, no end point is yet in view. This basic uncertainty intersects with the chronic presence of violence and ocupation. ‘People Out of Place’ in the National Order of Things As we know from the anthropological literature on displacement, refuges and their experiences have ben esentialized in numerous ways. In a groundbreaking article building on the theories of Victor Turner and Mary Douglas, Malki (195) discuses how refuges are understod to ocupy a problematic, liminal position in the national order of things, since in the modern conception of world order, having a nation-state and a nationality is considered to be ‘natural’. The nation-state thus apears to form the given basis of identity and culture (Bauman 190). People who are forced to cros borders and who lack the protection of a state or, as in the Palestinian case, lack a nation-state altogether, disrupt the semingly neat divisions of the world. In relation to this national order of things, liminality is then the interstitial position ocupied by refuges as ‘people out of place’ (cf. Douglas 202). The international solutions for refuges have thus advocated either voluntary return to the homeland or a permanent incorporation into another state 8 . The liminality of refuges is thus an ideological and political construct that often forms part of the political discourses and naratives of flight of refuge groups themselves. Returning home, to one’s original place, is therefore often posited as the end point of exile (Eastmond 1989; Long & Oxfeld eds. 204). Among Palestinian refuges, return to their towns and vilages is portrayed as the healing of wounds created by displacement (se chapter 7) 9 . However, the imperative of return may not be so easily acomplished for Palestinians as for many other exile populations. 8 UNHCR, the United Nation High Comisioner for Refuges, designated these prefered durable solutions at a time after World War I when ‘the refuge’ emerged as a legal category with a set of special requirements and covered by international agrements, notably the Geneva Convention 1951 (Malki 195). 9 The other sugested solution of integration in the new society (both socialy and as a citizen) has ben les favoured among Palestinians and has also ben discouraged by Arab host countries. For refuges in the ocupied teritories, this is an even more complicated isue since there is stil no Palestinian state. Everyone in the ‘host society’ in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is thus without ‘proper’ Palestinian citizenship. 9 For Palestinian refuges, exile has become indefinitely extended, stretching over generations; returning to ‘one’s proper place’ is not a viable option for the near future. At the same time, the existential state of being ‘betwixt and betwen’ (Turner 194), without a clear belonging and set of rights, is not only an ideological construct but has very real consequences. In addition to sufering economic and physical insecurity, Palestinian refuges as other refuges are often stigmatized by the surounding population. They are, for instance, often despised as being por and they are considered dangerous (se chapter 4). Palestinians, like other displaced populations, also face enforced imobility because of the dificulties in obtaining identity cards and pasports 10 . This restricted movement is an aspect of the political and administrative control often exerted over people who fal outside of the order of nation-states. Large-scale displacement gives rise to entire regimes of organizations, programes of asistance and regulations. Refuges in general inhabit an extremely institutionalized world, made up of NGOs, governmental or local authorities and international organs, which provide them with asistance (Zeter 191: 40f). As a category, refuges are entitled to certain privileges and it is therefore necesary to define who is a refuge. The ‘Palestinian refuge’ emerged when charity organizations and the UN started to asist those who registered as refuges (Petet 205a). Acording to Zeter (ibid.), the proces of categorization implies the stereotyping of individuals as their lives become administrative cases 11 . An institutional or bureaucratic identity is created that is largely beyond the control of the displaced people themselves and it contributes to the development of an asymetric relationship of power and influence. Although the refuge regime and the aid it delivers shapes the refuge label in a humanitarian and semingly neutral guise, bureaucracy and resource distribution often cary political implications (Harel-Bond 1986). Bureaucratic categories are however not only political but also dynamic. They change in tandem with local policy and the integration and/or marginalization of the refuges. They also reflect refuges’ own construction of identity through such eforts as political mobilization or the re-asertion of pre-existing identities (e.g. Zeter 191; Ong 195; Eastmond, forthcoming). Dheisheans and other Palestinian camp refuges have creatively contested and subverted the label ‘Palestinian refuge’ in many ways. By introducing competing images of ‘refuge-nes’, camps may thus ‘become generative, productive sites for social and political invention and transformation’ (Malki 195b: 238) and this may bring a sense of empowerment to displaced people. In Palestinian nationalism, ‘the refuge’ and ‘the refuge camp’ have become emblematic, 10 Kely (204) discuses the complexities of such imobility among West Bank vilagers as a situation where displacement and return, absence and presence, movement and confinement are intertwined. 11 For an interesting and up-to-date discusion about refuge labeling in the present globalized world where new labels such as ‘genuine refuge’ and ‘asylum seker’ are frequently used, se Zeter (207). 10 signifying both strugle and sufering and refuge camps have ben refered to as ‘centres of resistance’ by the Palestinian leadership (Sayigh 197: 589f; Lindholm 203; Khalili 207). In sum, being refuges has both empowered and restricted Dheisheans. They have acted within frameworks set by the bureaucratic labeling that folowed their flight but they have also sought to subvert or modify these. The Meaning and Consequences of Violence Anthropological literature on societies in the midst of violence has mostly ben concerned with people as victims of violations 12 and with extraordinary brutality rather than with mundane life (cf. Kely 208). Despite the fact that armed conflict and violence have become favourite topics in ethnography in recent years and there are now many acounts of methodological and ethical concerns, explicit theorizing about violence and war has ben scanty (cf. Abink 200: xiv). The anthropological aproach has a great deal to ofer here since it explores violence as a meaningful social act that expreses a relationship with another party. Violence is seldom devoid of meaning to those involved, even though it might sem senseles (Schmidt & Schröder 201). Many anthropologists also emphasize violence as a form of symbolic comunication (Abink 200; Malki 195a) and note its destructive, traumatic efects on those exposed (e.g. Gren 199). Nordstrom & Martin (192: 5) point out that represion and resistance generated at a national level are inserted into local realities in multiple ways. Political anxieties and political violence are thus expresed in cultural performances localy and in everyday life. As ethnographic examples from violent political events on the Indian sub-continent sugest (Das 207; Chaterji & Mehta 207), violence may become deeply interwoven into the fabric of the everyday; for instance experiences that canot be talked about may be brought to mind by something quite ordinary. In a very concrete sense, ongoing hostilities and political unrest cary with them restricting efects on everyday life. Violence tends to disturb quotidian routine and often implies restricted mobility (cf. Bringa 193). While violence can be analyticaly separated into diferent types 13 , most people in violent societies ‘often perceive violence in the singular with one responsible perpetrator, one purpose, and one sufering and/or resisting body or people’ (Jansen & Löfving 207: 7). Furthermore, 12 Exceptions are for instance Roben (195) who have focused on perpetrators in Argentine and Coulter’s work (206) on female guerila fighters in Siera Leone. 13 In adition to structuraly imposed violence, which tends to be stable and often to some extent invisible, Galtung (1969) refers to direct violence as caried out in a subject-object relation. Direct violence is often, but not always, physical. However, those two types are frequently coupled; ‘gros social injustice is maintained by means of highly manifest personal [i.e. direct] violence’ writes Galtung (ibid.: 184). In the Israeli-Palestinian case, structuraly generated violations sometimes take the form of direct physical violence, other times they constitute restrictions, humiliations and degrading treatment. 11 emic perceptions of violence are often relatively holistic, Dheisheans, for instance, felt it was imposible to ‘have a life’ because of violence in its variety of forms – structural as wel as direct (Galtung 1969) – permeated their existence. Most importantly, they conflated the Israeli ocupation with their experience of generalized, continuous violation (cf. Farmer 204) including the scarcity of both material and existential resources (cf. Hage 198: 20 in Jackson 205: 41) that threatened their lives as wel as their sense of integrity. This had implications for the ways in which they responded to their predicament. Constrained Agency Agency is about the human capacity to act. As human beings, we are al limited by structures imposed on us, but we also poses a variable degre of fredom to act within these constraints. Building on Hanah Arendt’s bok The Human Condition (1958), Jackson (202: 12f) discuses this as folows: [E]very person is at once a ‘who’ and a ‘what’ – a subject who actively participates in the making or unmaking of his or her world, and a subject who sufers and is subjected to actions by others, as wel as forces of circumstances that lie largely outside his or her control. This oscilation betwen being an actor and being acted upon is felt in every human encounter, and intersubjective life involves an ongoing strugle to negotiate, reconcile, balance, or meditate these antithetical potentialities of being, such that no one person or group ever arogates agency so completely and permanently to itself that another is reduced to the status of a mere thing, a cipher, an object, an anonymous creature of blind fate. The relation betwen structure and individual agency is, however, not straightforward (e.g. Giddens 1979); how much fredom to act does an individual have despite structural frames? Social science has turned to concepts such as creativity and imagination when discusing human agency (Raport & Overing 200); these concepts relate to or are even necesary bases for improvization. Feminist philosopher Lois McNay (200: 5) argues against the understanding of agency as being predominantly against dominant norms in society and sugests a more generative aspect of subject formation and agency, noting that ‘[…] individuals may respond in unanticipated and inovative ways which may hinder, reinforce or catalyse social change’ (cf. Mahmoud 201). In addition, when action on the world around us is restricted, we can resort to acting upon ourselves, on our iner state, thereby transforming the way we experience the world, ‘we create the ilusion of acting to change the world by acting on ourselves’ (Jackson 205: 150). Although the balancing betwen ‘being an actor and being acted upon’ is a more or les universal human isue, it is a more presing concern for some people than for others. To those who live under very constraining circumstances, agency may sem blocked. The situation in the 12 West Bank is in some ways comparable to that of Post-Comunist Rusia, where Lindquist (206) investigated how people turned to magic as a response to insecurity. Like magic in the Rusian context, the practices studied in this disertation thrive ‘where power is brutal and overwhelming, where the rational chanels of agency are insuficient or of limited value, and where the uncertainty of life cals for methods of existential reasurance and control that rational and technical means canot ofer’ (ibid.: 2). The agency of people in Dheishe is severely limited because of the power asymetry with Israel. However, even in the most totalitarian conditions people try to make space for themselves and leave a mark - like the litle scholboy in de Certeau’s example (1984: 31 in Waters 208) - who continues to scrawl and daub on his scholboks, even when he is punished. Coming to Terms with Violence and Insecurity in Daily Life This disertation does not atempt to study violence or violent behaviour per se, but investigates how refuges in Dheishe handle long-term violence and insecurity. How did my informants as refuges, with first or second-hand experience of displacement, make sense of living in the continuous insecurity of military ocupation? How did they atempt to salvage a sense of integrity in a condition of constrained agency? My informants in Dheishe had developed comunal and shared practices to cope with deprivation and the violence-ridden environment; people’s unsetling experiences interacted with Palestinian comunal ways of dealing with them (cf. Kleinman 196). Experiences of violations (such as expulsion, war and arest) had to be managed. For my informants, al-nakba represented a rupture and destruction of social life, just as the Partition betwen India and Pakistan in 1948 was for the Punjabis in Das’ work (207) (cf. Jasal & Ben Ari eds. 207). It brought hitherto unimaginable breaches of taken-for-granted tenets of social life and subsequent experiences of violence also had to be handled. The remaking of a social world was achieved through the endles repetition of smal events in domestic, quotidian routines. It was by descending into the ordinary (Das 2007) - by being present at many of these daily events – that I could begin to grasp the experiences of violence and to understand what it means ‘to pick up the pieces’ and live on. Below I present a number of concepts that may help us to understand the Dheisheans’ predicament and how they graple with it. Tactics of Resilience Scheper-Hughes (208) underlines that conventional Western understandings of human resilience and vulnerability are often inadequate, especialy in other cultural contexts. Refering to 13 Valiant (197), she notes that strength becomes most aparent ‘when the going gets tough’, when one has to overcome dificulties. People who live in constant crisis, like Palestinians in the ocupied teritories, may therefore have ways of dealing with potentialy unsetling events that difer from those employed in more afluent parts of the world. Resilience is generaly defined as the ability to withstand or recover quickly from dificult conditions. It implies the ability to recoil and spring back into shape after bending, stretching or being compresed (Oxford English Dictionary 1989). In the human context, it sugests an intention to become the person/the group one used to be or to return to an ‘original’ state that existed prior to a chalenging experience. Scheper-Hughes (ibid.), who builds on research in South Africa and Brazil, identifies some ‘tactics of resilience’ that enable recovery. In the present study the tactics discused are normalization, narativity, reframing of events, black humour and enjoying oneself 14 . A useful concept for examining resilience is reframing 15 . By this I mean understanding a disadvantageous phenomenon in a way that makes it sem advantageous or even necesary. In this study, individual and colective eforts to reframe are evident in people’s redefinition of loses as gains or weaknes as strength. For instance, when the camp residents described themselves as being the main fighters in the Palestinian strugle this may be interpreted as a reframing of the bureaucratic refuge label with its conotations of poverty and helplesnes. Furthermore, violent events, which many of my informants would once have understod as abnormal, were reframed as a sort of ‘normality’. Normalization is another means used by the refuges in this study for coping with the violence of everyday life (cf. ibid.). Such proceses entail keping up familiar routines and relations of everyday life to create a sense of order and predictability. For people living with great uncertainty and deprivation, life may sem to be a constant strugle to regulate the unpredictability of life. By extending the boundaries of the previous ‘normal’ order, people in war-torn environments may also bring anomalous and frightening experiences under control (Macek 200). The ned to normalize a state of emergency apears to be related to the high frequency of extraordinary experiences. This may be sen as an efort to re-establish ontological security (Giddens 191). By ontological security Giddens means the sense of continuity and order in events that are characteristic of large segments of human activity in al cultures, and that ‘cary the individual through transitions, crises and circumstances of high risk’ (ibid.: 38). It sems that these events, such as everyday practice or life cycle rituals, become more urgent or pronounced in 14 Scheper-Hughes (208) identifies thre more tactics which are out of the scope of this study: transcendental experiences in relation to traumas, socialization for toughnes and manipulative and instrumental behaviour. 15 Scheper-Hughes (208) does not order those tactics of resilience. 14 conflict-ridden societies, where lives and livelihods are understod to be constantly endangered (cf. Finström 203). Under normal circumstances, everyday life is governed by routine and predictability and this provides continuity. Normalization of a violent and uncertain situation is a complex proces that is fraught with ambiguity. Tausig (192) describes a double state of social being in violent societies where one oscilates betwen understanding one’s predicament as a state of emergency and understanding it as part of a normal order that has extended boundaries. In such contexts, trust canot be taken for granted but has to be negotiated and re-established. Trust, with its conotations of honouring moral obligations, implies respect of each other’s integrity. Having someone to trust may help a person to be resilient; trust acts as a protective mechanism (Ruter 1987; cf. Keenan 192). Scheper-Hughes (208) notes how the death of infants was normalized by the por people she studied in Brazil. Similarly, in a recent article, Alen (208) discuses a how martyr deaths have become normalized in parts of the West Bank. I wil, however, argue that such routinization of death does not exclude the posibility that death may simultaneously be reframed as a heroic act of martyrdom. Some ethnographic research among Palestinians in the ocupied teritories has touched on isues related to resilience. For instance, Rosenfeld (204), who caried out fieldwork in Dheishe, shows the capacities of the camp residents to use family ties and kin obligations to advance whole families economicaly and educationaly despite deprivation. When coping with imprisonment and martyrdom, solidarity among kin and Dheisheans was also crucial. Social relations were thus used to recover and to move forward (cf. Ghabra 1987). Bornstein’s (202a) work shows how West Bankers tried to deal with the inequalities created by borders and Israeli dominance during the years betwen the first intifada and the new uprising. By emphasizing their customs and traditions, Palestinians created comunity and boundaries against other people as a response to such control. Promizing new research has ben provided by Kely (204, 208). Directing atention to the mundane in the midst of violence, Kely (208) has focused on the importance for Palestinians who have not become politicaly involved in the intifada al-aqṣa of upholding ordinary life by continuing to study and honour kinship obligations. Narativity is also often used to make sense of violence. For people who have sufered war and displacement, stories are often important sites for negotiating what has hapened and what it means and for finding ways to move forward. [Refuges’] stories are reconstitutive in the way they organize experience, give it unity and meaning, but they also, in a more pragmatic perspective, form part of purposive and meaningful action to influence the outcome. Story-teling in itself, as a way for individuals and comunities to remember, bear witnes, or sek to restore continuity 15 and identity, can be a symbolic resource enlisted to aleviate sufering and change their situation. (Eastmond 207: 251) Oral histories of Palestinians in Lebanese camps about flights, war and resistance, exemplify such future-orientation in refuge naratives (Sayigh 1979; 194). Bowman (201) provides an interesting acount from a West Bank town, where the re-negotiations of comunity due to political transformations depended on the establishment of shared local naratives of violence. Swedenburg (191) interconected the memories of the Palestinian peasant rebelion of the 1930s with the resistance of the first intifada, showing how memories were recoded to make sense of more recent events. Another anthropological field study from the so-caled Oslo years is Rothenberg’s (204) bok, which explores kinship and gender through stories about spirit posesion. Such naratives are ocasionaly used to try and tackle experiences of torture in Israeli political prisons and to heal ex-prisoners by spirit exorcism. People’s sense of locality and identity are both discursively and historicaly constructed (Gupta & Ferguson 197). Furthermore, proceses to create samenes tend to be the ‘flip side’ of the establishment of othernes (Augé 198). In Dheishe, many naratives that comented on phenomena as divergent as the political situation and local tradition, included proceses of exclusion and ‘othering’. Through naratives as wel as practices, Dheisheans tended to constitute themselves in oposition to Israelis, Westerners and other Arabs. Ideas about samenes and othernes became especialy visible when discusing moral isues in the camp. The threat of Israel was located not only in the represive means of the state, but also in the risk of moral contamination. In Mary Douglas’ clasic Purity and Danger (202), she notes that society does not exist in a vacum but is subject to external presures. Palestinians have experienced literal atacks, military as wel as civilian, on their society at least since 1948. In a society such as the Palestinian, where everyday life is characterized by uncertainty and dificulties in establishing continuity in the face of external powers, untidines and disorder are pronounced and in urgent ned of management. Douglas (ibid.: 5) argues that, […] ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgresions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. It is only by exagerating the diference betwen within and without, about and below, male and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created. Creating clear boundaries betwen the comunity and others was thus a way of re-establishing order. In the chapters to folow, many concerns about maintaining integrity and resisting invasion or even exterminated by the enemy wil be discused. 16 One iluminating example is how Dheisheans’ link morality to history; moral norms were justified by my informants by historical evidence. Like the refuge camp in Tanzania described by Malki, Dheishe was ‘a site that was enabling and nurturing an elaborate and self-conscious historicity among its refuge inhabitants’ (Malki 195a: 52f). To borow Malki’s term, people interpreted events and acted acording to a mythico-history. This does not mean their naratives of the past were false or fictive but sugests that they were concerned with order in a fundamental and cosmological sense (ibid.: 5). They were centraly concerned with the re- establishment of a moral order and thus with boundary-making betwen ‘us and them’, other and self. Resistance and Endurance Political resistance is another response to violence and opresion. Implying action and oposition, resistance often comes to define the identity of people in violent or war-torn societies (cf. Löfving 202). Among Palestinians, the sufering of abuse has frequently ben defined as resisting acts (cf. Bowman 201). Petet (194) analysed torture and beatings in the ocupied teritories in relation to male gender formation, and explained how male youths became men by being subjected to violence perpetrated by the Israelis 16 . Jean-Klein (197, 200, 201, 203), building on ethnographic data from the West Bank, writes about the politicization of everyday practices and about martyrs among Palestinians during the first uprising and concludes that a significant resistance strategy during the first uprising was the suspension of Palestinian everyday life by the mases and I shal return to this several times. Palestinian nationalism underlines the importance of resistance (muqâwame) and of strugle (niḍâl). Resistance is thus emicaly construed and part of the national discourse and it is closely conected to Palestinian subjectivity (cf. Lindholm 199; Sayigh 197). Although it remains strong in other social sciences (Holander & Einwohner 204), resistance has become rather outdated as an analytical concept in social anthropology after Ortner’s (195) criticism of resistance studies 17 . Concepts such as coping or negotiation are now 16 Petet (191), who has done most of her fieldwork in Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon, discuses the efect of resistance and political mobilization on female gender construction, showing very contradictory outcomes. Some women became ‘emancipated’ and more equal to men through their resistance, others resisted through reinforcing a more traditional female role. 17 Especialy during the 1980s, several influential new ethnographies were concerned with resistance to inequality and opresion (e.g. Comarof 1985; Ong 1987; Scot 1985). Ortner (195) later points out several problematic aspects of many of those studies and what she cals their ‘ethnographic refusal’, avoiding thick descriptions and holistic, fuly contextualized acounts. Resistance studies have ben ‘thin’ because they were often ethnographicaly thin: thin on the internal politics of dominated groups, thin on the cultural richnes of those groups, thin on the subjectivity of actors involved. In sum, Ortner recomends imersed fieldworks and 17 more frequently used to analyse human agency in times of political crises, displacement and disasters. In this thesis, resistance is discused in its emic sense, namely how people in Dheishe themselves related their everyday lives to what they defined as resistance. The practices that Dheisheans saw as conscious resistance to the Israeli ocupation may also contain other dimensions of agency (cf. Alen 208). By this I mean practices and positions that do not readily corespond with either resistance or compliance, but that are about remaining steadfast in the present and in one’s hope for the future. In the Palestinian context, the notion of endurance is central and often sems to blur with the idea of resistance. Palestinians have long ben oposing Israeli dominance and represion by ṣumud (steadfastnes). The term caries several meanings both localy and in nationalistic rhetoric and its complexities are further discused in chapter 8. It may involve staying on the land, which is both a strategy of survival and an expresion of political oposition. Jean-Klein (201) showed how daily activities were suspended during the first uprising, but in the second, these tended instead to be afirmed (Junka 206; Kely 208). At the time of my fieldwork, people regarded amusing oneself, for instance by atending weddings or going on outings, as esential to endurance. Humour may ofer a means of remaining steadfast. Scheper-Hughes (208) argues that laughing at one’s dificulties is not necesarily an act of resistance but may be more about bearing witnes to hardships without giving in to them. Kana’na (198, 205) writes about legends of the first intifada and about political humour, showing how Palestinians have used storyteling and jokes as means of reflecting on their predicament. Jokes and funy stories are often told and they form part of a tactic of resilience. Making New Homes While Imagining Return The ability of displaced people to produce new homes has comonly ben overloked in refuge studies (Turton 205). In this study, I wil lok at how practices of emplacement were enacted in Dheishe (Hamond 204). The isue of house building in its symbolic as wel as concrete sense wil be given special atention. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, the building of houses is politicaly contested in several ways - a comon strategy of the Israeli army is to raze a Palestinian house as a colective punishment - but it is also closely linked to the acomplishment of adulthod, a ‘normal life course’ and kin obligations, as wil be outlined in chapter 6. The making of new homes brings new kinds of belonging and is a response and an atempt to recover from displacement; it is a way to manage daily life, but also to normalize one’s condition (cf. Jansen & Löfving 207). However, refuge camps and houses within them tend to be considered special kinds of homes. They often become politicized ‘technologies of power’ an acknowledgment of agency. Taking that direction, resistance studies ‘would, or should, reveal the ambivalences and ambiguities of resistance itself’, she writes (ibid.: 190). 18 (Malki 195b) and ‘centres of resistance’ (se above), while simultaneously conoting temporarines, as long as the fate of the refuges remains undecided (cf. Petet 195). Acording to many Dheisheans, their ‘authentic places’, where they truly belong, are the vilages they once fled from. The desire to return is also authorized by demands for the implementation of Palestinians’ right of return acording to UN resolution 194 (se chapter 3). Not realy belonging and hoping to return to one’s original vilage, yet rebuilding homes and managing everyday lives in a provisional place which is also the site of political empowerment, Palestinian refuges sem to be positioned betwen transition and permanency (Petet 195). Many camp residents have also bought land in the West Bank and others have moved out of the camp to build their homes in les transient places. Despite their ideological notions of roted-nes, the refuges in Dheishe are constantly creating new belongings in a place in which the Palestinian presence is highly contested. In the ambiguous, transitory and threatening everyday life of a refuge camp, the desire to return is hardly surprising. However, Jansen & Löfving (207) argue that the strong nostalgia expresed by many people who are on the move is not necesarily best understod as a desire to return. Hanafi (206) notes that a useful distinction can be made in the Palestinian case betwen the material (i.e. actual return and compensation) and the symbolic dimension (i.e. recognition and reconciliation) of return. To Palestinians, return is often depicted as a vital component in the healing of the social body, which has ben sundered by violence and exile 18 . Return is also closely related to demands for justice and the recognition of sufering. The way that people in Dheishe continue to imagine return, I wil argue, is both in the form of a moral discourse and in the form of hope in a desperate situation. The Aftermath of Resignation: Ilusio as in Hope for the Future Resignation is generaly understod as the act of surender, giving up and handing over (Oxford English Dictionary 1989). It also caries a sense of aceptance of something undesirable but inevitable. Dheisheans often expresed such resignation when claiming that they could do nothing about their situation or that they had no life. However, when the societal chanels of agency are blocked, people turn to alternatives. Observation of the practices of everyday life may reveal that people who live under threat are not devoid of aspirations and projects for a diferent future. On the contrary, profound resignation may engender hope that, for an outsider, may sem unrealistic or even phantasmic. Such 18 Recent studies show the complexity of return to the Palestinian teritories and the many tensions betwen Palestinian returnes and residents (Hamer 205; Isotalo 205). This is however another kind of return than the one envisioned by my informants who longed to go back to their original vilages inside present Israel. 19 practices may augment people’s sense of existential being and agency and they may help transform hopelesnes about the present into hopefulnes about the future. In Jackson’s words (205: xv), ‘[w]hen any society […] ofers no hope, provides no care, and actively blocks certain people from participation in it, these people withdraw their investment and interest from it, and sek an ilusio elsewhere.’ The concept of ilusio, which is an interest or a stake in the game, was coined by Bourdieu (200). It was later used by Lindquist (206) in her study of magic in post-Comunist Rusia to refer to practices concerned with the future and with existential meaning among people with limited choices. To Bourdieu (200: 207), ilusio ‘is what gives sense (both meaning and direction) to existence by leading one to invest in a game and its forthcoming’. People, however, are not rational actors but are more often ‘pasionate players’ who are more concerned with augmenting their social being and agency than with maximizing social profit. Ilusio is related to a limited or even regulated uncertainty; the agent neds to have a chance to win, which is neither nil nor total (ibid.: 213). Lindquist (206: 6) states further that ‘Ilusio is always oriented towards the future, to something that is to be brought into being, in projects and desires, and it is therefore conected with the foundational existential condition of being, that of hope’. To sum up, ilusio contains several elements: it is about an imagined future, about hope and existential meaning and it implies risk-taking. In this study, I use the term ilusio to refer to a kind of virtual agency, which goes beyond the everyday and projects aspirations onto the future. I use it to understand certain activities on the camp that were concerned with investments in the days to come and with hope, such as by reading Koranic verses as predictions of a forthcoming Palestinian victory or imagining a homecoming to vilages of origin. Ilusio may also take the form of engagement in violent acts. One may speak of an ilusio f violence, which implies a gambling with one’s own life or the lives of others, to sek symbolic capital (Jackson 205: xv). Ghasan Hage (203: 131f), for instance, discuses Palestinian suicide-bombers as people who, through their ‘heroic’ self-anihilation, acumulate personal status, recognition and honour they could not obtain in life. Ilusio is thus a dimension of agency that may help us to understand the multiple ways in which Palestinians deal with a situation of despair. Outline of the Thesis Chapter 2 describes Dheishe as field site and outlines methodological and ethical concerns encountered during fieldwork. Chapter 3 provides a brief historical background to the disputed events leading up to the time of fieldwork. It maintains a macro-perspective and gives some 20 explanation for the failure of the peace proces during the 190s that led to renewed violence. Chapter 4 investigates both transformation and continuity in the camp, exploring naratives of flight, the establishment of the camp and the local proces of refuge labeling. Chapter 5 deals with proceses of upholding daily life through everyday routines and normalization. Despite experiencing a ‘state of emergency’, the refuges extended the limits of normality but were ocasionaly overwhelmed by fear and distrust. Chapter 6 focuses on the making of new homes in the camp. These practices of social reproduction and continuity give us important information about ongoing emplacement among Dheisheans but also about the obstacles they face in ataining ideal adulthod. Chapter 7 discuses desires to return to the refuges’ home-vilages and ideas about roted-nes in relation to emplacement outside the camp in the form of houses and patches of land. Since repatriation is not a realistic option for the near future, the right of return remains a moral isue that creates hope of change in a desperate situation. In chapter 8, practices of endurance and the emic concept ṣumud are discused as they relate to resilience and resistance. Some interesting changes from the first intifada are also highlighted. Chapter 9 describes the reconstruction of a moral order and how boundary making was often reinforced by a perceived sense of Palestinian moral superiority in terms of culture and traditions, political strategies and roted-nes. The last ethnographic chapter, chapter 10, provides us with local views on Palestinian martyrdom. While violent death was acentuated, the camp inhabitants used practices and naratives to establish boundaries around ‘true’ martyrdom. This chapter also discuses diferent concerns about martyrs; suicide bombers in particular were considered moraly ambivalent. Finaly, in the concluding discusion of chapter 1, I sum up the findings of the thesis and provide some further insights. 21 2. Dheishe: Refuge Camp and Field-site This chapter presents the site of this study, Dheishe refuge camp, and discuses the methodological and ethical concerns that arise when doing anthropological fieldwork in a situation of sustained violence and economic deprivation. Dheishe – a Society of Its Own Walking down the stairs that led from the flat of a young maried couple, Ahmed and Hanan, I pased by the dor of Ahmed’s parents’ flat, which was on the ground flor of the same building. The oldest part of the house was built in concrete in the early 1950s shortly after the establishment of the camp. Over the years the house had ben extended with several roms and a new flor to acomodate the growing family and later on Ahmed’s household. After graduating from high schol Hanan had taken a secretarial course. Now, she was 28 years old and a ful time housewife and mother of thre. When I left her flat, she was about to put her youngest daughter to slep; as I carefuly closed the gate to the family’s smal garden so as not to disturb them, I could spot the vilage of Doha on the hilside on the other side of the road that leads from Jerusalem to Hebron. Many former camp residents live in Doha, including several of Ahmed’s older brothers, since the lack of space for housing in the camp has become intolerable. Ahmed, who was some years older than his wife, had not studied after graduation but had started his own busines in town with one of his brothers. Their busines went reasonably wel and Ahmed had therefore ben able to aford a rather a stylish flat. Further away the lights from the houses and strets in Bayt Jala, a predominantly Christian town, were glimering in the dark. Beyond that town, there is an Israeli setlement, Gilo, which, although erected on ocupied teritory, is increasingly considered part of greater Jerusalem by Israelis. I tok the aley that pased by the house of Hanan’s sister and her husband; the light was on in the kitchen but I couldn’t se anyone. A wild cat sneaked away as I aproached some plastic bags that had ben put out to be picked up early the next morning by the young men, who are employed for a meagre salary by the UNRWA to colect garbage. I could hear druming, claping and singing from far away; there was a weding going on somewhere. By now, I had arived at one of the roads that led down to the main entrance of the camp. On the wal of one of the houses was a painted picture of a young boy and it was surounded by flowers. Underneath the picture, some words had ben writen in both English and Arabic: ‘Martyr of Childhod and Sufering’. The camp is filed with grafiti and posters like this that serve as reminders and memorials of violent deaths, but they are also political statements and markers of resistance. I avoided the road and tok another aley. Some young children were playing fotbal betwen the houses. Behind the wal of a hiden garden, a huge tre reached out over the path and the birds in its branches were filing the air with their song. Further down in the camp, the aleys betwen the houses became 22 narower and the gardens were smaler with the overcrowding. Despite the lack of space, there was always some family extending their house or puting in a new window and construction noise was constant. At the end of the pasage, one of the camp’s thre mosques came into sight. It would son be time for evening prayers. As I turned into the smal stret where I had ben living for almost a year, I greted Abu Ibrahim, who was siting on the dorstep to his tiny grocery shop as usual. Some minutes later I entered the home of my hosts. ‘Amti (my ‘aunt’, my hostes) and her elderly mother were in front of the TV watching the news. ‘There’s a military operation in Gaza again’, said ‘amti. ‘How many?’ I asked. ‘14 martyrs, 14 this far.’ My host sister came out of the kitchen carying a tray with smal cofe cups and a pot. ‘Here you are!’ she said, handing us each a cup. As I sat down on the sofa, ‘amti shok her head, and whispered ‘no, no, no’. The same blodstained pictures were shown again and again while the reporter’s voice described the order of things in Palestine. * Dheishe is one of 59 Palestinian refuge camps that are administered by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refuges in the near East (UNRWA) 19 and that stil exist in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria (Rosenfeld 204: 2f). Urban Palestinian refuge camps like Dheishe often lok like city slum districts in the so-caled Third World. Dheishe is virtualy a society of its own. The camp contains butcher’s shops, a bakery, gift shops, hairdresers, many smal groceries and several internet cafés. You can buy clothes, shoes, mobile phones and TV sets in shops in the camp and they are cheaper here than in downtown Bethlehem. Down by the main road there are also larger supermarkets and a driving schol. Furniture is sold on the oposite side of the main road next to a pol café and a restaurant. There are two gas stations and a garden centre nearby. Outside the camp, a market seling meat and vegetables is situated on the way to Bethlehem. The UNRWA provides basic services to the camp inhabitants for instance in the form of primary and preparatory scholing, a kindergarten, a women’s centre and a medical centre fre of charge. Several NGOs also have kindergartens, sport clubs and activities for older children; the most wel-known Ibdaa, mentioned earlier, had at the time of fieldwork a huge building containing a guesthouse and a restaurant as wel as space for cultural activities. In addition, a new private medical centre had ben set up with foreign aid funding. Another establishment, Il Feneiq, had ben opened on the hiltop of the camp and it had a smal entrance fe. Il Feneiq had an asembly hal for gatherings and film screnings as wel as an outdoor park with playgrounds and a cafeteria. This place quickly became popular in the hot sumer months. 19 UNRWA wil be more discused in the folowing chapters. Dheishe was however established by the Red Cros and other charitable organizations in 1949 (Rosenfeld 204: 3). 23 As my description of Dheishe reveals, the infrastructure of the camp is inadequate for the sweling population. There are problems with sewage system and refuse colection, as wel as with frequent power cuts in winter and water shortages in sumer. The UN-run schol is overcrowded with pupils and the lack of space to extend houses and comunal buildings in the camp is alarming. Buildings have continuously eaten up the formerly spacious gardens that can be sen in older photographs of Dheishe (se Rosenfeld 204), thus diminishing options to sustain families with some self-subsistence cultivation. Palestinians invest a great deal of efort and money into building houses and this is linked to the establishment of new households, mariage and having children. People sel and buy houses in the camp but they do not own the land that houses are built on. In general, Palestinian refuge camps al over the Middle East are built on either state land or on land leased from local landowners (ww.un.org/unrwa/refuges/wheredo.html 207-11-19 19.39). Like other Palestinian camp refuges, Dheisheans are only permited to use land for residence; the camp is built on leased land. It has, however, become a comon strategy to invest savings in land outside the camp. This wil be described in more detail in chapter 7. Although the families in Dheishe were from pre-1948 farming backgrounds, nowadays people work in al sorts of profesions; there are teachers, construction workers, nurses, doctors, social workers, clerks, mechanics, shop owners, seamstreses, carpenters, taxi drivers, academics, hotel employes and so on. Considering that older generations of camp inhabitants and particularly women over 60 years of age are iliterate or have only a few years of scholing, today’s camp residents have witnesed remarkable educational suces, largely thanks to the UNRWA schols as wel as universities in the Middle East and the West Bank (Rosenfeld 204). Rosenfeld (ibid. chapter 5) explains that the division of labour within Dheishean families has also helped some family members to study, thanks to their parents’ and older siblings’ wage labour. Many Dheisheans have high schol diplomas or higher education. This means that although the majority of the camp residents, with the exception of some in-marying women, have a refuge background, the camp contains considerable diversity in terms of social clas and economic means. As has ben widely noted (e.g. Worldbank 203; PCBS 206b; UNRWA 206), the intifada al-aqṣa has hit the Palestinian economy hard and poverty has increased in the ocupied teritories. At the time of my fieldwork, male manual workers semed to be the most at risk of unemployment because they had ben so dependent on the Israeli labour market as day wage 24 labourers (se also Rosenfeld 204; Bornstein 202a) 20 . As noted by Amnesty International (205: 13), the increased unemployment and los of income among Palestinian men have put presure on other family members, both children and women, to find employment. At the checkpoints around Bethlehem and downtown, children, many of them from refuge camps, were seling candies or home-made snacks to provide their families with some income. Although the majority of Palestinian women were not engaged in paid employment outside their homes 21 , women in Dheishe (who were not considered much of a threat by the Israeli Border Police) could enter Israel more easily than men and they could find work, for instance in Israeli factories. For people with some formal education, there were more work options in the West Bank, even if these were porly remunerated. Even more vulnerable to economic recesion were households in which the main breadwiner was sick, dead or imprisoned 22 . Like elsewhere in the ocupied teritories, female-headed households in particular found themselves in precarious economic situations (Hasiba 204; PCBS 207a: 16). Politics in Dheishe Dheishe camp is one of the beter-known Palestinian refuge camps, particularly in Israel and the West, where it has a reputation for political activism; among Palestinians Dheishe is asociated with resistance and strugle, but among Israelis it is asociated with danger and terorism. Rosenfeld (204: 5), who conducted her fieldwork in Dheishe during the first intifada (1987- 194, se next chapter), described this period as a time when ‘the camp residents, adults and youth, female and male, veteran activists and pasive or inexperienced “iregulars”, […] were drawn into the eye of the storm that swept through the West Bank and Gaza Strip’. Although Dheishe has a long history of organized resistance to the ocupation, its reputation is probably also related to the importance the Israeli army gave to roads during the first intifada (Ron 203); the heavy army presence that was suposed to kep the road betwen Jerusalem and Hebron open led to frequent clashes betwen soldiers and the camp residents. Close to the camp as wel as in Hebron there were (and stil are) also several Israeli setlements that Israel wanted to protect. An army camp was set up oposite the entrance of Dheishe, entrances were closed and 20 In 201-202 men’s unemployment rates in Gaza and the West Bank rose to unprecedented levels as ten of thousands lost their jobs in Israel. On average, refuges, both men and women, have endured unemployment rates 3-4 per cent higher than those of non-refuges the years 200-205 (UNRWA 206: 14f). 21 In 207, only 16.6 per cent of the Palestinian women participated in the labour force (PCBS 207b table 7), which however constitutes an increase the last decade. Many women are also engaged in some income- generating activity in their homes or unpaid in the family busines. 22 Acording to figures from March 205, 1375 families in Dheishe received emergency fod rations and 301 families were considered as special hardship cases (ww.un.org/unrwa/refuges/westbank/dheisheh.html 19.1.207 19.26). 25 the western side of the camp was encircled by a six-meter-high barbed wire fence during the first uprising (Rosenfeld 204: 235). The camp inhabitants therefore experienced almost daily confrontations with the Israeli army. Some of the political activism in the Palestinian teritories has not ben caried out deliberately but has simply ben a response to military harasment in everyday life. For decades, camp residents have ben experiencing repeated unpleasant encounters with Israeli soldiers, including being beaten in the stret, having one’s fod stolen, having one’s home ravaged or destroyed and seing family members arested (cf. Rosenfeld 204). Any protest against these activities was interpreted as activism by both Palestinians and Israelis. After the Palestinian Authority (PA) tok over responsibility for the Bethlehem area in 195, the army presence diminished, which was a relief for the Dheisheans. As one woman said in an interview in 200; ‘the best thing the PA did was to get the Jews out from the camp’. Oppresion and resistance have often fueled one another in the Israeli-Palestinian context. For the camp residents, it was a question of Israel provoking Palestinian resistance. For instance, Abu Amir, a middle aged father of four, explained how the Israeli army’s house searches and beatings of other camp residents had influenced him as a tenager in the late 1960s. Abu Amir said that these experiences made him and some of his young friends decide to take up arms against the ocupation. As wil be more fuly discused in the next chapter, the first intifada was a popular resistance movement that, despite the media images of youths throwing stones at Israeli tanks, also used non-violent methods of civil disobedience. Most of my adult informants had taken active part in the uprising; this meant that they had thrown stones, protected persons who were wanted by the Israeli army or security services, walked in demonstrations, distributed forbidden leaflets or joined solidarity activities for prisoners’ families and so on. Some of my informants had ben involved in Popular Comites, i.e. losely organized gras-rots cels that cordinated self-help activities and resistance 23 , and others had used more violent means against the Israeli authorities, such as Molotov cocktails, bombs and fires (cf. Rosenfeld 204). I did not consciously sek out ‘fighters’ who belonged to an armed group during my fieldwork but it is posible that some of my informants were involved in political activities that they prefered not to tel me about. 23 It has ben estimated that there were several hundreds of Popular Comites (also known as Neighbourhod Comites) acros the ocupied teritories during the first uprising. Their self-help activities concerned such isues as the production of fod, educational programes and healthcare. The Israeli army made eforts to disrupt the activities of the comites by aresting members and by declaring them ilegal in 198. (PASIA 2004) 26 There was also a long history of political imprisonments in Dheishe; a significant number of politicaly active men, and some women, had ben imprisoned as early as the 70s (ibid.: 21) and even during the period of Jordanian rule (1948-1967, se next chapter). Acording to a survey Rosenfeld (ibid.: 197) conducted, 85 per cent of the families 24 in the camp had experienced the political imprisonment of at least one family member, while 60 per cent had had two or more family members in Israeli prison. About half of a male sample population had spent time in an Israeli jail or detention centre for periods ranging from several weks to fiften years (ibid.: 232). Rosenfeld concludes that one may speak of imprisonments as a social fact afecting almost everyone and she contends that this led to the politicization of whole families when they made visits to political prisoners. For most of my male informants who were betwen 25 and 50 years of age political activism had meant spending time in Israeli prisons. A few of the women I got to know had also experienced arest. Many imprisoned Palestinians have ben tortured and a considerable number of them were or are children under 18 years of age (Save the Children Sweden 203; Cok et al 204). Israel aplies special military rules that make it posible to imprison children as young as twelve years (Save the Children Sweden ibid.: 7). Petet (194) refers to this as an Israeli denial of Palestinian childhod. At the time of my fieldwork, arests continued to be caried out by the Israeli army; many mornings the camp residents woke up to the news that so-and-so had ben taken into custody during the night. Most of those arested were in their tens or early twenties 25 . Earlier on, Dheishe had ben known as a Leftist camp. At the time of the intifada al-aqṣa, political activism as wel as suport in Dheishe, as in other parts of the ocupied teritories, had changed dramaticaly (Seitz 206: 12). Um Ayman explained the political sympathies as folows: ‘Listen, the first intifada was dominated by the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] and Fateh 26 , PFLP was even biger than Fateh. Now people are turning to suport the Islamic parties’. After the arival of the Fateh-dominated PA, smaler Leftist parties began to lose ground and Fateh used its leading position in the state-building proces to consolidate its power base. Some claimed that membership in Fateh was advantageous if you were loking for a job in anything that was conected to the authorities. A posible explanation for the decline in popular suport during the 190s for the Leftist parties PFLP and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is that they have proven unable to present a viable alternative to the Oslo proces that they so vehemently oposed (Lindholm 24 Families refer to nuclear families (personal comunication Rosenfeld 206). Most often the imprisoned family member was a son. 25 Since the outbreak of the second uprising in September 200 until 203 over 2.00 Palestinian children had ben arested and imprisoned (Save the Children 203: 31). 26 The political parties wil be more discused in the next chapter. 27 203b). One explanation for growing suport for the Islamic parties, Islamic Jihad and, particularly, Hamas 27 , may be disatisfaction with the PA. The camp residents felt that the PA had shown itself to be incapable of democratic rule without coruption and breaches of human rights and they believed it was to weak to negotiate with Israel. Some people also suported Islamic parties’ armed strugle, also in the form of suicide atacks. Um Ayman, for instance, said that ‘[…] these Islamic groups are vengeful, they kil more [Israelis], they give more to the resistance’. This was strikingly diferent from the 190’s when the majority of Palestinians oposed atacks on Israeli civilians (Seitz 206: 15). The rise of Islamism in the ocupied teritories was probably influenced by a more general tendency of growing movements of radical Islam in many Muslim countries (e.g. Gardel 205). At the time of fieldwork, fear of violence and fatigue with conflict and political strugle was comon. The militarization of the conflict on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides was folowed by a kind of de-politicization of many Dheisheans. Unlike the first uprising, the intifada al-aqṣa was not a mas-based movement 28 that everyone could participate in, but was primarily built on military resistance by militia groups and on suicide atacks. Israel had also forcefuly struck against for instance Palestinian non-violent demonstrations. Most Palestinians felt it was to dangerous and dificult to be involved in political activities under these circumstances (cf. Kely 208). In addition to these obstacles to participation in the uprising there was distrust and a lack of legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership. As elsewhere in the ocupied teritories, many of my informants described their own political atachments as ‘not being with anyone any longer’ (se also Seitz 206: 128). Taysir, the bachelor whose house construction we wil folow in chapter 6, used to be a Fateh activist, but he felt it was beter not to be involved politicaly any more since this would kep him ‘out of trouble’, such as prison and mortal danger. Many of my informants in the camp largely agred on the political ‘grand naratives’ For instance, people more or les agred that Israel’s ulterior motive was to bring about a ‘slow transfer’, i.e. to make life in the teritories so miserable that the Palestinians would eventualy give up and leave for exile. ‘Transfer’ is the term used by part of the Israeli society for expeling Palestinians 29 . There had indeed ben a recent re-emergence of the discourse of transfer in Israeli 27 For a Western audience, it might be important to outline that so-caled fundamentalist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not constituted by some kind of ‘special people’ but are very ordinary persons in the Palestinian society. At the time of fieldwork, even though someone was a suporter of Fateh, his best friend and neighbour might belong to Hamas. 28 Initialy in 200 it sems that the mases were involved also in this intifada. 29 Many researchers today agre that ideas of ‘transfer’ of Palestinians were pervasive among Zionist leaders wel before 1948 (e.g. Nur Masalha 192; Ron 203). Now and then, Israeli politicians, often from the right- wing of the political spectra, publicly argue for a solution to the conflict betwen Palestinians and Israelis through continued ‘transfer’ of the former living in the ocupied teritories, but sometimes also of those holding 28 right-wing circles (Lindholm 203a: 167). Camp residents argued that it was important to stay in the country, even though their strategies for coping with the situation were not always in line with this ideal. People also agred that the international media were controled by Israel. The Palestinians I met often stresed the power of Israel and its Jewish alies in international politics. Although opinions varied about things like suicide atacks and refuges’ wilingnes to return, Dheisheans largely agred on the reasons underlying the various viewpoints. Contrary to general understandings about Palestinian politics as being tightly interwoven with kinship (cf. Wod 193; FAFO 197), I noted that opinions and political afiliations varied even within the same family. Experiences of Violence during the Intifada Al-aqsa Folowing the outbreak of the intifada al-aqṣa 30 in 200, Israeli reactions to the unrest have ben marked by extensive violence (Lindholm 203a: 161f; Seitz 206: 17). The Israeli army sheled Palestinian towns, invaded the teritories, caried out mas-arests and helicopter atacks, placed snipers on roftops in Palestinian neighbourhods and ordered the extra-judicial kilings of political leaders. The Palestinian police force and smaler security units 31 and the militia, that used primitive rockets along with suicide bombers, were met by the modern and wel-equiped Israeli army. The power asymetry betwen Israel and the Palestinians became more obvious than ever to the camp inhabitants. In a focus group discusion I held, Samar, a 3-year old housewife with four children, said ‘[The Israelis] say to al the people, the Arabs and the Western world, that “we are fighting a state that has weapons, [the Palestinians] have their president and weapons, if we don’t defend ourselves then they wil kil us”’. A sense of existential threat spread among the camp inhabitants. As wil be elaborated in chapter 10, in Palestinian society, both people kiled randomly by the Israelis as wel as people kiled while atacking Israelis are considered to be martyrs i.e. śuhadâ’ (śahîd in singular). Acording to Rosenfeld (204: 236), 1 Dheisheans became martyrs as a result of the army’s use of live amunition and hundreds were injured either by live amunition or ruber-coated bulets in the first uprising. By March 205, 131 Palestinians from the Bethlehem governorate and nearly 3,80 from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had ben kiled since the begining of the uprising (PCSB 205: 53) 32 . The overwhelming majority of those kiled were Israeli citizenship. Some speak of a ‘voluntary transfer’ through payments and legal presures, others would not refrain from using violence (Ron 203: 16f). 30 The next chapter provides explanations and background to this uprising. 31 Acording to the Oslo Peace Acords (se next chapter) the embryonic Palestinian state was not alowed to have an army but only police and security forces. 32 Betwen September 200 and December 204, almost 950 Israelis (civilians and security forces personel) had ben kiled due to Palestinian inflicted violence (B’Tselem ww.btselem.org/english/statistics/Casualties 27.09.208 15.10). 29 young men betwen 18 and 29 years of age (PCBS 207b figure 52). Tens of thousands had ben injured. During the first years of the intifada al-aqṣa, several persons who were involved in suicide atacks originated from Dheishe, but most of those kiled and injured are said to have ben civilians. Sawsan, a female middle-aged teacher and single mother, comented on how the violence bred mistrust of the Israelis: [M]any more people have ben kiled than in the first intifada, maybe more than 200. […] Maybe 15 to 20 here in the camp. And something else, […] the terorism of the Jews in this intifada is much more, the force they use against us. And the humiliations became real, they act them out much more during this intifada, they act as inhuman beings. [..] They kil and negotiate at the same time. Like foxes. Um Ayman, and many like her, felt that the Israeli soldiers used violence irationaly, that they had ‘become crazy and only wanted revenge’. Acording to the camp inhabitants, the Israelis’ violence was not only extensive but also incomprehensible. Violence and political unrest also afected the children of the camp 33 . Many had sleping disorders, nightmares or wet themselves. An iluminating example of what was going on in many children’s minds was that of a thre-year-old boy who frequently told vivid stories in the present tense about soldiers kiling someone or about what the soldiers were doing in the camp. This could hapen when nobody was talking about these kinds of things and his stories were often met by an astonished and woried silence by the adults. I once asked two boys of about 1 years of age to pick out their favourite pictures from their colection of national Palestinian stickers (that they colected by buying packets of biscuits). Among al the stickers of Palestinian women in traditional dreses, Jerusalem neighbourhods, pictures of Al-aqṣa Mosque, maps of Palestine and so on, they both chose the few photos that showed Palestinians crying for their dead or for a destroyed house. Although young male Palestinians are most directly afected by the violence brought by the ocupation, women have often ben subject to increased economic presures and violence within the family. Some of the women I met were having to deal with the frustration and anger of their male family members, who sometimes scolded or even hit them. There were also many concerns about honour and women’s behaviour afecting their families’ reputations negatively. It has ben reported that domestic violence and so-caled honour kilings are relatively frequent in the ocupied teritories 34 (PCBS 206a figure 1; Amnesty International 205). Researchers and social 33 Se Save the Children (203, 204) for more elaborated reports about children’s situation in the ocupied teritories during the intifada al-aqṣa (cf. Chaty & Lewando Hundt 205). 34 Acording to some statistics, 23 per cent of Palestinian ever-maried women had ben exposed to physical violence by husband during 205. The same year, 61.7 per cent of these women had ben exposed to psychological abuse and 10.95 per cent to sexual abuse (PCBS 206a figure 1). 30 workers have interpreted domestic violence in the ocupied teritories as often related to and influenced by Israeli policies. Many men sufer from unsetling experiences of violence that impact upon their families’ lives and unemployed males often fel humiliated because they canot fulfil their male gender role as protectors and providers. It is dificult to fuly describe the kind of violence many of my informants had recently witnesed so I wil let Samar, who was a housewife in her thirties, provide an example in her own words. When I asked her about martyrs, Samar exclaimed ‘Oh, al these stories [about martyrs] bore me’. Then, remembering a demonstration at Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem, next to an Israeli army base, Samar turned to her brother and continued: ‘Al our life is tough. [That boy] and his brain came on your shirt. Then you didn’t eat for two weks. When you came home and loked scared, your face was yelow, mum thought it was one of our brothers [who had ben kiled]’. Her brother, who had told me earlier about the same event at the begining of the intifada al- aqṣa, when he had caried a dying, gunshot-wounded child in his arms, loked away and did not say a word. Dheishe in a Local Context: the Bethlehem District Once a bustling cultural and spiritual centre hosting tourists and pilgrims from around the world, Bethlehem has become an isolated town, with boarded up shops and abandoned development projects. The age-old link betwen Jerusalem and Bethlehem is nearly severed as a result of Israeli policies […] (OCHA & UNSCO 204: 20) At the time of fieldwork, Bethlehem was stagnating and it loked very diferent from when I visited it in 200. Dheishe is located in the Bethlehem governorate with some 176,00 inhabitants consisting of the town of Bethlehem and two traditionaly Christian towns, Bayt Sahour and Bayt Jala, some larger vilages like Al Khader, Artas and Al Doha and a number of smaler ones. Besides Dheishe, there are two other refuge camps, Aida and Al Aza in the Bethlehem area (PCSB 208: tabel 26). Refuge camps such as Dheishe are today largely integrated into their local districts, although research on Palestinians in the ocupied teritories has conventionaly divided the population into city, vilage and camp, asuming some homogeneity within each location (Taraki 206: xvi). Taraki (ibid.) notes that because of the marginalization of agriculture in the ocupied teritories sharp diferences betwen rural and urban areas are being blured 35 , while social instead of political divisions betwen camps, on the one hand, and towns or vilages on the other are becoming increasingly untenable. ‘Many of the urban refuge camps are part and parcel of the 35 There are however increasing diferences betwen the major Palestinian cities due to political and economic conditions but also due to diferent ethos characterizing each city (Taraki 206: xvi). 31 social fabric of the towns, even though they bear the markings of exclusion and separation as do so many other por urban comunities and neighbourhods the world over’, writes Taraki (ibid.). However, clas and religion, rather than locality, remain markers of diferentiation betwen social groups within Palestinian society. The economic diferences betwen refuges and other Palestinians persist; UNRWA (206: 37) reports that the burden of poverty, however it is measured, has ben borne disproportionately by refuges in the post-200 period. Also when it comes to lack of physical security, refuges sem to cary a heavy burden; acording to the Palestinian refuge organization BADIL (204: xv), it has ben estimated that more than half of the Palestinian fatalities related to the Israeli ocupation in 203 were refuges. Nor do refuges in Dheishe mary Muslim Bethlehem families and they rarely mary Christian Palestinians 36 , but have their social networks mostly among other refuges and the lower clases of Palestinian society (cf. Jarar 203: 12f). Prior to the intifada, the inhabitants of the area, especialy Christians in urban Bethlehem but also Dheisheans, had for centuries ben benefiting from incomes generated by tourism and they had therefore ben les dependent on the Israeli labour market than had inhabitants of other parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. With the decrease of tourism during the new intifada, the economy deteriorated quickly. The highest rate of unemployment in al the West Bank was found in the Bethlehem governorate in 207 (PCSB 208: 38). It is posible, however, that poverty was reduced thanks to the many international and local NGOs based in Bethlehem (cf. COWI 207). The value of remitances is also far higher than in other areas since many migrant relatives to the Christian population live in Europe, the US and Latin America, where they have a higher standard of living than migrant or refuge relatives in countries like Jordan, where many Dheisheans have relatives. As residents of the Bethlehem area, Dheisheans sufered restrictions to their mobility in 203-204 due to a series of security measures taken by the Israeli state to separate West Bankers from Israelis. The Bethlehem area was literaly encircled by dirt mounds, road gates, checkpoints and roadblocks in addition to nine Israeli setlements, a stretch of the Separation Barier and roads that were for Israeli use only (OCHA & UNSCO 204, se map 5). Many of these obstacles had not ben erected on the Gren Line (i.e. the Armistice Line functioning as a sort of border) but wel into the ocupied teritories. West Bankers were thus prevented not only from entering Israel but also from oving betwen Palestinian towns and areas. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) also extended their control of the area to include Rachel’s tomb, in the northern 36 Acording to Granqvist (1935), mariages acros religious lines were not uncomon among Palestinians in the early 20 th century. Other social factors such as clas and political influence were more important (FAFO 194: 57). 32 part of town. This is a holy site for Jews, Christians and Muslims but the Israeli move meant it was then only acesible to Jewish worshipers. Palestinians from Bethlehem who wished to visit Jerusalem also had to obtain permits from the Israeli Civil Administration 37 and even with these permits they could arbitrarily be denied aces at the whim of the Israeli Border Police at the checkpoint on the road to Jerusalem. Acording to the Oslo acords, Bethlehem belonged to area A, where the acords had granted the Palestinian Authority (PA) ful responsibility for internal security, public order and civil administration. In reality, however, Israel maintained and augmented its control of the area via other means. For instance, in 202, the district had ben placed under 24 hour curfew for 156 days (ibid.), which further restricted the mobility of its residents and increased their dificulties with keping up normal routine. At times, Bethlehem was re-ocupied by the army. At the begining of the new uprising, the Bethlehem governorate was frequently targeted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and was involved in Israeli-Palestinian clashes. For instance, in March and April 202, during the second year of the intifada al-aqṣa, Bethlehem was one of the primary targets of the Israeli army’s ‘Operation Defensive Shield’, which was launched after a number of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. In Dheishe, this period was frequently refered to as ‘The 40 Days Invasion’. The operation involved military intrusions and extensive destruction in a number of West Bank cities as wel as a siege of the Nativity Church in central Bethlehem, where some hundred Palestinians, including some armed activists, had sought refuge. After five days of siege, the IDF had kiled ten people inside the church and an agrement had ben made to exile the remaining Palestinian fighters. Meanwhile, the Bethlehem area was under curfew and the army was conducting house searches and mas arests. People in the camp were both afected by and involved in this violence. Acording to my informants, some of the Palestinians who had exchanged fire with the Israelis in the Gilo setlement from the nearby town of Bayt Jala had come from Dheishe. ‘Do you think those guys were from Bayt Jala?’ a woman in the camp asked me, as a way of emphasizing the camp’s status as a site of resistance. The intifada al-aqṣa brought great demographic change to the Bethlehem district, reducing local Palestinian ethno-religious diversity. Before the outbreak of the second uprising, Muslims and Christians each constituted about 50 per cent of the population in urban Bethlehem, while Muslims counted for the overwhelming majority in the district as a whole, as they do in other 37 Permits were obtained from the Etzion District Cordination Ofice (DCO) after security clearance from the Israeli inteligence services. Many camp inhabitants expresed that geting a permit was a time-consuming and dificult task, with an unsure outcome. Many had given up atempts to ask for permits for visits, while others strugled to renew ork-permits. 33 parts of the ocupied teritories (OCHA & UNSCO 204: 2) 38 . With the economic and political instability that resulted from the uprising, many Christians left for other countries; it has ben estimated that one tenth of the Christians in Bethlehem had migrated by the end of 204 (ibid.: 18) 39 . This exodus of Christians was a frequent topic of discusion in Dheishe because in Palestinian nationalistic discourse leaving has ben portrayed as a form of betrayal and lack of steadfastnes (ṣumud). However, the desperate situation caused by the intifada al-aqṣa also meant that Dheisheans wanted to leave, either temporarily or for god. Many were investigating ways to get out of the ocupied teritories and were aplying for diferent kinds of visas to Western countries and trying to raise money for the trip. Some were sucesful, but most were not. Doing Fieldwork in Dheishe I remember lying awake, listening to the unfamiliar sounds from outside; the sounds of military jeps aproaching or the heavy steps of soldiers blended with the sound of my sleping host-sisters’ breathing. During those first weks in Dheishe, each night as I prepared for bed I would arange my clothes carefuly so that it would be easy to get dresed if the house was searched. One of the young men in the household had asked me what I would do to help him if something hapened during the night. As a foreigner, would I be prepared to act as a witnes or ‘mediator’ if someone in the house was beaten or arested by the Israeli army? I promised him that I would do my best to intervene, but I was not sure whether it would make things beter. The oldest brother in the family hardly slept at al during these weks of strange sounds at night and intense military activity. Usualy, he would watch TV until late but on these nights he watched over us al instead. One morning he recounted that some soldiers had ben standing on the veranda of the house during the night but for some reason they had changed their minds and left us alone 40 . * Abu Lughod (1986) contends that honest acounts of the circumstances of fieldwork are necesary if we are to evaluate ethnographic interpretations, but these can be embarasing for the anthropologist. Conducting anthropological fieldwork in a violent context and with refuges also demands special considerations, both ethicaly and methodologicaly. My presence is evident 38 This report builds on PCBS Population Census 197. 39 When identity politics become increasingly Islamized, as they have partly ben in the Palestinian teritories, a Christian minority may have problems to maintain a sense of belonging to the nation. In adition to a long tradition of Christian migration and wel-established contacts with kin in other countries, the growth of the Islamic parties combined with the holding of Western citizenships and the deteriorating situation may serve as explanations to the acentuated Christian migration. Latent tensions exist and ocasional conflicts betwen Palestinian Muslims and Christians sometimes erupt (Bowman 201). 40 This particular family has had their house searched by the Israeli army at numerous ocasions both before and after my stay with them. 34 throughout this thesis, but I have tried to present it scrupulously and without lapsing into solipsism. Violence often forces the ‘neutral observer’ to take sides (Schmidt & Schröder 201: 13). This can be quite explicit as when I was prepared to help my hosts if there was a house search. It would have felt absurd and unethical to tel my hosts that I could not help them because of the demands of ‘neutrality’ or ‘objectivity’. Although I have never ben a peace activist or ben involved in solidarity work for Palestinians, through my anthropological work I have become increasingly engaged in the ‘Palestinian isue’. Like most other anthropologists working with Palestinians and other vulnerable populations, I am far from a ‘neutral observer’, if social scientists can ever justifiably claim such a position. However, without my concern and political awarenes I doubt if I would ever have ben able to establish enough trust among my informants to conduct ethnographic fieldwork at such a sensitive time as the intifada al-aqṣa. Now, as I sit writing, far away from Dheishe, I can adopt a more distanced and reflective stance. I therefore strive here to maintain a reasonably neutral but stil engaged tone. As an anthropologist, I believe my task is to ofer an emic perspective and try to give voice to my informants’ experiences. My fieldwork was broken into two main periods and a shorter visit, totaling 12 months in 203 and 204 41 . The interuptions were made largely for practical reasons, such as acquiring visa extensions but I was also concerned about my ability to handle living in such violent suroundings. I found that the breaks were advantageous in also giving me some distance from my experiences and a chance to reflect on data I had gathered as wel as on my research aims. My repeated returns have also come to be understod as a sign of long-term comitment to the camp and to the Palestinian nation (cf. Åkeson 204). During the fieldwork periods, I stayed with a family in the camp and this alowed me not only to interview the residents but also to observe and to some extent participate in daily interactions in Dheishe. I had caried out an earlier minor field study in this camp before the new intifada erupted and some contacts that had ben established several years earlier also proved to be critical in the new situation, in which there was so much mistrust and fear. So, who did I become to Dheisheans? I was introduced to my host-family by a friend, who is a close relative of the family. To some extent, I was considered to be the responsibility of this family and especialy of its male members; this meant both protection and restrictions. My role in the family fluctuated betwen that of a pampered guest and that of a female family member, who was expected to do household chores and uphold codes of conduct (cf. Abu Lughod 1986: 15). 41 Since my fieldwork was completed in October 204 I have had the oportunity to pay several shorter visits to Dheishe in 205 and 206. Those visits have not included formal interviews, but have stil ben important means to folow up data as wel as to catch up on the lives of friends and informants. 35 Although my host-family warmly acepted me, I inevitably remained an ‘outsider’ to the camp residents. It was also an advantage to remain an outsider to the conflicts and divergent status interests of diferent groups, families or individuals. However, with time, I did become more closely asociated in the public eye with my host-family and my local field asistant. Dheishe is also a relatively large camp that houses about 9,00 inhabitants; even though people noticed me and recognised me, it was of course only a minority of the residents whom I got to know and who became directly involved in my research. As noted by Abu-Lughod (1986, 1989, 193), there are both advantages and disadvantages with the positions of insiders, ‘halfies’ and outsiders respectively. El-Kholy and Al-Ali (199) also discus the ambiguity and context- dependence these concepts had during their fieldwork in Egypt. Being a Westerner in the Middle East often implies that one is automaticaly sen as conected to the politics of Western countries as wel as to dubious morality (se chapter 9) and origin. Foreign researchers in the Middle East are also frequently suspected of being spies (cf. Dresch 200; Salamandra 204: 5; Shryock 197: 164f). It would probably have ben easier to conduct fieldwork if I had ben at least ‘slightly Arab’ or ‘slightly Muslim’ (cf. Swedenburg 191), since an imagined samenes among Arabs and Muslims is often emphasised in the camp. My Swedish citizenship was, however, often viewed positively since many Palestinians consider Sweden to be politicaly pro-Palestine. Some of my informants did not think I behaved as they would have expected of someone with the amount of university education I had behind me. They told me that ‘I was down-to- earth’ despite the fact that I was ‘almost an academic doctor’. I ate the fod that they ate and had no problem sharing their living space. We shared ‘bread and salt’ as an Arabic saying for being related goes. The internal clas divisions within Palestinian society made it unthinkable for most camp residents that a Palestinian researcher from outside the local comunity would stay with a refuge family in their home in the camp. On the other hand, as a non-native, my stumbling Arabic remained an obstacle throughout my fieldwork despite my eforts and progres. I managed to acquire basic language proficiency for chating about daily isues and to some extent about isues related to my research, but I remained dependent on my two field asistants, whom I wil describe later. In the gender segregated Palestinian context I would suspect it is easier for a female researcher to gain aces to both male and female informants than for a male. In retrospect, however, it is clear that my data from ale informants have ben colected in more formal ways, while it was easier for me to talk informaly with women. Socialy, I was also somewhat ambiguous because, in the Dheisheans’ view, I was far to old to be unmaried and being an unmaried woman also meant that I could not move around in 36 the camp on my own after dark (cf. Rothenberg 204). This was a problem since the evenings were excelent times for visiting people, both for interviews and informal chats. When I came home late on my own my hosts protested and I was scolded by the male family head; ‘my roaming’ around in the camp afected not only my reputation negatively but also theirs. My field asistant often escorted me home or other Dheisheans often voluntered to folow me back to my host-family or they would send their children with me to protect me from gosip about my lose morals. Although I tried my best, I sometimes failed to conform to the codes of conduct apropriate for an unmaried Palestinian woman but the Dheisheans, and my hosts in particular, were very acepting of my ‘unfeminine’ and strange behaviour. I remember once overhearing my hostes and her elderly mother talking; the older woman asked, ‘Isn’t Nina away from home a lot these days?’ And my hostes replied mater-of-factly, ‘Wel you know, she is a foreigner after al’. Religion is a sensitive isue in the Palestinian teritories for several reasons. Asking a foreigner about his or her religion sugests suspicion that the person might be Jewish and likely to side with Israel or that they may even be a spy (cf. Shryock 197: 178). I was born into the Swedish Lutheran Church and am not a religious practitioner. For many camp residents, the Lutheran faith is a light version of Christianity and they were concerned that I was not truly religious. Some of those who cared about me would probably have liked to se me convert to Islam, although few expresed this. Others, who were not very religious themselves, instead semed to fel that our secular views gave us much in comon. Religion is also an ethnic marker in Palestinian society and it is often asociated with clas. The camp residents are Muslims who come from a rural background, while many of the urbanites in the Bethlehem area are Christians. In general, Christian Palestinians tend to represent the educated middle clas and to be more Western-oriented than the Muslim ajority. As noted by Bowman (201), conflicts sometimes erupt betwen Muslim and Christian Palestinians around Bethlehem as wel as elsewhere in the ocupied teritories. Moving through this mine field of positions, I felt that my best option for establishing my religious identity during fieldwork was to stres my Christianity, even though this might sugest I was siding with the Christian Palestinians, whom any camp residents considered snoty. Nevertheles, I thought this was preferable to being viewed as an Atheist or a Jewish spy. The most striking diference betwen Dheishe and other West Bank refuge camps was the frequent contact that Dheisheans had with foreign visitors: journalists, peace activists, volunters, tourists or pilgrims. The camp is easily acesed from Jerusalem and it also hosts a number of non-governmental organizations, in particular the internationaly renowned Ibdaa, which brings 37 foreigners to the camp. The town of Bethlehem has also ben atracting tourists and pilgrims for centuries. Dheisheans’s familiarity with foreigners worked to my advantage for my fieldwork. Social anthropology and its methods were, however, almost unknown in Dheishe despite the fact that Rosenfeld (204) had used some anthropological field methods when working on the camp. Camp residents were acustomed to university students and researchers who caried out shorter surveys and pols in the camp and to journalists who came to interview them once in a while. I realised that the fact that I did not distribute questionaires to everyone made some people wonder if my field asistants would only let me talk to certain individuals. It was of course a conscious anthropological strategy on my part to slowly expand my networks. ‘I was a mesage bearer and informant as wel as a researcher’, writes Abu Lughod (205: 30) as a way of describing how she brought news about acquaintances and explained about life abroad to her informants in Uper Egypt. In such a politicized environment as Dheishe, many informants had political motives for speaking to me. My role easily became that of a witnes and chanel to the outside who could publicize Palestinian sufering. Others wanted me to explain Western foreign politics or how life in general was organized ‘outside’. Some also hoped that I might be a resource for money and contacts. I wil return to these isues later on when I discus the practices to endure adopted by camp inhabitants. As wil become clear in this thesis, the ongoing negotiation of trust betwen researcher and informant is particularly dificult to handle in a conflict-ridden society (se chapter 5). Dresch (200) has also noted that everyday life in the Middle East tends generaly to be treated as a ‘family secret’. He concludes that in many Arab comunities ‘one “covers” from view one’s own afairs, but frely speaks about others’ (ibid.: 12f). Despite this cultural norm and the mistrust nourished by ocupation and memories of flight, the majority of the camp inhabitants I met were welcoming and helpful. Only a couple of people were openly hostile to me and only two Dheisheans refused to be interviewed when asked. None of those who agred to participate refused to be tape-recorded when I promised that I would delete the recordings within a wek. However, I believe most people at some point wondered about the intentions behind my presence and my research. I was also dependent on my male field asistant for establishing trust. His god reputation in the camp and his social relations became the building blocks of my networks. He belonged to Fateh and did not maintain contacts with people who suported Islamic Jihad. As far as I know, none of my informants belonged to or voted for this party. Suporters of Islamic Jihad were both numericaly and politicaly weak in the camp and it is posible that they felt more threatened by Israel than did other Palestinian groups and therefore 38 did not want to jeopardize their political involvement or their everyday lives by talking to a foreign researcher. In order to prevent felings of mistrust among my informants I did not note down people’s real names or where they lived. I never tape-recorded anyone or tok photos without asking permision and I only did this when relations had ben wel-established. I was also careful in the begining to avoid posing direct questions about people’s political afiliations and personal experiences with the Israeli army and I was very cautious about bringing up potentialy stresful topics. I also coded al the colected data; although most of the subjects covered in my study would have ben of litle interest to the Israeli security services, the data could potentialy have ben used in displays of power during interogations of arested Palestinians. ‘Nina, you haven’t sen a thing!’ one of my informants corectly exclaimed during my last field trip, when we were discusing violence in the camp. Neither during my fieldwork, nor on other ocasions, have I personaly experienced the kind of violence many camp residents have lived through during the years. For instance, I have not sen someone geting kiled or lost a close relative in political violence. I have never ben arested and tortured, I am not a refuge whose house has ben searched ‘a milion times’ and I have never had to run for my life when an atack helicopter is aproaching or snipers are shoting. Thanks to the relative calm in the Bethlehem area in 203-204 and to my foreign status, al I experienced was curfews, soldiers sneaking around the house, shotings nearby, sound-bombs and explosions from house demolitions at night. I have also ben held up at checkpoints, questioned at border crosings and frightened by army jeps randomly acelerating or by agresive soldiers. It is unquestionable that having a foreign pasport and non-Arab apearance gave me a very privileged position in the ocupied teritories. It was, for instance, much easier for me to move in the West Bank and inside Israel 42 than it was for Palestinians and to some extent even for Israelis. Israeli soldiers were also unlikely to be rude and agresive to me or to harm e physicaly. And, of course, I could easily get a ‘vacation from y Palestinian experience’ by going home or elsewhere; my informants and I were wel aware that I could leave any time I wanted while they could not. As Jean Genet wrote about his stay with Palestinian guerilas in Jordan, I was ‘among – not with – the Palestinians’ (Genet 1989 in Swedenburg 195). Listening to stories as wel as silence about grief and experiences of violence was one of the most chalenging parts of my fieldwork, both personaly and methodologicaly. As Omidian (200: 172), who worked with Afghani refuges in the US, writes, refuge research as wel as research with other vulnerable populations sometimes deeply afects the anthropologist: 42 The Gaza Strip was on the other hand at many ocasions more or les sealed of by the Israeli army to foreigners in 203/204. 39 ‘[Working with refuges] puts the researcher at risk of emotional bombardment, feling acutely the loses, deaths and semingly endles strugle to cope with life […]’ 43 . Despite al the diferences betwen my informants and me, I tried my best to find a resonance betwen their experiences and my own life (Wikan 192). Many times I noticed how my own emotional instability echoed that of my informants. Like my informants, I also developed strategies to handle the stresful situation. Some of these strategies I learned (more or les unconsciously) from the other camp inhabitants, others were related to my personal life experiences or to being an anthropologist. Heike Behrend, who caried out research in war-torn Uganda, points out that researchers can always rely on their methodology as ‘a favoured means of reducing anxiety’ (Behrend 199: 8 in Finström 203). Apart from retreating from reality to focus on field notes and transcriptions of interviews, I comforted myself with having an intelectual reason for being in Dheishe. Omidian (200) also notes the ned researchers who work with vulnerable people sometimes fel to take action to overcome felings of helplesnes. I tried to ease my own discomfort by initialy engaging in work with children at an organization and later on by giving English lesons to some women in the camp. This kind of activity also provided a way for me to get to know people and to become known. Apart from the violence, the growing poverty in the camp was another concern for me. It was distresing to se that some families had more or les empty fridges; some people did not eat wel because of economic problems, but lived from hand to mouth and depended on the god wil of kin, neighbours and aid organizations. My felings of helplesnes and guilt had to be balanced against most peoples’ discomfort about acepting money and my limited resources. I restricted gifts to smal items I brought from abroad and once in a while I paid a taxi fe, bought a schol uniform or made a contribution to a sumer camp for children. When I was interviewing people about painful topics, I tried not to push them but rather to let them speak frely and, if they prefered, in general terms. I ocasionaly interupted interviews if I felt that either the informant, my field asistant or I could not take any more. In these interviews I tried to remain focused and to show clearly that I was listening. Omidian (ibid.) describes how she experimented with the spacing and number of interviews per wek to help her ‘survive’ fieldwork. I folowed this recomendation by sometimes postponing interviews or spending a few days only transcribing. I also became tougher with time, as Malki (195a) did when she was working with Hutu refuges. For example, when several informants described similar events, I found it became easier to kep a distance from the horifying details. As Das 43 Although my experiences with Palestinian refuges have many similarities with those of Omidian (200), she generalises about fieldwork among refuges in a way I would not. Omidian sems to asume al refuges to be victims in al contexts, a view hich I do not share. 40 found in her work with Punjabis who had experienced the Partition (207: 6f), Dheisheans were able to speak about al-nakba and more recent violent events and they told stories about their flight and subsequent violence, but usualy they narated without ‘voice’, not in the sense that they did not have words, but that these words became mechanical or numb and without life Interviews about violence may therefore be rather insuficient since it is in everyday life those experiences reapear (cf. Martin 207: 74). In societies where there is regular political violence, people have to constantly adapt their plans acording to the changing situation. For example, I had hoped to take elderly refuges on visits to their home vilages but was only able to do this once. As Kovats-Bernat (202) reports, dangerous fields frequently demand improvised field strategies; in my case I had to smugle an old lady into Israel. This also means that the researcher, despite enjoying a privileged position, has to deal with the same kind of uncertainty as his or her informants. Kovats-Bernat (ibid.) also streses the importance of listening to local expertise: locals can advise about which information would be to costly or dangerous to gather and so on. I son decided with my field asistants not to go loking for ‘activists’ who were wanted by Israel as informants. This would have aroused unwanted atention from the Israeli security forces and suspicion among the Palestinians. If I had spent time with wanted persons it could also have increased the risk of injury for me if the Israeli army decided to atack or arest the person while I was with them. Many politicaly sensitive isues had to be avoided or could only be raised towards the end of my fieldwork, after I had established god relations. Considering the shift in power balance betwen the anthropologist and the locals that takes place in dangerous fields, Kovats-Bernat also questions whether the anthropologist is able to deflect danger from informants. The ability to protect each other from harm is often a shared concern for actors in this kind of field. Apart from the isues described above, my fieldwork was quite traditional. I stayed with the same family in the camp for the duration of my stay. Fieldwork included the usual anthropological methods of participant observation, informal conversations and more formal semi-structured interviews. Some of my informants, often those with university degres, spoke fairly god English, while the majority’s knowledge of English was scant. Due to my limited knowledge of Arabic, two field asistants were engaged in the study. One of my asistants was a male camp inhabitant in his early thirties, the other was a female Christian in her late twenties who was also from the area. Both of them were unmaried. Through these two companions I was able to come into contact with informants of both genders and with diferent political and social afiliations. Towards the end of my field stay I also conducted some focus group interviews 41 so as to capture the many ambivalences and negotiations betwen Dheisheans concerning political isues in the camp. In total I interviewed some 50 individuals betwen 15 and 85 years of age in. Some of these interviewes were only interviewed once, others on several ocasions. I often tried to interview and get to know several individuals from the same household or family. I tok notes on al encounters. More formal interviews and focus groups were also recorded and transcribed and the recordings of the interviews were normaly deleted within a wek. I also joined oficial or comunal manifestations such as demonstrations, sit-ins and memorial days as wel as weddings and funerals. My male asistant helped me to film some of these events. I also tried more improvised methods that alowed some of my younger informants to decide what to focus on while they showed me around their place of living, the camp. 42 43 3. A Disputed History and a Historical Failure The strugle betwen Zionism 44 and Palestinian nationalism has long acted as a fundamental principle of both Israeli and Palestinian society. The conflict is also heavily contested. As in many war-torn societies and nationalistic disputes, the origins of conflict and turns of events are constantly debated. Opponents each tel their own version of history and often use it to legitimize their acts of agresion. The aim of this chapter is to give a brief historical background to the curent situation and to outline a range of viewpoints. The focus is on how events have afected Palestinian refuges in the West Bank. When fieldwork for this study began in early 203, the intifada al-aqṣa, also caled the second intifada, had ben going on for two and a half years. Israelis and Palestinians had ben involved since the early 190s in trying to create peace and to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The peace negotiations, often refered to as the Oslo Acords, which had established a Palestinian Authority (PA) and more or les maintained a ceasefire and hopes for a final status agrement, al semed to have ben in vain when the conflict was re- activated. The second aim of this chapter is therefore to ofer some brief explanations for this failure. Al-Nakba means Disaster In 1947, the newly established United Nations presented a partition plan 45 (taqsîm in Arabic) for the disputed British Mandate in Palestine. This aimed to create two independent states, one Jewish and one Arab (i.e. General Asembly Resolution 181, se map 1). Many Palestinians refused to acept this proposal because it deprived them of their land 46 . However, in retrospect the partition plan would have given them far more land than they are likely to receive in any peace agrement today. At the time, Palestinians as wel as Arab state leaders strongly oposed these plans and demanded ful control of the British Mandate as wel as national independence 47 . 44 Although Zionism can be broadly described as an ideology that suports the foundation of a Jewish homeland in Israel/Palestine, it includes several curents (se e.g. Schulz 196). 45 There was an earlier Partition plan by the Pel comision in 1937 during the Palestinian peasant revolt (se Swedenburg 203). 46 Acording to the UN decision, a Jewish state was to be established on more than half of the total land area of Palestine, although Jewish land ownership did not exced 9.38 per cent. Half of the population of the UN- planed Jewish state would have ben Arabs. Moreover, the Arab state would have had an Arab majority population and a Jewish minority of 10,00 inhabitants. Jerusalem would be an international zone. (Hadawi 198: 79f) 47 Swedenburg (203: 16) writes that it was only much later that the partition plan of 1947 was widely acepted among Palestinian Israelis because of the influence of the Israeli Comunist Party, which won strong suport from this group. 44 The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent war betwen Israel and its Arab neighbours had enormous consequences for the Palestinian people. As mentioned, these events are caled al-nakba, which means the disaster or catastrophe in Arabic. Arab neighbouring countries had sent their armies to atack the newly declared Israeli state 48 . Those trops were, however, porly prepared compared to the wel-trained Jewish/Israeli forces (Person 194). The war, which in Israel is known as the War of Independence, marked the begining of the Palestinian exodus. Today this conflict would probably be considered a form of ethnic cleansing (Benvenisti 200). Official Israeli discourses frequently argue that the refuges were not expeled but that they fled out of cowardice or that they were requested to leave by the Arab armies. In this way, Israel denies holding any responsibility for Palestinian loses. Research has shown, though, that the dispersal of Palestinians in 1948 included expulsion by Jewish forces, abandonment by order of Arab leaders, fear of Jewish atack or acidental involvement in hostilities, military campaigns against the comunities by armed forces, psychological warfare, as wel as fear of masacres and rapes, especialy after the kiling of men, women and children in Deir Yasin in April 1948 (Moris 199: 252-258) 49 . As sems to be the case in most situations of war and flight, the reasons for flight were multiple and complex. The result of the war betwen Israel and its Arab neighbours, which ended in January 1949, was partition, although this partition was not like that envisaged by the UN (se map 2). There was no independent Palestinian state and the Israeli state ended up being far larger than had ben sugested by the international comunity 50 . The West Bank was anexed by Trans-Jordan 51 (against the wil of other Arab states) and the Gaza Strip fel under Egyptian ocupation. The name ‘Palestine’ had disapeared from the map and its teritory had ben absorbed into other states. The borders of the Israeli state remained disputed and there were no formal peace treaties, but merely armistice agrements (Shlaim 200: 47). It has ben estimated that during and after the war, four out of five Palestinians fled from their homes in the area that is now Israel (Heiberg et al. 194: 37). About 160,00 Palestinians were left within the new Israeli state (Pape 204: 142), some of them as internaly displaced people. They were given Israeli citizenship and were often refered to as Israeli Arabs or Israeli 48 In the predominant Israeli discourse, it has frequently ben argued that these Arab armies were determined to destroy the Jewish state. This has, however, ben disputed. Some claim that the Arab states were more driven by their own competing political and teritorial ambitions. (Philo & Bery 204: 21) 49 Moris (199: 248) writes that during this first Israeli-Arab war about 6,00 Israelis were kiled and at least as many Palestinians (including civilians and armed iregulars). In adition more than 1,50 soldiers from other Arab countries lost their lives. 50 The Jewish state was established on 78 per cent of mandatory Palestine rather than the 57 per cent sugested by the UN (Philo & Bery 204: 2). 51 Under British administration, the East Bank of the River Jordan became Trans-Jordan (Peretz 1986: 4). Geographicaly, this area roughly coresponds to today’s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. 45 Palestinians. They were regarded by Israel as a dangerous fifth column and were therefore placed under strict military rule until 196. Most Palestinian refuges were spread out in the Middle East; the bulk of them ended up in Gaza and the West Bank, in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan but also in Egypt. A few ent even further afield to Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Great Britain; many who had worked with the Mandate government had ben given British pasports (Sayigh 1979: 10). Refuges who had financial means managed to buy new land or to rent houses and they became what is known in the international refuge discourse as ‘self-setled’ and some of them never registered as refuges. Many others spent the first years after flight on the move; they stayed in caves or with relatives and friends and eventualy ended up in refuge camps established by the UN in diferent parts of the Middle East during the early 1950s (se map 3). The international comunity also responded to the war by adopting several UN resolutions favourable to the Palestinians. The UN General Asembly Resolution 194 (II), 1 December 1948, is most frequently refered to when discusing the refuges’ right of return (ḥaq al-‘awda) and roughly states that the refuges should be permited to return to their homes as son as posible and that compensation should be paid for lost property (se also chapter 7). Israel continues to argue that the implementation of the right of return is out of the question since large numbers of returning Palestinian refuges would threaten the Jewish character of the Israeli state; the non-Jewish citizens would basicaly become ‘to many’ in oficial Israeli views (Kananeh 202: 50f). This way of reasoning is part of a wel-established Israeli discourse about ’the demographic threat’ that wil be discused in chapter 6. The refuges’ atempts to return to their homes were later on prevented by the Israeli government, despite a temporary ofer to let a minority of the refuges return (Schif 195: 16). Despite UN General Asembly Resolution 194 that confirmed the refuges’ right to return to their homes and to be economicaly compensated, in August 1948 Israel initiated ‘an anti- repatriation policy’ (Pape 204: 146), which resulted in either destruction or ful Jewish take- over of deserted Palestinian lands and houses in both vilages and urban setings 52 . Over four hundred Palestinian vilages had ben depopulated and many of them were destroyed, while more than a dozen of the major urban centres that used to have an exclusively or predominantly Arab population were taken over by Israelis (Khalidi 192). Refering to UN estimates and records from 1962, Fischbach (203) has described the huge quantities and high value of land, buildings, industrial equipment, vehicles, agricultural livestock and household furniture that were lost by 52 In the early 1950s, Kneset, the Israeli parliament, pased legalization that permited continued land confiscations and depopulation of Palestinian vilages, often in the name of security or the public god. Also, Bedouins in the South were forced to setle and they were robed of waste tracts of land (Pape 204: 146). 46 Palestinian refuges in 1948 53 . Among Palestinian refuges, al-nakba therefore implies los of land, livelihod and social relations. Another outcome of al-nakba was the creation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refuges in the Near East (UNRWA) in late 1949 to give acute relief to the Palestinian refuges since neither Israel nor the Arab states would take responsibility for the fate of the dispersed Palestinians. More than fifty years after UNRWA’s founding, the agency embodies a unique international comitment dedicated to the welfare of Palestinian refuges. Other refuges fal under the protection of the United Nations High Comision for Refuges (UNHCR). A major problem has ben that of finding a durable solution to the refuge problem and of implementing UN resolutions concerning the Palestinian refuges’ right of return. The Palestinian refuge organization BADIL (200: 6) even argues that the UNRWA has in practice provided les for Palestinians than the UNHCR would have. UNRWA has developed into the Near East’s largest public service employer, providing education, health, relief and social services to refuges registered by the Agency, but in recent years it has faced dificulties in providing services due to stagnating donor contributions. Among Palestinians, there is a cultural concern with honour that sems to be conected to the los of land (Warnock 190). For instance, Katz (196: 8) writes that no metaphorical phrase is more familiar to Palestinians than arḍi ‘irḍi, which means: ‘my land is my honour’. This should be read as: ‘my land is my nobility… my being what I am’. Their inability to protect their land in 1948 and later brought a sense of humiliation to Palestinians, especialy the men, and this has ben exacerbated by subsequent military ocupation and violent conflict. Not only were people, vilages and houses erased from the land but also Arabic names of vilages, mountains, valeys, springs, were replaced by Hebrew names 54 (Abu El-Haj 201; Benevenisti 200; Petet 205b; Slyomovics 198). Pape (204: 147) claims that this renaming was institutionalized and that the first Israeli Prime Minister Ben Guiron personaly supervised the project, which was completed in the 1950s 55 . Palestinian mapmaking since al-nakba has often responded to Israeli maps, by making destroyed Palestinian vilages visible and showing a Palestinian version of reality (se for instance ww.arij.org). In the Israeli-Palestinian context, 53 The lost land was estimated to be 4,246,032 dunums (one dunum equals one fourth acre or about 1,00 square metres) at a value of 204,60,190 Palestinian pounds (Fischbach 203: 274f). 54 Also the new Israelis went through a proces of hebraization – European Jewish newcomers to Israel were often renamed, many family names and even first names were changed to Hebrew names (Masad 206: 38). Petet (205b: 160) notes that just as taking a Hebrew name was integral to becoming a new, Israeli person, so to did Palestinians who joined the resistance movement often adopt a nom de guere, partly to disguise their true identity but also as a way of remaking their personhod. 55 After the ocupation of the West Bank and Gaza, this re-naming practice continued when giving names to setlements (Benvenisti 200: 36). 47 naming, as wel as mapmaking, are used to confirm and establish both dominance and resistance; the new Israeli state used this to inscribe itself on space and people and Palestinians responded in kind, although they did so without the institutional backup of a formal state. Since al-nakba is such a key event for Palestinian society and in particular for its refuge population, we wil return to these events in several chapters of this thesis. In the Aftermath of Flight: The West Bank under Jordanian Rule After 1948, the Palestinian population who remained in ‘historical Palestine’ fel under the control of mainly thre states. Palestinians who remained inside the Jewish state were governed by Israel. Local Palestinians as wel as stateles refuges in Gaza were governed by Egypt and the population in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem were governed by Jordan. With the anexation of the West Bank, the socio-demographic composition of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan was profoundly changed. To the mainly Bedouin population of about 450,00 about 80,00 Palestinians were added, half of whom were refuges (Rosenfeld 204: 34). The West Bank Palestinians, both refuges and locals, were granted Jordanian citizenship. This meant that they could participate in parliamentary and municipal elections, they were granted equal political rights and alowed to obtain Jordanian pasports (Jarar 203: 76). Many refuges’ demands to influence politics, however, were met with hostility from local Palestinians in the West Bank. The refuges’ reactions to the citizenship isue were also divided. Most of them semed to have ben concerned that Jordanian citizenship would deprive them of their right to return to their home vilages (Plascov 1981: 48). In practice, Jordanian citizenship was more or les compulsory. ‘Anyone who wished to travel, to work in the public sector, register the births of children, or enter them in state schols, had no other option but this’ (Sayigh 1979: 9). The mistrust betwen the refuges and the Jordanian authorities remained. Also programes that aimed to give them new land to cultivate were greted with suspicion and were often sen as atempts to resetle them (Jarar 203: 78f). Sayigh (1979: 10f) concludes that ‘Jordan pursued an energetic policy of integration [and] refused to recognize a separate Palestinian identity’. Palestinians were also recruited in vast numbers into the Jordanian army and government services and the camps were kept under close surveilance (ibid.). The West Bank had by this time ben cut of from its main trading routes, ports and comercial urban areas; the economy was thus redirected towards the East. Over the years that folowed, Jordanian government investments were made on the East Bank of the River Jordan, and mainly in the area of the capital. This, along with unemployment and poverty in the West Bank, trigered migration to the Aman region, especialy by the many destitute refuges 48 (Rosenfeld 204). However, labour migration from Jordan to the Gulf countries also emerged; the majority of the work migrants were Palestinians and remitances became an important part of the Jordanian and West Bank economy (ibid.). Later on, during the 1960s, a part of this labour migration was constituted by skiled Palestinian profesionals, often thanks to education in UNRWA schols and universities in other Arab countries, and later on in local institutions (ibid.). During the first half of the 1950s Jordan faced political unrest and crises, army and police represion as wel as strained relations with surounding regimes (ibid.: 213). Partly, this political development was related to the tensions betwen Palestinians and the ‘original’ Jordanians. As in other neighbouring Arab countries, the presence of Palestinians represented an element of social and political destabilization (Moris 199: 260). There were extensive arests throughout the kingdom, also of Palestinians. War broke out betwen the Jordanian army and Palestinian guerilas, who had established state-like structures and military training camps. The hostilities culminated in 1971 when the army threw the Palestinian militia out and kiled thousands of Palestinian fighters 56 . Most of the Palestinians living in Jordan nevertheles remained there. Folowing al-nakba, there were also constant clashes along the armistice line betwen Israel and the neighbouring Arab countries 57 . Displaced Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank began to engage in what was known as infiltration, crosing the ceasefire lines. Korn (203) describes how so-caled infiltrators, which often meant Palestinian refuges who were trying to retrieve property, se relatives or tend to their land inside what had by then become Israel 58 , were expeled or kiled during the 1950s. Moris (199: 274) estimates that over 2,70 ‘infiltrators’, posibly as many as 5,00, were kiled by the Israeli army or police or by Israeli civilians betwen 1949 and 1956. The kilings of returning felow refuges were also a comon theme in my elderly informants’ acounts of the years after al-nakba 59 . Although the majority of the ‘infiltrators’ were unarmed and motivated by economic and social factors, others, who were involved in sabotage or violence, managed to kil 20 civilian Israeli and scores of soldiers betwen 1948 and 1956 (ibid.: 271). 56 There were for instance masacres of several thousands of Palestinians in Jordan during ‘Black September’ in 1970 (Person 194: 123). 57 The Arab countries also started an economic boycot of Israel and they closed their borders. 58 Although Israeli police reports from this period described the majority of the infiltrators as ‘hostile’, other Israeli sources, such as military and inteligence documents, claimed that most of the infiltrators were por refuges and that economic dificulties and general shortages acros the borders made them try to return to their land and vilages, loking for fod and property (Korn 203). Korn also notes that later ‘Israel’s policy to block the return of the refuges and the measures taken against infiltrators produced infiltration as a conscious form of oposition and resistance’ (ibid.: 1). 59 Acording to their memories and probably also due to the course of events in the specific vilages they came from, the number of vilagers kiled sems to have ben greater in the years after the flight than during it. 49 As a response to the ‘infiltration’ Israel adopted a policy of reprisals against vilages in Gaza and Jordan. Shlaim (200: 83) argues that ‘al of these raids were aimed at civilian targets’ and ‘greatly inflamed Arab hatred against Israel and met with mounting criticism from the international comunity’. The Palestinian National Project and National Imageries after 1948 1948 is a profoundly symbolic year for both Palestinians and Israelis. Their nation-state projects have since emerged side by side, often miroring or responding to one another, although in very diferent terms as their means of power have ben and stil are so strikingly diferent (cf. Kananeh 202: 58). While the Israeli national project intermingled with state-building, Palestinian nationalism developed in exile and often through military strugle, guided by a wish to return to the homeland and achieve national independence. It has often ben argued that Palestinian nationalism was paradoxicaly fuly developed with the los of homeland in 1948 and established as a mas movement by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) by the end of the 1960s (se e.g. Lindholm 199; Kimerling & Migdal 193). Since there have ben many Israeli atempts to cast doubts on Palestinian identity as being recent and in some sense artificial, as oposed to ‘real’ national identities and nationalisms (Khalidi 197: 178; Sayigh 197: xif) and to question the existence of Palestinians as a national group, it should be noted that demands for independence had ben heard earlier 60 . Such a demand was for instance voiced in a peasant rebelion in the 1930s that was refered to in Arabic as al-thawra (Swedenburg 203). Before al-nakba, political aliances and a sense of belonging were however often based more on locality and kinship ties than on the nation (Migdal 1980: 2f). Farsoun and Zacharia (197: 12) also note that Palestine had ben viewed as an administrative and religious unity much earlier than the Ottoman era 61 that preceded British rule, a fact that influenced and helped the founding of a national ‘imagined comunity’, to quote Anderson (1983). 60 Pape (204: 45f) notes some sources claiming that Palestinian nationalism has its rots in the 1870s when city-based intelectuals started to opose Otoman rule, although these acounts have ben questioned. Acording to Farsoun and Zacharia (197: 59f) on the other hand, the Young Turks’ revolution in 1908 that emphasized ‘Turkification’ of the Otoman empire sems to have awaken an Arab consciousnes (rather than a Palestinian) and open oposition to Otoman rule. 61 Farsoun and Zacharia (197: 12f) write that the Greks, Romans and Arabs al had a designation of the country as Philistia, Palaestina or Filistin. Both Muslim and Christian organizations also lent cohesion to Palestine as one province. Se also Pape (204: 28) who argues that familial conections as wel as geographical boundaries constituted by the River Litani, the River Jordan and the Mediteranean Sea held thre sub-districts in the Otoman Empire together in a social and cultural unit. Moreover, pan-Arabism sems to have reinforcing Palestinian national identity and by the begining of World War I a consciousnes of Palestinian national belonging was on the verge to emerge, but had not yet become politicized or organized (Farsoun & Zacharia 197: 60). 50 Already by the late 1950s, frustrations and despair in the refuge camps in the Middle East were being chaneled into guerila activity (Pape 204: 148). This was also the begining of the glorification and romanticizing of violent resistance among Palestinians. The armed strugle evolved as a fundamental ingredient in the formation of Palestinian national identity (Sayigh 197). However, only a few thousand tok up arms or engaged politicaly through writing or diplomacy (Pape ibid.: 152); most Palestinians were fuly ocupied with economic survival in the 1950-60s. Apart from ilitary activities, a significant part of the Palestinian strugle from Mandate days until today has consisted of non-violent resistance, on the local level as wel as the international. Although the Palestinian military strugle was leaderles and divided into smal guerila groups at first, it was from this cadre of young fighters that Fateh originated, the party that for decades maintained a leading position in the PLO 62 . With its revolutionary ideology and legendary leader Yaser Arafat (1929-204), Fateh managed to influence Palestinian politics as wel as the proces of politicizing the people. Early on, political Islam also afected Palestinian politics through the Muslim Brotherhod in the Gaza Strip. It was much later during the first intifada that radical Islam became a serious chalenge to the PLO through two political parties, namely Hamas and Islamic Jihad. For the urban middle clas, especialy Christian Palestinians, Leftist and Marxist ideologies were in general much more atractive (Pape 204: 150). This suport led to the establishment of a number of smaler parties that were left of Fateh on the political scale. Among them were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and Palestine Democratic Union (FIDA). Pape (ibid.: 151) sumarizes: [At the end of the 1950s], Palestinian activists in their diferent locations had suceded in formulating through their parties’ platforms and discourse the two clear Palestinian goals that would guide them in the post-Nakbah era: the creation of a Palestinian state, and the return of Palestinian refuges. As the state they envisioned was to replace Israel, the second goal would have ben achieved by the suces of the first. These pragmatic goals of Palestinian statehod and return were to be acomplished with the help of multi-vocal notions of sufering and strugle, which have ben described as the building blocks of Palestinian national identity (Lindholm 199; Sayigh 197). These two concepts corespond to an idealized, almost mythical, image of the guerila fighter (fidâ’i, fidâ’iyyîn 62 As a response to a rising Palestinian unrest and nationalist agitation, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was established by several Arab governments in 1964. It is an umbrela organization of various Palestinian factions. After the Israeli ocupation of Gaza and the West Bank, a sort of coup d’état in 1969 replaced the head of PLO with Yaser Arafat (Masad 206: 42). 51 in plural) and the refuge 63 (lâji’, lâji’în in plural). The same individuals and groups often embody both images since Palestinian refuge camps son became emblematic sites of resistance. There were several atempts by the PLO to establish state-like structures and civil service institutions outside the homeland, notably in Jordan before the war in 1970 (se above) and especialy in Lebanon until 1982 (when the PLO was forced out). The PLO structure of the time developed as a de facto government in exile. As a product of the times, the PLO in the late 1960s was influenced by Third World ideology of liberation and it developed as a radical and revolutionary movement. Apart from providing services and radicalizing the people, the PLO also managed, sometimes through spectacular and violent means such as hijackings and the taking hostages of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich 1972, to place the Palestinian question on the international agenda. By reformulating its goal in 1974 to that of a Palestinian state only in the West Bank and Gaza, side by side with Israel, the PLO made its demands more aceptable internationaly and it was then recognized as a representative of the Palestinian people. In Israeli views, though, the PLO remained a terorist organization and it was therefore baned in the ocupied teritories. As late as the 190s, Israel refused to negotiate directly with the PLO in peace negotiations. Ocupation 1967 The Six Day War in 1967 betwen Israel and Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq was folowed by Israeli victory, anexation of East Jerusalem and ocupation of Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. This created new refuges and, for many, a second exile. Kilings, evictions and demolitions of houses and vilages folowed. The UN estimated that some 30, 00 residents in the newly ocupied teritories fled during 1967 (Person 194: 13). Many were Dheisheans who fled once more, most of them to Jordan. For the Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip who stayed, the Israeli ocupation brought additional and ambiguous changes. For some Israelis, by contrast, the new control of teritory coresponded to a Greater Israel ideology (Pape 204: 197). Moris (199) describes it as ‘a strong expansionist curent’ in the Israeli state- building project. The UN responded to the ocupation with Security Council Resolution 242, which caled for the ‘withdrawal of al Israeli armed forces from teritories ocupied in the recent conflict’ and a ‘just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security’ as wel as a ‘just setlement of the refuge problem’. However, the Palestinians initialy rejected the resolution 63 As we wil se further on, ‘the refuge’ is a much more ambiguous image than ‘the fighter’ in the Palestinian comunity. This has to do this clas structures and conflicts betwen or diferent interests of the ‘original’ local population around refuge camps and the camp inhabitants. 52 since it did not mention their right to self-determination and national sovereignty. Israel acepted it in 1970, arguing that the resolution did not determine that al the ocupied teritories neded to be evacuated 64 (Philo & Bery 204: 34f). Moreover, most Israeli Jews were convinced that the pre-1967 borders did not provide the state with security and that teritories captured in a war for self-defence should not be surendered without a political agrement (Kretzmer 202: 7). The ocupation meant that Israel, defined as a Jewish state, 65 gained control over Jerusalemites, who were granted some social and legal benefits, 66 and over Palestinians in the ocupied teritories who were granted neither citizenship nor social and legal rights in Israel. Ron (203) argues that this control over teritory and people has obliged Israel, which he cals a semi- democratic country, to take some responsibility for the people under its rule. Israel, writes Ron (ibid.: 5), belongs to a group of states that define their comunities more narowly than their actual populations 67 . The dominant population in such a state controls the state aparatus and uses both legal and military means to privilege its own comunity. Like Israel, these states are partly democratic, but they are also deeply discriminatory in their way of distributing resources, both in the form of public services and symbolic dignity. Such ‘semi-democracies’ or ‘ethnocracies’ are, however, often sensitive to criticism and presure from international audiences such as international human rights activists, United Nations bodies, non-governmental organizations and international agencies. Israel purports to have ambitions to respect human rights and often defends its policies by refering to international law (ibid.). Ironicaly, the Israeli military ocupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip implied an ambiguous ‘opening up’; for instance, it became posible for Palestinians to resume social relations with relatives inside Israel and to work for Israeli employers. This was due to an Israeli decision at the time to integrate the newly ocupied teritories and to implement a policy of ‘Open Bridges’ (Gazit 195: 176 in Bornstein 202b; Roy 195: 145f). This also meant that Israel linked roads, electricity, water-suplies and phone lines in the ocupied teritories to the Israeli networks. 64 This ambiguity stems from diferent versions of the resolution in English and French. 65 Though 20 per cent of the population consists of Israeli Arabs or Israeli Palestinians, who hold Israeli citizenship. 66 Palestinians living in Jerusalem, anected by Israel, often hold ID cards proving their status as Jerusalemites, but not Israeli citizenship. These cards, which give them aces to Israeli teritory, provide them limited political rights at the local level and are entitled to the social welfare system in Israel. Even though the Palestinians in Jerusalem pay taxes to the Israeli state, their neighbourhods in Jerusalem are often prevented from suficient service compared to Israeli-Jewish areas. 67 Ron (203: 5f) also cites Serbia, Turkey, India, Rusia and Mexico as examples of states that are wracked by strugles betwen the state and excluded groups that are seking teritorial autonomy or independence. 53 The economic integration meant that Palestinians became a growing source of cheap labour for Israeli employers 68 ; they often worked as day wage labourers under exploitative and humiliating conditions (se e.g. Tamari 1981). For instance, since Palestinians were not alowed staying overnight in Israel many workers had to comute long distances on a daily basis. For people in Dheishe, working in agriculture in Israel or in Israeli factories ocasionaly meant that they were working on the same vilage land that their families had lost in 1948. However, although Palestinian workers were badly paid and treated and often had no social security, they nonetheles earned more than they would have in the ocupied teritories (Roy 195: 143f). Smal industries in the ocupied teritories also benefited from export to Israel, but unemployment remained a severe problem and the teritories sufered greatly when there was an Israeli recesion. The ocupied teritories also became a captive market for Israeli products, wherein 90 per cent of the comodities originated in Israel, while Palestinian products were only 2 per cent of Israeli imports, an adverse trade balance (Rosenfeld 204: 9). Rosenfeld (ibid.) captures these complex proceses as folows: This was a direct consequence of an Israeli policy that prevented competing Palestinian agricultural gods from entering the country’s borders; imposed heavy restrictions on export from the Teritories to other markets, as wel as high tarifs and taxes on imports (other than Israeli) to the Teritories; systematicaly denied permits and licenses to Palestinian entrepreneurs; and closed the local banking system. In an ongoing proces, hundreds of thousands of dunums (four dunums equal aproximately one acre) of Palestinian agricultural land were confiscated and turned into Israeli state property for setlement, parks, roads, and enclosures. In Roy’s research on the economy of the Gaza Strip (195), she uses the concept de- development, as oposed to underdevelopment, to describe an ongoing retrogresion linked to thre structural components: Palestinian disposesion of land and water resources, externalization (i.e. reorientation towards Israel) of Palestinian labour (fed by drying up the local economic infrastructure) and deinstitutionalization i.e. destruction of Palestinian institutions. In the aftermath of 1967, Israel started to construct setlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Setlement meant and continues to mean confiscations of Palestinian-owned land. Philo & Bery (204: 36f) write that in Israeli society, the justifications for the setlements range from war gains and security neds to divine rights of the Jewish people to biblical land 69 (cf. Segal & 68 Acording to Roy (195: 14), the number of Palestinian workers crosing into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank rose from 80 in 1968 to 5,90 in 1970. Pape (204: 204) mentions that by 1974 about 45 per cent of the employed Palestinians in the West Bank and 50 per cent in Gaza worked in Israel. About half of them were in construction and the rest in agriculture and industry. 69 These arguments are stil heard in more contemporary coments. The former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for instance was quoted as saying ‘Israel is the promised land – promised to Jews and no-one else’ in the 54 Weizman 203). Especialy after 1974, Israeli religious setler groups, such as Gush Emunim, have come to influence Israeli setlement policies; the setlements that used to be sen as a military frontier became increasingly conceptualized as both a mesianic and a suburban frontier (Shafir 199: 92 in Philo & Bery 204: 38). However, setlement building is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, which says that ‘the ocupying power shal not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the teritory it ocupies’ 70 . As reported by the UN Office for the Cordination of Humanitarian Afairs (UN OCHA 207), the Israeli setlements have ben a means not only of controling the area but also of alienating Palestinians from the land. As mentioned, atempts by Palestinian refuges to return in the early 1950s became a political crime acording to Israeli law, which labeled such refuges as infiltrators (Korn 203). Nevertheles, the ocupation and the policy of ‘Open Bridges’ gave the refuges new oportunities to visit their lost homes. Slyomovics (198: 14) describes such return visits as a twentieth century variant of pilgrimage and as a way for exiled Palestinians to go ‘from the visionary to the concrete’. Refuges who visit their lost vilages have ben known to want to touch and fel the ground or the stones of their razed houses; to eat the herbs that grow on their lands etc. For many years, return visits to original vilages inside Israel have ben a way to re- establish links with the land and with the past. Younger generations of refuges have also ben made aware of their history and the right of return; vilage visits have ben an important pedagogic tol. 71 As mentioned, it also became posible to re-establish bonds with relatives left behind during al-nakba, even though the diferences betwen Palestinians in the ocupied teritories and inside Israel have become increasingly visible over the years, both when it comes to life styles and legal rights (Bornstein 202a). For many Palestinians, the ocupation meant not only economic dependence but also increased Israeli control, including political opresion, imprisonment and torture in Israeli prisons (se e.g. Rosenfeld 204; Quigley 205: 201). Israel imposed a military administration, which seriously restricted the social and political rights of the Palestinians under ocupation and also extensively violated human rights and international humanitarian law (Falk 206; Kretzmer 202; Quigley 205). Israel ruled the teritories by military decre and military personel exercised direct control (Quigley ibid.: 179). In addition, about fiften hundred military orders Observer 13 July 203 (Philo & Bery 204: 37). For a critic of setlement policies from an Israeli perspective, se Yiftachel (203). 70 The Israeli government has argued that the teritories are administered rather than ocupied and therefore the article has no bearing (Philo & Bery 204: 39). 71 In Dheishe, not only families have brought their children on such educational visits to vilage sites inside Israel but the youth organization, Ibda had also aranged visits. 55 regulating al aspects of life were isued betwen 1967 and 193 (JMC April 194 in Rosenfeld 204: 35). Political fredoms such as the right to vote were severely restricted since al parties and organizations were treated as potential bases of resistance to the ocupation and a strict political censorship was enforced (Moris 199: 39). Israel also used Palestinian colaborators and created Vilage Leagues, asociations equiped with municipal functions in the West Bank, that were viewed as colaborationist by local Palestinians (PASIA 204). Ron (203: 2) convincingly argues that the amount and type of violence used by Israel against the Palestinians has shifted acording to the institutional seting: Prior to its 1967 ocupation of the West Bank and Gaza, for example, Israeli forces mounted large-scale raids on West Bank and Gaza vilages, kiling many in what was then Jordanian- and Egyptian-held teritory. […] Ever since Israeli trops tok the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war, however, Israel ceased using intensely destructive violence, relying instead on harsh, police-style tactics. The more Israel consolidated its control over Palestinian lands and populations, in other words, the les dramatic its methods of coercion became. The Israeli policy of ‘Open Bridges’ that in various ways conected the ocupied teritories with Israel proper after 1967 created what Ron analyticaly refers to as ‘a gheto’ 72 . Gaza and the West Bank became in practice part of Israel, although they were not legaly anexed but were under military ocupation. Western powers neither openly suported this tacit anexation, nor encouraged Palestinian independence, but simply demanded that Israel respect human rights (Ron 203: 18). In Ron’s terminology, the ‘gheto’ is constituted as part of a state and this inclusion makes it into a sort of ambivalent safe haven from expulsion and extermination although the population of a ‘gheto’ often encounters very represive policies and harsh ‘policing’. ‘Due to their halfway status, ghetos are segregated and represed, but rarely liquidated outright’ (ibid.: 17). 73 Ethnic policing was the dominant method used by Israel in the ocupied teritories, but there were other more despotic alternatives such as semi-private Jewish militia from the setlements in the West Bank. Although no consensus exists in the setler movement, some of these paramilitaries have ben known to suport the ‘transfer’ of non-Jews, ‘transfer’ being the 72 This analytical term ’gheto’ should not be confused with the gheto (or prison) Palestinians sometimes use as a metaphor for their lives since the building of the Israeli wal. 73 A valuable comparison with Native Americans in the US can be made. As long as the ‘Wild West’ was understod to be a ‘frontier’, not incorporated into the US, the indigenous population was the target of masacres and expulsion. However contradictory this may sound, once Indians were locked into reservations, where they were policed, opresed and their society and culture almost crushed, they were probably also spared from uter liquidation. Although having to chose betwen expulsion/extermination and segregation/represion may sound like a choice betwen two evils, the institutional seting of a ‘gheto’ may save people’s physical lives (Ron 203: 17f). 56 local term for expulsion (ibid.: 16). The Jewish setlers’ regional councils and militias, established mainly during the 1980s and combining a religious-nationalistic ideology 74 with some military strength, have, however, ben controled by the Israeli state. Even though the setlers continue to generate fear and destruction in many parts of the ocupied teritories, they have not ben alowed to cary out more ferocious policies such as ethnic cleansing (ibid.). The United Nations produced a number of reports in the mid 1980s that criticized Israeli human rights abuses in the ocupied teritories and Israeli setlers’ violence against Palestinians (Philo & Bery 204: 62). It has ben argued that increasing abuse by the Israeli army before the intifada was one of the main factors behind the first uprising (ibid.). The First Intifada (1987-1994) After 20 years of military ocupation combined with the incapacity of the PLO to achieve national liberation from outside the homeland, Palestinians in the ocupied teritories rose up against Israel. In December 1987, Palestinians from the Jabaliya refuge camp in Gaza started throwing stones at an Israeli army compound and the uprising son spread to other parts of the ocupied teritories. The PLO-leadership based in exile semed to be taken by surprise by the mas protests and the abilities of ‘ordinary’ Palestinians to organize. Through out the intifada, violent clashes tok place, mostly in refuge camps, vilages and porer neighbourhods of towns (Strum 198: 65), but much of the uprising consisted of civil disobedience 75 . Intifada literaly means ‘shaking of’ in Arabic and it refers to an atempt to shake of the political and economic opresion caused by the ocupation. In the words of the Israeli historian Moris (199: 561): [i]t was not an armed rebelion 76 but a masive, persistent campaign of civil resistance, with strikes and comercial shutdowns, acompanied by violent (though unarmed) demonstrations against the ocupying forces. The stone and, ocasionaly, the Molotov cocktail and knife were its symbols and weapons, not guns and bombs. The first uprising generated a range of formal and informal political structures. Within some months the intifada was formalized by the establishment of the United National Leadership of 74 Ron (203: 168) writes: ‘Broadly speaking, Gush [Emunim i.e. the main setler movement,] beliefs were that Jews were the chosen people, Palestinians had no national rights, the West Bank was promised to Jews by God, and that the Mesiah would come only when Jews had setled Greater Israel and defeated Palestinian political chalenges.’ 75 Schif & Ya’ari (1989) write about the man behind these strategies of civil disobedience, Mubarak Awad, who caled for a completely autonomous infrastructure as wel as non-violent resistance. 76 Rosenfeld (204: 207) claims that the first uprising was a culmination of the modes of popular action that had developed since the Israeli ocupation enabled any elaborated Palestinian military activity in the ocupied teritories. 57 the Uprising (Philo & Bery 204). Much of the early leadership came from the younger generation who had recently acesed higher education and they imbued the uprising with values of democracy, self-help and empowerment. Palestinian women initialy tok an active part in demonstrations and protest activities, extending their gender roles to include stret fights with soldiers and other forms of direct political activism (Augustin 193; Sabagh 198; Haso 205b). For many women, this activism was caried out in a realm of extended motherhod (Kanana 198; Gren 201). Al Palestinian young men involved in the strugle were for instance conceptualized as sons of any Palestinian mother and as such in ned of motherly care and protection from Israeli soldiers. Strum (198) described female activism as ranging from elite feminists with profesional degres to porly educated housewives who saw themselves as emergency activists. The intifada was also imbued with an ethos of self-restraint and routines of abnormality as discused by Jean-Klein (201); for instance, weddings and other festive ocasions were rarely celebrated. Except for comercial strikes and stone throwing, Palestinians also refused to pay taxes and forced Palestinians working with the Israeli administration to quit their jobs. Numerous colaborators were also punished and sometimes kiled 77 (Moris 199: 581 & 596; Rigby 197; Sayigh 197: 636f). Bornstein (202b: 207) describes how a partial border was re-established out of Israeli fear and altered Palestinian policies: Despite continued Israeli setlement in the Occupied Teritories, a renewed border was made by (a) a fear that kept most Israelis out, (b) an economic boycot that refused Israeli gods, and (c) an efort to create an internal unity through patriotism and the preservation of Palestinian culture. A campaign to produce fod suplies, for instance vegetables and bread, so as to lesen dependence on Israeli gods was also initiated. Except for the Palestinian eforts to boycot Israeli products that failed in the long run (the ocupied teritories are today filed with Israeli gods), the border and boundaries betwen Israelis and Palestinians have remained manifestations of fear and of atempts to create national unity on both sides. However, one of the most important indicators of Palestinian dependence on Israel, Palestinians working for Israeli employers, turned out to be to dificult to end despite some eforts by the local political leadership (Moris 199: 582). The ned for employment and income sems to have ben to great. 77 Acording to Rigby (201: 1f) an average of around 150 to 20 Palestinians were kiled on suspicion of colaboration each year at the end of the first uprising in the early 190s. It has ben claimed that at this time more Palestinians were being asasinated by felow Palestinians than by the ocupying forces. 58 Initialy, Israel failed to grasp the impact of the intifada, describing it as sporadic ‘disturbances’, which had not ben uncomon in the ocupied teritories (Moris 199: 586). The Israeli authorities then responded harshly; tear gas atacks against demonstrators, curfews, extra-judicial kilings of political activists, public beatings, mas incarceration, torture, harasment, house searches, house demolitions and the outlawing of many political parties. They closed down print shops that printed political leaflets and forced merchants to kep their shops open during comercial strikes. Before the 190s Israel also strictly censored the Palestinian pres and forbade the Palestinian flag. At the time of the first uprising, having a Palestinian flag displayed at home therefore became an act of resistance for many Palestinians. Criticism against the Israeli policies was comon. Internationaly, media images spread of the young Palestinian stone-thrower facing an Israeli tank, pointing out the power imbalances betwen the Israeli state and people in the ocupied teritories. Israel was also widely criticized by the UN, NGOs and human rights groups for the violence used. Israel’s harsh treatment and targeting of children was particularly questioned (Finkelstein 196 in Philo & Bery 204). However, political capital that had ben gained internationaly was damaged by the Palestinian leadership’s as wel as the mases’ suport to Saddam Husein during the Iraq War in 191 (Philo & Bery 204: 67). Among Israelis, discusions about the Palestinian intifada ranged from acusations of outside agitation by Syria and Iran to a questioning of the Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza (ibid.) and this deepened the polarization within Israeli society (Schif & Ya’ari 1989: 324f). As a semi-democratic country (Ron 203), Israel was not imune to either internal or external criticism. The state therefore created multiple regulations, norms and orders to restrain the army’s use of deadly force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ron (203: 146) describes the methods during the first intifada as ‘savage restraint’, i.e. violence including both brutality and restraint. Typicaly, during the first uprising, the Israeli trops might beat and torture a tenage boy suspected of throwing stones, but in most cases they would refrain from kiling the boy, even though unlawful kilings were comon even at this time (Middle East Watch 193). Israeli ‘policing’ 78 was not only cruel, but also inconsistent, since units of soldiers rotated and often developed their own practices, partly hidden from their superiors (Ron 203: 161). 78 In other contexts that are not defined as ‘ghetos’ by Israel, notably in Lebanon, the Israeli state has not restricted itself to the use of ‘harsh policing’, but has used much more extensive force, such as sheling and masacres. Ron (203: 172) writes that ‘[t]he sovereignty norm, coupled with Israel’s disinterest in anexing Lebanon, constituted it as a counterinsurgency frontier vis-à-vis Israel, an arena that Israel sought to influence but not to incorporate.’ Although Lebanon has ben exposed to more intense and harsh Israeli military force, it has also enjoyed greater fredom from direct Israeli control than the ocupied Gaza and West Bank areas. 59 As wil be discused in this thesis, particularly some parts of what Ron cals policing methods, such as political imprisonment, cary a very specific meaning in the Palestinian context. Political prisoners have in a similar way as ‘the fighter’ and ‘the refuge’ become heavily charged with symbolism in the Palestinian nationalistic discourse. The scars prison experiences and torture have left on individuals and society are however tremendous. As we wil se in chapter 10 also martyrs imply a symbolic transformative force. Palestinians have thus partly ben able to alter the meaning of violent ‘policing methods’ used against them (cf. Petet 194). By 190, trends of democracy and gras-rot empowerment in the uprising had ben radicaly reversed due to direct political represion by the Israeli army, enormous economic and physical costs of sustaining the mas rebelion, and internal fighting for power within the Palestinian society (Sayigh 197 chapter 25). Notably, the rise of the Islamic movement 79 , especialy in Gaza, chalenged women’s participation in the uprising. The economic, political and social efects of the intifada on Palestinian society have ben huge. It resulted in many casualties, some Israeli, but mostly Palestinian 80 . Despite an economic crisis that developed in the ocupied teritories, economic dependency on Israel sems to have ben slightly reduced (Moris 199: 597). Socialy, the intifada contested hierarchical structures among Palestinians, since young men, often from a por background, tok a leading part in political activities, chalenging the status of their seniors as wel as of the traditional noble families. Also women’s status was raised at least temporarily. Politicaly and psychologicaly, Palestinians had become conscious and dignified by resistance. The intifada also nurtured a sense of Palestinian moral superiority (se chapter 9), empowerment and national unity. Most importantly, the uprising also led to a series of negotiations (se Sayigh 197 chapter 26). To sum up in the words of Moris (199: 596): [T]he PLO agred to recognize and make peace with Israel, and to establish a self- governing entity in a smal part of Palestine. And Israel […] agred to recognize the PLO and to evacuate much if not most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In addition, the United States was to recognize the PLO and reopen its dialogue with it […]. Ultimately, the result of the intifada was a basic restructuring of the geopolitical realities in the region, one of which was the start of the emergence of a Palestinian state. 79 Hamas emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhod in the first year of the intifada. For years the organization had received funding from Israel in an atempt to weaken the PLO. The other Palestinian Islamic organization, Islamic Jihad, sems to have ben les significant to the intifada (Moris 199: 57f). Se also Sayigh (197). 80 Acording to the Israeli NGO B’Tselem (in Moris 199: 596), more than thousand Palestinians were kiled by the Israeli security forces during the period December 1987-December 193. At the same time, some one hundred Israeli civilians and soldiers were kiled. 60 The Oslo Proces and Palestinian State-building After decades of atempts to build Palestinian state-like structures outside the homeland along with armed intrusions into Israeli controled teritory, the intifada and the subsequent Oslo agrements 81 gave Palestinians the chance to establish a limited self-governance on some parts of the ocupied teritories. The 193 Oslo Declaration of Principles was symbolicaly afirmed by the handshakes of PLO leader Arafat, US president Clinton and Israeli prime-minister Rabin on the lawn of the White House. The Declaration of Principles was an agenda for future negotiations and included agrement on Israeli withdrawal and Palestinian responsibility for internal security, while Israel maintained external security. Palestinians would take over control of education, health, social welfare, direct taxation and tourism. Elections were to be held and final status negotiations were to be completed within five years. However, after Oslo I, al the most contested isues, including Palestinian statehod, borders, refuges, setlements, water rights and the status of Jerusalem, were postponed to the final talks. The PLO asumed control of the Jericho area in the West Bank and of the Gaza Strip in May 194. More than a year later, the Israeli forces left six West Bank towns, including Bethlehem, the area of the fieldwork for this study. The Palestinians also gained civil administration in parts of Hebron. The Oslo acords (Oslo I) divided the West Bank into three zones: Areas A, B and C (se map 4). Acording to the acords, the newly established authority had sole jurisdiction and security control through a Palestinian police force in Area A, while Israeli security forces retained authority over movement in and out of the area. In Area B the PA had some limited authority, but Israel maintained security forces. As for Area C, which constituted the largest part of the West Bank, Israel held ful control, but the PA would have responsibility for civil services (Moris 199: 628). In sum, Israel maintained control over teritory, while Palestinians gained some control over the population. The Israeli ocupation was thus never completely ended and the PA only established self-rule in a minor part of what used to be the mandatory Palestine (Pape 204: 264). At the leadership level, there was also a mutual recognition of the other party’s existence and right to exist embedded in the Oslo acords (Philo & Bery 204: 69). The PLO agred to end the armed strugle and to change the parts of the Palestinian National Charter that caled for the destruction of the Israeli state. Israel, for its part, recognized the PLO as a representative of the Palestinian people. Beinin (206: 21) coments that the Declaration of Principles was 81 The Oslo Acords are in fact a number of agrements that were negotiated and agred upon over several years. 61 determined by Israel’s overwhelming military superiority over its Arab neighbours and by its aliance with the US. The treaty was, however, greted with oposition from both Palestinians and Israelis. Some Israelis, often from the right wing, claimed that giving up land to the Palestinians was a betrayal of Israeli setlers, the end of the biblical Greater Israel as wel as mortal threat to state security (Philo & Bery 204: 69). The majority of the Israeli public was nevertheles in favour of the agrements. Pape (204: 25) coments that the Israeli population was atracted by the Oslo proces because Israel ‘was able to impose its own version of a setlement in Palestine: a strong Jewish state dominating a smal Palestinian protectorate, without a solution to the refuge problem or a significant Palestinian presence or sovereignty in Jerusalem.’ Among Palestinians, it has ben argued that there were four main positions. Only a few Palestinians were enthusiastic suporters, but the majority were optimistic and desperate in equal terms (Rabani 193) and prepared to give the acords a chance despite serious doubts. The third position was often represented by Palestinian intelectuals, such as Edward Said, who suported a peaceful resolution but saw the acords as fatal to Palestinian national aspirations. They were critical of Arafat signing the agrement and giving up most of mandatory Palestine without any public debate and without any guarante of statehod and agrement on the most debated isues. The fourth position was made up of those Palestinians, from the Islamic parties but also from the Left, who totaly rejected the agrements. In their view, it would turn the ocupied teritories into a Bantustan consisting of disconected patches of land that would make Palestinians joint administrators of the ocupation 82 . The future of the Palestinian refuges sems to be one of the core isues to be resolved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The refuge isue has, however, ben repeatedly postponed in peace negotiations and it was more or les excluded from the Oslo agrements and this fostered resentment and biternes among Palestinian refuges. With reference to UN resolutions, the Palestinian leadership has rhetoricaly maintained the indisputable right of return of the refuges but in practice demands were modified. As we wil se in chapter 7, there was a re-emergence of the refuge isue during the 190s and world-wide mobilization for the right of return. This right of return caries moral conotations in Palestinian society and is frequently discused in a highly rhetorical way as a sacred right. Some violent acts caried out by individuals suported by extremist groups in 194 sem to have had a deep influence on political developments. That year a young setler and member of the Israeli Kach party opened fire at Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahim Mosque/Tomb of the 82 Rabani (193) sugests that if the agrement had involved moves towards real statehod these rejectionists would probably have acepted it, at least for tactical reasons. 62 Patriarchs in Hebron. He managed to asasinate 29 Palestinians before he himself was kiled 83 . Hamas vowed to avenge the masacre in Hebron and caried out a car bombing and the first ever suicide bombing in Israel some months later. It has even ben argued that the kilings in Hebron ‘directly and imediately created the chain of suicide bombings and the apaling upward spiral composed of Israeli responses and Palestinian counter-responses’ (Haaretz 28 th September 198). However, Palestinian Islamic parties had learnt how to cary out suicide bombs from Hizbolah in the Lebanon as early as 193 84 . It is likely that suicide bombings would have emerged even without the atack in Hebron, although the atack served as legitimation of the bombings and revenge. Pape (204: 260) also notes that the bombings started at a time when the peace proces semed to be proving sucesful. The strategy to use suicide bombings clearly intensified Israeli concerns about security and control, while it divided Palestinians 85 . Internationaly, though, the Palestinians were almost univocaly criticized for using suicide bombings and they lost much political suport. Palestinians found themselves at a new stage in several ways and the PLO was in transition from being a revolutionary organization to becoming a government or an authority. Lindholm (196) refers to this as a ‘state-in-the-making’. In 196, elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council as wel as for an Executive President were held. Arafat’s party Fateh won most of the seats on the council and gave way to what has ben caled a pragmatic leadership that was wiling to compromise with Israel (Pape 204: 256). Participation in the elections was considerable, even though Hamas and Islamic Jihad did not run. Ministers were apointed and ministries opened, laws were elaborated, police and security forces created. In short, the Palestinian state- building proces had begun. During this proces some major internal problems emerged: Arafat’s autocratic leadership, coruption within the PA and violation of human rights. The PA’s dubious human rights record includes imprisonments on political grounds, torture and pres censorship (se e.g. Amnesty International 200). Although Israel repeatedly criticized the PA for not being able to curb the ‘terorism’ used by Palestinians against Israel, observers claim that the PA actualy did, which was the main reason that the authority had problems with its human rights record (Philo & Bery 204: 79). 83 In response to the kilings, the Israeli government put Hebron under curfew for five weks but also outlawed the openly racist Kach party, which had not ben alowed to run for elections since the 1980s. They refused however to start negotiations about the setlements and to remove the setlers from Hebron (Philo & Bery 204: 71). 84 In late 192, Israel deported a number of suporters and activists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Southern Lebanon. There they were trained to cary out suicide bombings by Hizbolah. About a year later, they were alowed back to Gaza and the West Bank (Victor 204). 85 In the ocupied teritories, the population did not show any consensus on the isue of armed operations against Israelis (htp:/ww.pcpsr.org/survey/cprspols/94/pol13a.html 13.05.209 10.28). 63 Alongside these problems with the PA, there were other reasons for the people’s lack of confidence in their leaders. Most of the people who were ofered employment in high positions within the PA had spent many years, often decades, in exile. To understand the dep distrust against the returning Palestinian leadership that emerged one also neds to grasp the divisions that have emerged within the nation. The divisions brought about by exile and the political seting have ben conceptualized as cultural diferences and diferent degres of sufering among Palestinians with various backgrounds (Hamer 205; Lindholm 203). Palestinians who had stayed in the ocupied teritories and lived through the Israeli ocupation felt that their lifestyles and sufering were more ‘authentic’ than those of the returning Palestinians. The West Bankers and the Gazans understod themselves to be true Palestinians who had sufered and strugled, while the Palestinians from outside were considered spoiled and often imoral. Political legitimacy derives not only from democratic practices but also from belief in the moral authority of a state or a leadership (cf. Barker 190: 1 in Lindholm 204). Many researchers have pointed out that the source of the PLO’s moral legitimacy was the strugle 86 . In the Palestinian context, the leadership that returned from exile with the establishment of the PA had clear dificulties in re-establishing its legitimacy since this could no longer be based solely on the strugle. The people in the ocupied teritories also held high expectations of their leadership; their own political gras-rot activism under ocupation made them long for democratic practices that the returning leadership could not deliver. Moreover, groups of intifada activists, such as refuge youths and women, had dificulty gaining political influence. In Ron’s terms (203), the Oslo period was distinguished by an altered institutional seting; the ocupied teritories were slowly transformed from gheto to frontier, as they had ben before 1967, vis-à-vis Israel. Being a frontier area of a semi-democratic state implies risk of extensive violence. Heacock (203) also writes that in the agrements the Palestinians’ right to self-defence was recognized for the first time in the form of ‘a strong police force’ 87 . This ‘self-defence’ was intended, however, not to protect the Palestinian areas from posible army intrusions but to enable the PA to defend itself and to shield Israel from posible Palestinian hostile activities (Usher 199 chapter 7). The linking of infrastructure and economy to Israel during the first years of ocupation implied a Palestinian dependency that stil persists, even if the character of that dependence has ben restructured and, some would even argue, deepened (interview ith Abd al-Shafi in ibid.). 86 Also the leaders of the intifada in the late 1980s were depicted as fighters and, as such, as moraly pure and natural decision-makers (Lindholm 204). 87 Se Usher (199 chapter 7) for an acount of the diferent Palestinian security forces. 64 Acording to the Oslo agrements 88 , both Israeli and Palestinian leaderships embraced the idea of a fre market economy. Israel and Palestine were to become one economic unit, with interconected customs systems and a joint taxation policy. Although the Palestinians had demanded their own curency no agrement was reached on this. Israel had also ben granted a veto on any Palestinian development scheme. Pape (204: 256) coments on this development: This meant that the monetary and developmental policies of Israel and its curency exchanges were to play a dominant role in the Palestinian economy. Other aspects of the economy, such as foreign trade and industry, were also totaly dominated by the Israelis acording to the interim agrement. Israel also retained control of taxes colected for the emerging PA and this later on, during the intifada al-aqṣa, gave Israel a way of punishing or rewarding the authority. Moreover, Palestinian workers were stil heavily dependent on the Israeli labour market, while Israeli employers were begining to replace Palestinian workers with migrants from Thailand, the Philipines, Romania and other Eastern European countries, since Palestinian workers were increasingly understod to be security threats (Usher 199: 4). Al export of Palestinian gods now ent to Israel or through Israeli-controled borders (ibid.). As a result, the Palestinian economy became more dependent on international financial asistance than had ben anticipated (Murphy 206: 59). Geographicaly, the peace proces during the 190s only partly disconected Palestinians from the Israeli state since Israel continued to control borders and thus the mobility of both people and comodities. Since March 193 (Bornstein 202b: 207), the Israeli state has ben erecting checkpoints at al major entrances betwen the ocupied teritories and Israel 89 , thereby creating a de facto separation betwen Israelis and Palestinians, ending almost 25 years of ‘Open Bridges’. While Israeli citizens were fre to travel betwen Israel and the West Bank, Palestinians neded permits, which became dificult to obtain. In practice, the Israeli godwil influenced how often Palestinians were checked and the ‘Gren Line’ betwen the West Bank and Israel was imposible to fuly control. Therefore, in 198 the unoficial labour flow to Israel was estimated to be even larger than the number of workers holding Israeli permits (BADIL 200: 14f). Gaza and the West Bank were also isolated from each other. There was an ongoing proces towards an ambivalent separation, informed by the two state solution envisioned in the Oslo agrements. At the same time, the Israeli setlements expanded in the West Bank and Gaza and a ‘vast network of bypas roads was constructed to facilitate aces to the setlements in preparation for the 88 This economic part of the Oslo acords is caled the Paris agrement, signed in 194. For a discusion of Israeli economic liberalization and its relation to the Oslo proces, se Peled (206). 89 Military checkpoints were not a completely new phenomenon in the ocupied teritories, but had existed earlier (e.g. Swedenburg 203). 65 anexation of several large setlement blocs’ (Beinin 206: 29). The Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom published a report in 198, acusing the Israeli administration of 19 separate violations of the Oslo acords and the breakdown of the peace proces (Gush Shalom 198). For instance, the building of Israeli setlements in the ocupied teritories continued and even intensified, despite Palestinian and international protests 90 . The violence with suicide bombings, army atacks and political imprisonments also continued during the 190s. To sum up in the words of the Israeli journalist Rabinowitz (Haaretz 19 th March 200 in Philo & Bery 204: 82); for many Israelis, Oslo apeared to be a positive, symetric proces betwen leaderships that represented two people. But for many Palestinians, Oslo remained an asymetric proces; a weak Palestinian leadership 91 had ben unable to negotiate in the interests of its people and it had sold out. Intifada Al-aqsa The event that trigered the new Palestinian uprising was the Israeli politician Ariel Sharon’s 92 uninvited visit to Haram Al Sharif/the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem in September 200. Palestinians who threw stones to protest Sharon’s visit, which was sen as provocative, were shot dead by Israeli security forces and the Palestinian protests son led to a ful-scale intifada (Beinin & Stein 206: 8). The reasons for the renewed hostilities were, however, more complex. Earlier in July that year, after two weks of final negotiations, the so-caled Camp David Final Status Talks, the disagrements had proven to great and the talks were interupted. Israeli prime minister Barak argued that he had made a ‘generous ofer’ to the Palestinians, returning more than 90 per cent of the ocupied teritories 93 , while Arafat claimed that the ofer was ‘les than a Bantustan’ (Philo & Bery 204: 83). What realy hapened at Camp David and what kind of ofers were actualy made remains unclear. However, it is clear that the failure of negotiations at Camp David (as wel as in Taba in January 201) and Palestinian despair sparked the new uprising. Furthermore, Heacock (203) claims that Palestinian popular disapointment with the corupt and 90 One of the most notorious setlement projects at this time was the building of Har Homa on the Palestinian owned Jabal Ghneim, on the outskirts of Jerusalem and within the Bethlehem district. Despite a Palestinian general strike and other protest actions in adition to several resolutions in the UN General Asembly caling to halt the project, Har Homa is today an established setlement, overloking Bethlehem. (Philo & Bery 204: 78) 91 Sayigh (197: 639f) mentions a series of setbacks for the PLO that led them to the negotiations towards the Declaration of Principles; the colapse and thus los of backing of the Soviet Union, their own suport to Sadam Husein and a financial crisis that emptied the PLO treasury. 92 To fuly understand the gravity of the provocation, one should be aware that Ariel Sharon had a long carer in the Israeli army as wel as in politics. He had, for instance, participated in the destruction of Palestinian vilages during al-nakba. As Israeli Defence Minister in the 1980s he was also held responsible by an Israeli investigation for the two masacres in the Palestinian refuge camps, Sabra and Shatila, in Lebanon. 93 Exactly what percentage of the ocupied teritories was actualy included in the ofer is disputed. 66 incompetent authority, and anger at Israeli policies that were felt to be stifling the evolution of Palestinian statehod, fueled the intifada al-aqṣa. Beinin and Stein (206: 2) moreover write that the economic liberalization that resulted from the Oslo acords led to growing poverty in the ocupied teritories. The resort to hostilities was based on the right to self-defence and sovereignty from the Palestinian side, and Israel responded in a maner equivalent to a declaration of war betwen the two states 94 . Halper (206: 63) has argued that whatever the ofer may have ben Israel would stil poses a ‘matrix of control’ that would undermine Palestinian sovereignty: What is the matrix of control? It is an interlocking series of mechanisms, only a few of which require physical ocupation of teritory, that alow Israel to control every aspect of Palestinian life in the Occupied Teritories. Instead of defeating your oponent […], you win by imobilizing your oponent, by gaining control of key points in the matrix so that every time s/he moves s/he encounters an obstacle of some kind. […] The matrix imposed by Israel […] has virtualy paralyzed the Palestinian population without “defeating” it or even conquering much teritory. This matrix relies on interventions for the sake of security and ‘the upholding of order’, backed by the force of the army. Other sets of control mechanisms are ‘facts on the ground’ such as checkpoints, army bases, setlements and the system of bypas roads. A third set of mechanisms comprises administrative or bureaucratic restrictions such as the isuing of work, building and family reunification permits. As Halper (ibid.: 70) reasons, peace must thus revolve around questions such as control, viability and justice. A just peace felt remote for most Palestinians and this helps explain why the intifada al-aqṣa erupted. Contrary to the first intifada, which included stret confrontations within the urban centres, the second uprising initialy tok place at military checkpoints and at religious sites controled by the Israeli army (e.g. Joseph’s tomb in Nablus and Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem). Hamami & Tamari (206: 26) reason that ‘[t]he Israeli army could beter confine the insurgency within specific locations and protect itself at secure strategic positions. This narowed “batlefront” alowed the Israeli army imediately to turn the clashes into a military confrontation’. The presence of Palestinian police and security forces provided justification of the Israeli use of extensive force also against civilians. A new development, moreover, was the Palestinian military actions against setlements. The weakened Palestinian civil society was another explanation for the absence of a more popular mobilization (ibid.). After new Israeli elections in early 201, Sharon became prime minister and he intensified the represion of the Palestinians. Folowing the September 1 atacks in the United States, 94 Inded, the second intifada has ocasionaly ben described by top Israeli leaders as ‘a war for national survival’ (Heacock 203). 67 Sharon began identifying Arafat and the PA with Usama Bin Laden and Al Q’aida, reframing Israeli military action in the ocupied teritories as a part of the American ‘war on teror’ (Beinin & Stein 206: 8). He also claimed that there was nobody in the Palestinian leadership to negotiate with. Apart from human casualties and reocupation of the self-ruling areas, Israeli military operations targeted the infrastructure of the PA and its security forces. Other Palestinian institutions such as radio stations 95 and local universities were also atacked and often sufered major destruction. International NGOs have isued repeated warnings of humanitarian crises in the Palestinian teritories since 202. At times of crisis, many Palestinians united behind Arafat although he continued to be criticized. Despite the fact that the authority was weakened and often unable to act, Israel and the international comunity stil demanded the PA to control Palestinian militia groups and to stop suicide bombings and other atacks against Israel. When urged by the PA, Hamas, although not Islamic Jihad, did however implement unilateral ceasefires, but when prominent Hamas leaders were asasinated by Israel, they retaliated (Beinin & Stein 206: 9f). Another political event that ocured while I was carying out fieldwork was the presentation of the Roadmap in the sumer of 203. The Roadmap was an initiative by the so- caled Quartet comprised of the US, the UN, the European Union and Rusia, and it aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the near future. Sharon presented a unilateral plan to disengage from Gaza so as to avoid implementation of the Roadmap and, more importantly, to reduce criticism of the building of the wal. Nevertheles, an International Court of Justice judged the Israeli barier ilegal and demanded that its path should be redrawn and Palestinians should be compensated for related loses. (Beinin & Stein 206: 1) The fact that the disconected Palestinian clusters that were surounded by Israeli forces resembled ‘a frontier’ rather than ‘a gheto’ influenced the hostilities during the new uprising (Ron 203). Oslo, in other words, had begun to reverse Palestine’s gheto status. As Palestinians increasingly moved to the margins of Israel’s zone of control, however, the threat to their physical security worsened. […] Today, Israeli comandos mount shot-to-kil raids in regions controled by the Palestinian authority, misiles strike Palestinian towns, and helicopters use machine guns against mixed civilian and military targets. None of these methods would have ben used during the first Intifada, when Palestine was situated squarely within Israel’s zone of control. (ibid.: 198f) 95 Unlike the first uprising, which depended on leaflets and grafiti, the intifada al-aqṣa has ben covered by Palestinian oficial media (Hamami & Tamari 206). 68 Thus, the extensive use of force by Israel during the second uprising may be a sign of Israel losing control but also of a proces of creating distance (or separation) betwen Israelis and Palestinians, an Israeli acknowledgment that Palestinians was no longer included in the Israeli entity and a questioning of the idea of Palestinian teritories being ‘a gheto’ 96 . It has ben argued that in strict military terms it made no sense for Israel to use its advanced army against such a militarily weak enemy but, Heacock (203) argues, the purpose was mainly symbolic, although its efects were also very real. In Ron’s terms, the violence was a sort of acknowledgment of the new frontier status of the Palestinian areas. For many Palestinians, but not al, the new frontier status of area and its subjection to brutal atacks justified the use of al sorts of weapons, including suicide bombers. They did not realy anticipate a military victory. The Palestinians I met knew that their armed resistance would probably never be able to beat the modern Israeli army but they argued that it was a way to make Israelis fearful and for Palestinians to avenge their loses (se chapter 10). As discused in the previous chapter, the latest uprising has had severe economic and political consequences on the local level. The Dheisheans I worked with were facing increasing Israeli violence and restricted mobility and they were living in an altered and radicalized political landscape that was breding internal Palestinian divisions as wel as a deteriorating economy. 96 One may note that the extensive force Israel has hitherto used against Gaza as compared to the West Bank may be explained in a similar maner since Gaza was evacuated in 205 and is ‘no longer part of Israel’. 69 4. Disintegration of Life: Becoming and Remaining Refuges This chapter concerns the re-establishment of life after al-nakba, in which vilage life before flight has played an important role in individuals’ memories, manifested in social organization and cultural practices in the camp. The focus here is on social continuity in the formation of comunity and its emplacement despite disruption and the externaly imposed institutionalization of ‘refuges’. Elderly Dheisheans’ naratives of al-nakba recounted Palestinian loses but they also atempted to order experiences and make demands for justice. Vilage life prior to flight was frequently compared with present day life. Although life had changed radicaly since al-nakba, vilage origins remained important building blocs in a multifaceted identity formation and in everyday practices. UN registration and other interventions created a bureaucratic identity; ‘the Palestinian refuge’ (Petet 205a). As we wil se, such refuge labeling is nevertheles not a one-way proces, but a complex outcome of mutual social categorization and identity formation (Zeter 191). In Dheishe, the dynamic proces of institutionalization interacted with proceses of place- making, politicization and afirmation of existing social identities. Emplacement refers to the ongoing transformation of an empty space into a social place ‘where meaningful action and shared understanding’ become posible (Turton 205: 258). For displaced people, resilience is often conected to such transformation of space; place-making and atempts to both re-establish and create new kinds of belonging become answers to crises evoked by flight and violence (cf. Jansen & Löfving 207). Dheishean Refuge-nes People in Dheishe belong to generations of refuges, most of whom were displaced in 1948 but some also in 1967 when the military ocupation of the West Bank and Gaza began. A peculiarity of Palestinian refuges is that they have their own UN organ - the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refuges in the Near East (UNRWA). Today more than a third of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and a majority of the population of Gaza are estimated to be refuges registered by UNRWA 97 . In Gaza, half of these refuges are camp refuges, and in the West Bank one fifth, while others are self-setled (PLO 200: 7). 97 Acording to a census caried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS 208 ww.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/populati/demd4.aspx 208-09-25 16.49), the West Bank population amount to nearly 2.4 milion. 40 per cent of this population is under 15 years of age. In Gaza, the Palestinian population has 70 Dheisheans and other refuges in the ocupied teritories insist that they are ‘refuges in their own land’ (cf. Hamzeh 201). They say this because the Palestinian patern of dispersal partly folows what would nowadays be considered ‘internal displacement’. Many of those displaced remained inside the country they fled from, in this case inside the British Mandate of Palestine. Some refuges in the ocupied teritories live very close to their former homes. Um Khaled, who recounts her experiences of al-nakba below, was born in a vilage les than half an hour’s drive away from the camp. The British Mandate was, however, not an independent state in 1948 and the Palestinians were also expeled before the Geneva Convention of 1951, which defines refuges within the international legal framework and originaly refered to a European context. Acording to the convention, to qualify as a refuge a person must have crosed a recognized international border. Although Dheisheans were registered as refuges with the UN, strictly speaking they had not traversed any such border, only the armistice line betwen Israel and the West Bank. Some of the inhabitants of Dheishe were not refuges from 1948 but had arived during the war and Israeli ocupation in 1967 (they were often refered to as ‘displaced persons’ in the UNRWA terminology) or for other reasons. There are in fact several groups of displaced Palestinians. One category is hence the refuges who were expeled during al-nakba, like most people in Dheishe, and another consists of those who fled in 1967. There are also two groups of ‘internaly displaced’ people. The first includes Palestinians who remained in the area that became Israel in 1948. The second consists of Palestinians who were displaced in the ocupied teritories during and after the war of 1967. In addition, a third category includes those who are neither refuges from 1948 nor 1967 but who are outside historical Palestine and unable to return due to deportation, revocation of residency, denial of family reunification by Israel or because they are afraid of persecution. The dispersal of Palestinians continues because of house demolitions, sheling and the building of the Separation Barier by Israel. Other Palestinians who have ben exiled never registered with the UNRWA; they and their descendents are not oficialy counted as refuges (BADIL 204: 3f). Chaos of Flight People were sleping. Suddenly they heard an atack. After that my father caried me, I was aslep, me and my sister. 18 vilages were emptied in one day. We left for the mountains. The Egyptian [soldiers] ran away as wel. The people came from Bayt Ishmael and they went to the mountains. After that they tok four people from our vilage to Wadi Bulos, four men and a woman and her child from the [X] family. And ben estimated to about 1.4 milion in 206. Although the Palestinian refuges are spread over the world, the majority of the refuges stayed in the former British Mandate or in the neighbouring countries. 71 they kiled them. Sharif, Muhamed’s brother, ran away. They shot at him. They cut [the others] into four pieces. When [Sharif] saw that they had cut his uncle into pieces he started to run away and they shot at him. After that the people ran away; some to Halhul, some to Se’ir, some to Hebron or to other towns as wel. When it started to get cold like now we fled to Jericho. We stayed there until May. It started to get to hot there, so we decided to come back here. Um Khaled At the time of the interview, Um Khaled was in her mid-sixties. Although many years had pased, her childhod memories of flight were stil fresh in her mind. Compared to others, Um Khaled was quite talkative about the events caled al-nakba, while her husband Abu Khaled prefered to talk about his life prior to that event (se below). My encounters with Um Khaled usualy tok place in a smal rom built by the UNRWA in the 1950s and where she also slept. It doubled as a tiny shop; she sold swets and cigaretes to her neighbours. The income was insignificant and several of her children provided for her, but she semed to enjoy having people coming by. Um Khaled had given birth to 12 children and she was in por health with severe diabetes. Before she died in 205, I had got to know her and her family wel and in the thesis we wil met several of her family members. In this part of Um Khaled’s story, the calm slep implying peace and order was interupted by chaos and death. Her acount displays not only violence during displacement and war, but also how al-nakba signified more than flight from one place to another; it meant several years on the move, uncertainty and deep poverty, even starvation. Many of the elderly camp residents recounted having roved from place to place, sometimes living in caves, before ending up in Dheishe (se also Rosenfeld 204: 3). Another elderly refuge woman remembered years of wandering, plagued by concerns about survival and whom to trust: When we first left [our vilage], we stayed in tents in the bush [kherbe]. Then we started moving; one night here, the other night there, until we reached Wadi al Nasara in Hebron. In each place we stayed one night. Carying things on our heads, on the camels and on the donkeys. We tok the animals with us, put things on the donkeys and on the camels. Everything else like the grain [we had grown] was left behind, everything was left behind. We tok some of the cleaned grains with us, and caried them until Bayt Fajar. We once kept them on the side of the road where we sat. Then some people said “you can go and slep on the rof”, but they had their eyes on our grain, so they stole the two bags of grain. Um Rafiq, about 80 years old Infants and young children were dying or sufering life-threatening ilneses due to bad conditions. Social networks of vilagers and kin were disrupted. Rosenfeld describes the establishment of Dheishe as ‘a result of a total disintegration of a way of life’ (204: 3). This 72 disintegration had social, political, economic and symbolic dimensions. In Lebanese camps, Palestinian refuges used metaphors of death, paralysis and non-existence when describing their first years as refuges (Sayigh 1979: 107). In Um Rafiq’s acount death and confusion were not only metaphors but they described the course of events: During the atack on our vilage, those who were healthy and strong, they ran away. [But] elderly people and children who stayed, [the Jews] colected them and shot them. Children were taken by the Jews, [at least] their families could not find them. Some people say they kiled them and some say they tok them and raised them. As argued by Scheper-Hughes (208), narativity is a means not only to reflect upon one’s predicament but also to recover from hardships. Um Rafiq’s and other refuges’ stories can thus be understod as both a way to order and make sense of the flight they lived through as wel as ‘a tactic of resilience’ (cf. Petet 205a: 48f). A concrete example is Um Rafiq who semed to comfort herself by sugesting that maybe the Palestinian children left behind were not kiled after al, but were adopted by Jewish families. For refuges, naratives of flight provide ways to deal with the past, although not in any simple maner, but also ways to move forward, for instance by making political demands. As we wil se, the analytical concept cultural trauma sheds further light on stories about al- nakba that recounted Palestinian sufering and victimhod. A Cultural Trauma Los is a comon theme in ‘the refuge experience’ both in naratives told by displaced people themselves and in much of the writing about refuges. Malki (195: 1) criticizes refuge research as wel as policy for portraying al refuges as by definition vulnerable because of their assumed experiences of los of culture, identity and ‘rots’. She argues that loses canot be taken for granted and may be of diferent kinds. Or maybe more to the point: ‘While transformation and change are part of the refuge experience, not al change is perceived as los or defined as problematic or unwelcome by al individuals involved. Nor are refuges necesarily helples victims, but rather likely to be people with agency and voice’ (Eastmond 207: 253). A number of ethnographic studies show that los is not automaticaly folowed by powerlesnes, but may, on the contrary, provide a sense of empowerment (e.g. Eastmond 1989; Malki 195; Sayigh 194; Waters 208). In many refuge groups and diasporas, personal naratives may draw on a comon history and ideology to be made meaningful, but individual experiences may also chalenge the colective story about los and its esentializing tendency (Eastmond 207). 73 To Palestinians, al-nakba, and its loses, is a foundational principle in Palestinian national identity formation. The analytical concept cultural trauma (Alexander et al. 204) sheds light on the profound influence of the events in 1948 on the Palestinian comunity. Eyerman (204: 61), who has done research on the African American comunity’s experiences of slavery, defines cultural trauma as refering to ‘a dramatic los of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, afecting a group of people’. The shared trauma may also be regarded as a fundamental threat to society’s existence or as a violation to one or more of its fundamental cultural presupositions (Smelser 204: 4). In this sense, the traumatic event is not necesarily experienced by every single individual in a comunity but it becomes part of the colective memory of the group that is transmited down the generations in testimonial naratives or ritualized comemoration activities. For individual Palestinians, al-nakba had probably ben experienced in diverse ways, although today many of their naratives tend to merge into rather standardized forms. Naratives of trauma can also be used to make colective claims for redres. In the Palestinian case, the experiences of flight are sen as prof of injustices that demand acknowledgment by Israel and others (cf. Sayigh 1979). Furthermore, there are limits to what can be told about experiences of flight. For displaced populations, the familiar social context in which stories are told is lost, but sometimes also the very units of time, space and character on which narative coherence depends sem to be broken (Jackson 202: 91). The elderly Dheisheans did not tel me al that hapened during al-nakba; most of their naratives were fragmented and without much detail. For instance Abu Akram, a man of about 75 years of age and Ahmed’s father, told a laconic story about these events: The people started to split up. They got scared from the Jews because they had kiled people before. They had kiled people in Deir Yasin and this masacre made people scared. So people who got their turn, split up and left. They started from Yafa, to Lid, Ramle until they reached here. So we left and we went to Jericho. These lines semed to be al he wanted to say about the flight. Many stories thus become condensed in time since events that tok place over several months are sumarized in a few words. Some unsetling events conected to the flight may remain ‘unbearable sequences of sher hapening’ (Arendt 1973: 106 in Jackson ibid.: 92) that canot convey meaning; these same unspeakable experiences sem to be crucial for how refuges tel their stories. Palestinian cultural trauma becomes especialy visible when discusing al-nakba from a gender perspective. 74 Gendering Al-Nakba: Threatened Children and Los of Honour Thre things become visible when one examines from a gender perspective how al-nakba is remembered and narated today in Dheishe. My interest is not primarily in what ‘realy hapened’ but instead in narative truth, which is how people experienced and recaled the past. First, elderly Palestinian men stil felt humiliated and ashamed about their failure to protect women and children during flight. It was striking that many of them did not want to talk about al-nakba, while women wanted to. Men like Abu Akram above, who were in their seventies at the time of fieldwork, had ben śebâb, or youth, in 1948. In traditional Palestinian society, the śebâb had a specific role as guards and fighters of the vilages (Kanana 198). These men had thus failed to live up to not only expectations of their male gender role but also to expectations asociated with their age group. Younger generations of refuges openly blamed their elders for not having ben brave enough and for not having resisted the Jewish forces suficiently. Sawsan, Um Khaled’s and Abu Khaled’s daughter who was a teacher, for instance, claimed that: ‘So many vilages were ocupied by the Jews without any fighting. [The vilagers] haven’t sen any [soldiers] or had any fights.’ Also the story of this old refuge man, who lived in a vilage close to the camp, displays self-blame and a tendency to explain and excuse flight: Before we disapeared [from our vilage] we had fled from the Jews and returned 15 times. The Jordanian army didn’t shot a single bulet [to protect us]. [The British General] Glub Pasha came to our vilage. He asked us: ”What do you want?” We said: “We ned an army to protect us”. “You can fight the Jews by yourselves”, he answered. We said: “We ned helicopters and planes – we have nothing.” […] The tanks were shoting at us, people in the vilage fled. It was [ful of people] like a Saturday market, the Jews were even more. There was a British Comander, he was the leader of the second unit [of the British army]. He asked us how many had ben kiled in our vilage. We said: “Nobody, we fled”. He damned our fathers and said: “You just left your vilage!” 85-year-old man in Doha. Acording to this acount, the refuges were not cowards but tried to stay in their vilage despite their lack of weapons and they did not just wait for the Jewish forces to arive but asked in vain for protection. This is an example of how naratives are creatively employed by forced migrants to form a sense of continuity in whom they are, linking them in various ways to time and place (Eastmond 207: 254). Thus, this elderly man ambiguously maintained that he and his felow vilagers were honourable and brave agents during al-nakba, and this coresponds with today’s Palestinian self-image of strugle and heroism. Second, the flight semed often to be remembered as having ben initiated by a concern about rape and honour. Um Khaled recounted the rape of some girls in a neighbouring vilage: ‘The girls’ father had a heart atack and died because of that, [the Israelis] chose the beautiful 75 girls. When [the Israelis] tok the girls, [the vilagers] got woried about them and they decided to leave. Because of honour [śaraf], they ran away.’ Male family heads had decided to fle because they feared that the advancing Jewish forces would sexualy abuse their daughters and wives. In the Palestinian National Charter isued by the PLO in 1964, an analogy of rape of the land is also used when refering to the Israeli conquest of mandatory Palestine (Masad 206: 43). As noted by Das (207: 13) when writing about sexual violence during the Partition betwen India and Pakistan ‘[this] rhetoric strategy of focusing on abducted and raped women to the exclusion of the sexual violation of men alowed the nation to construct itself as a masculine nation’. Third, Palestinian women related to me in their stories how they had managed to handle the flight by upholding their gender role as god mothers who did not abandon their children. There were, however, also frequent acounts and rumours about women who had forgoten their children because of shock. There was a widespread story about a woman who caried a pilow instead of her infant. ‘In 1948 when we ran away, there was a woman who caried a pilow instead of her child. She left because everyone was so afraid and went out of the house quickly. The baby was sleping next to her but when they left the house she tok a pilow ith her instead of her child. She had to turn back to colect him’, Um Rafiq recounted. Thus, although elderly women themselves claimed to have saved their children, people in the comunity sometimes doubted this. Women also blamed male relatives for having asked them to give up their sick children who were burdens to the fleing comunity. An old lady in Dheishe said; ‘We faced a lot. [During the flight] they asked me to throw away my daughter. [The vilage leader] asked me to do it. There was no milk, no nothing. I couldn’t fed her. [But I kept her,] she is in Jordan now.’ Al-nakba thus conotes self-blame, dishonour and humiliation, but also atempts to save face. It also shows the deep crisis it initiated in Palestinian society. The foundation of society that built on a specific gendered moral order was destabilized. The threat to society came not only from outside, from the Jewish forces, but also from within. As in the words of Smelser (204) cited above, al-nakba was remembered as a serious threat to society and as a violation of some of Palestinian society’s fundamental cultural presupositions, notably those concerning honour and gender structure. Claims that the refuges lacked courage or that vilage leaders asked women to give up their children as wel as atempts to counter such statements also ilustrate the ‘strugle involved in creating a coherent narative of self and the past when the future is highly uncertain or even threatened, as in the case of many asylum-sekers, refuges in camps or those with temporary protection’ (Eastmond 207: 254). 76 Out of these disrupted lives and dificult experiences emerged atempts to re-establish life in a new place, the refuge camp. This was not without its contradictions. Labelling Camp Refuges When we came here [to Dheishe] the UN gave us tents. And the one who provided services to the people was the Red Cros, not the Crescent. It was the Red Cros, not yet the UN. The schols were also in tents, like military tents. They gave suplies to people and [distributed] used clothes. People started to colect wod to sel because they had no money. The women went to peoples’ houses and asked them “Would you like to buy some wod?” They also went to the bakeries. There was no electricity. There were [oil] lamps like this [one], there was no electricity. We coked on the fire. We even washed our clothes on the fire. There were no heaters, no gasoline, nothing. And after that, the UN and the Red Cros tok away the tents and built [houses] of stones and cane. Um Khaled Palestinian refuges are a textbok case of refuge labeling, a specific kind of social categorization that emerges in the interaction betwen displaced people and the organizations that provide them asistance (Zeter 191; Harel-Bond 1986). The distribution of aid, the policies of rehabilitation and the registration of the displaced Palestinians as refuges intermingled and included a certain amount of stereotyping. One stereotype involved in the creation of ‘the Palestinian refuge’ is that refuge-nes is a male quality. Refuge-nes, like Palestinian-nes 98 , is counted and inherited through the patriline, pased on from generation to generation 99 . In a gendered fashion, each male family head was isued a registration card for himself and his dependents. A refuge woman maried to a non- refuge wil hence have children who are not registered as Palestinian refuges or considered as such. The refuge clasification has also persisted since the predicament of the refuges remains unresolved and since Palestinian refuges continue to rely on asistance from UNRWA. The camp was initialy viewed as a provisional place of residence before one could go back home. There sems therefore to have ben litle focus on making oneself at home in the new place and the first years after displacement were also filed with hopes and many atempts to return to the vilages, now inside the newly created state of Israel. However, atempts to return or to visit former homes and lands often ended in disaster since many relatives of Dheisheans were kiled by Israeli trops as ‘infiltrators’ (se also chapter 3). 98 In the Palestinian National Charter isued by the PLO, Palestinian identity is also sen as inherited through the paternal line; Palestinians are those Arabs who used to reside in Palestine until 1947, i.e. before al-nakba and those born to a Palestinian father inside or outside Palestine since then (Masad 206: 43f). 99 Many populations, such as Palestinian camp refuges, stay refuges although the flight tok place decades, even generations, ago. 77 For refuges with a rural background such as Dheisheans, al-nakba brought a proletarianization of the landowning families. Many lost savings and investments in the form of land and property. Also families who did not own land in the vilages sufered severely since they could no longer work as tenants or cultivate comunal vilage plots. When the land was gone, so was their means of livelihod and their peasant lifestyle. In the quote above, Um Khaled gives examples of some of the strategies the refuges employed to survive economicaly in the first years in Dheishe; mainly by acepting aid from charitable organizations and the UNRWA but also by starting up smal income-generating activities. By registering with the UNRWA, people obtained ration cards, which proved that they were Palestinian refuges (cf. Petet 205a; Schif 195). Relief distribution thus literaly led to an establishment of refuge-nes. From the start, the vilage was used as a social unit for organizing and distributing relief and the vilage headmen (i.e. muḫtâr in singular, maḫatîr in plural) served as intermediaries with aid organizations (Petet 205a: 71). The UNRWA inherited refuge lists compiled by agencies already in the field and then caried out investigations to determine who was in ned of relief (Schif 195: 2). In this proces, there was also a restriction of aces to rights; for instance each refuge was alowed a certain amount of aid. To circumvent such restriction, Um Khaled told me that as a girl she had ben clever enough to register twice with the UNRWA to get more fod suplies. There sems to have ben an ongoing negotiation of trust betwen relief workers and refuges about rations, which was informed by power imbalances in aid provisions. Refuges doubted that everyone would be treated equaly and relief workers doubted that people were sincere about numbers of family members and vilagers (Petet 205a: 60f). Providing aid to refuge populations is often inspired by compasion but frequently also by ethnocentric and non-profesional atitudes (Harel-Bond 1986: 26). It tends to shape refuges as helples and aid ‘which is imposed from outside not only usurps the roles of the host, supreses the creative energy of the refuge who could have ben helped to help himself, but provokes responses which are hostile and unproductive for al concerned’ (ibid.: 3). Especialy fod rations that were intended to prevent the refuges from starving instead made them into dependent recipients, at least initialy (Petet 205a) 100 . Women and children were sent out to colect rations since acepting relief was considered shameful for adult men. To acept aid is stil highly ambiguous among Palestinian refuges since the shame of dependency is mixed with neds and rights as victims of expulsion and ongoing hostilities. 100 For a more lengthy discusion about the transformative efects of rations, health care and education on Palestinian camp refuges, se Petet (205a). 78 However, among Palestinians, ration cards have ben interpreted as ‘tickets home’ (ibid.: 74): the card implies that its holder is indeed a Palestinian refuge and as such has the right to return. Registration with the agency implied legal recognition of refuge-nes and conections to the lost land. People also started to search for employment as unskiled workers. The UNRWA developed into a major employer of refuges. Today in Dheishe, many of the employes in local UNRWA institutions are refuges from the camp. In refuge administration one aim is in general to provide ‘rehabilitation’; the UNRWA interpreted this as giving aces to education and work. ‘Works’ as in the W in the UNRWA were central to the atempts to rehabilitate exiled Palestinians (Petet 205a: 48). Petet (ibid.) coments that this was a project of modernization conected to a refashioning of identities: through interventions such as vocational training and resetlement, ‘the refuge’ would enter the modern world and acquire a new sense of self while coming to terms with displacement. Palestinian refuges both rejected and acomodated these interventions. The UNRWA has also ben despised for being part of the organization that initialy voted for a partition of the homeland in addition to its inability to implement political rights. Fraught with contradictions, the UN organization came to stand for survival and social continuity as wel as new identities. Dheisheans also remained stateles and thus liminal in ‘the national order of things’ (Malki 192). During Jordanian rule of the West Bank (1948-1967), most camp inhabitants obtained Jordanian pasports. Since the begining of Israeli ocupation, they have held Israeli identity cards, which are stil vital to be able to pas Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks as wel as to obtain permits for work and travel. Today Dheisheans also have Palestinian pasports distributed by the PA since 195, which was never established as the authority of a state, but only of self- ruling areas 101 . These pasports, however, are not recognized by al countries and since Israel controls al border crosings they are useles without an Israeli travel permit. In addition to refuge cards, Dheisheans thus hold multiple administrative tags, as semi-Jordanians, as ocupied subjects of Israel and as semi-citizens of the PA. Furnished with refuge cards, the former peasants were reduced to a bureaucratic category of refuges. This emerged alongside stigmatization of the refuges in the local comunity. In general, many locals in the Bethlehem governorate sem to have despised the displaced peasants as por and dirty. The population in the West Bank was almost doubled by al-nakba, which may 101 A few Dheisheans had foreign pasports after having lived abroad. Others held Jerusalem ID cards distributed by the Israeli authorities (se chapter 1). For a more extensive acount on Palestinian travel documents, se for instance BADIL (204: 120). 79 explain why the local population did not always welcome the destitute refuges 102 . Petet (205a: 56) notes that there was a ‘compasion fatigue’ among the non-refuge population that set in within a year or two. The flight hence implied change also for those Palestinians who were not expeled. The stigma was related to the striking poverty of Dheishean families during the first thre decades after the flight. Families that were comparably wel of at the time of fieldwork had, like most camp inhabitants, lived in deep deprivation in the past. My host family, for instance, recounted a story about what my hostes had said when her children complained about the por fod she served them: ‘No, it’s not the same fod as this morning. Tonight we are eating bread with oil and za‘tar (i.e. a spicy mix of herbs, mainly thyme), this morning it was oil and za‘tar with bread’. Despite the wage labour many refuges eventualy managed to get, they had remained dependent on UN fod aid and remitances from relatives working abroad 103 . Children in the camp had started to work on schol holidays from an early age. The scarcity was conected to the los of livelihod in 1948; people had no land to cultivate or sel, neither did they have profesions or education. Palestinian peasants had their resources in the land and lacked the broad networks that the educated urban elites and merchants had; they had basicaly nowhere else to go than to the camps (Fafo 194: 47). Emplacement in a Refuge Camp Housing in refuge camps or resetlement areas for displaced populations often have distinct physical characteristics that distinguish them from homes in surounding places (Zeter 191: 52f). By extension, particular physical atributes were ascribed by Dheisheans and others to ‘the Palestinian refuge’, who was asociated with poverty and overcrowding. The physical character of Dheishe had initialy ben clearly visible. As Um Khaled recounted at the begining of this chapter, when the camp was newly established in the 1950s, the refuges spent several years living in tents. The older inhabitants of the camp recaled that the schol had ben in one tent, the medical centre in another and the UN distribution centre in a third. Abu Amir, who worked with the local authorities in Bethlehem, explained: ‘My family lived more than eight years in the tent. I was born in a tent in 1953. And because of that I have problems in my chest, it’s like asthma in my chest. And I have dificulty breathing.’ As Um Khaled mentioned, only later did the UNRWA provide a basic housing unit for each family. Until this day, refuge camps in the 102 The West Bank population sweled from 460,00 to 740,00 with the masive arival of refuges. The impact on the Gaza Stripe was even more dramatic (BADIL 204: 37). 103 Zeter (207) notes that the rot causes of migration are often complex and hence refuges and economic migrants are not always distinguishable. For an acount of Palestinian migration, se Hilal (206). 80 West Bank stand out from the surounding vilages and towns. Dheishe is now also both physicaly and symbolicaly marked of from its suroundings by a monument at the main entrance that comemorates martyrs and by a graveyard for martyrs at the oposite end of the camp (se chapter 10). Both of these constructions were undertaken by camp residents. Although the refuges’ lives and identities were institutionalized and reduced to bureaucratic cases, Dheisheans actively involved themselves in place-making as a way to form a comunity-based ‘home’ in the camp. This proces was similar to the one that Hamond (204) describes taking place among refuges who returned to Ethiopia 104 . Hamond posits that thre sets of practices are involved in establishing residency and belonging. The first set consists of mundane everyday practices such as house building, cultivating, tea drinking, trading, atending mosque and celebrating public holidays. One example of this among my informants was provided by Um Khaled, who mentioned colecting wod. The second set relates to representation, by which is meant conscious reflection upon or about the place. Representation results from individuals and groups engaging with their environment through daily practices and it complements direct experience. For instance, Dheisheans described the camp as ‘a site of resistance’ after conscious contemplation. Thirdly, comunity formation through the daily sharing of gods, favours and knowledge also helps transform a space into a social place. Comunity implies a sense of samenes among people who are flung together by circumstance and it makes them think of themselves as a unit that belongs to a particular place. In Dheishe, a comunity of fate developed through shared experiences of sufering and strugle and shared rural origins. The Dynamics of Lingering Vilages As for many displaced groups, the past and lost places have taken on particular importance for Palestinian refuges. In the ocupied teritories, camp refuges generaly have rural origins and these are evident in a variety of ways. The disintegration of peasant life and the imposition of a camp refuge tag also prompted responses such as the reasertion of pre-existing identities. Turton (205: 258) reminds us of ‘the power places have to cal forth an emotional response in us, a power which is especialy potent when skilfuly and artfuly linked to the ideology of nationalism’. Lost Palestinian vilages are infused with such power. The past - it was beautiful. We used to cok ḫubêze [i.e. malow]. We used to get bread and yoghurt, everything, from the land. This was how e used to eat. Today, if 104 These returning refuges did not return to the homes that they had originaly fled from, but to a new locality in another area in Ethiopia. In both cases, groups were alocated large empty fields where none of them had lived before 81 we are relaxed and we have no troubles, it’s god, but in the past nobody asked you about your identity card; ”Where are you going, where do you come from?” It was much beter; they never asked us about our identity cards. We used to work with the help of oxen; we had no tractors or machines when we worked on the land. In the past, it was much beter. In the past everybody used to get his fod harder, by sweating, not like in those days, by asking. […] I love my land. My shep, my cows, my house. I dream about the vilage every night. […] Every day it becomes stronger and stronger. Al my thoughts, al my thinking, fly to my vilage. About the wel, about taking water from the wel to pour for the cows and the shep. I stil think about it. I bring the water from the wel to let them drink in the afternon, we return home and I give them some fod. I used to herd shep and cows together. Abu Khaled It is in its absence that home tends to move people most forcefuly (Hobsbawm 191). Abu Khaled, who was some years older than his wife Um Khaled, loved to tel stories from his life in the vilage. For instance, when I met him during a shorter visit in 206, Abu Khaled was sick in his bed but as son as we had exchanged gretings he launched into a story about his animals and how he had brought them water from the wel. In people’s memories, life was simpler and brighter before al-nakba and the fod was tastier. The fod one ate in the past was also considered cleaner and healthier. Fods became mnemonic devices (cf. Ben Ze’ev 204; Petet 205a: 7). This was probably related to the fact that fod rations distributed after al-nakba consisted of fods the refuges were not familiar with. ‘Rations were [also] a constant and intimate reminder of the violent separation from the land and the fruits of one’s own labour’ (ibid.: 7). Elderly refuges spontaneously talked about their everyday life as farmers. They dweled on details about how to harvest and preserve fod, about the features of the landscape in their vilages and they explained the names of tols that younger people did not know. Their stories described lives filed with hard work but also closenes to nature and other living beings. They remembered vilage life as fre of political strife and as ordered and secure. ‘Even if we got exhausted from work, our minds were at peace,’ explained Um Rafiq. Vilage life was remembered as an almost mythic past that was frequently compared with today’s depresing situation (cf. Sayigh 1979). Sayigh (ibid.: 1) notes that this kind of reconstruction of the past among Palestinians in Lebanon had several meanings. Firstly, the stories corected the biases of more oficial historical acounts, either Israeli or Palestinian, but they also pased on knowledge to younger generations about their ‘true homes’ in Palestine and they thus gave a sense of belonging. There was also a political element in this remembering, which refused a Zionist takeover of former peasant land and urged for political action. 82 My elderly informants were in general more able and wiling to describe their everyday life in the vilages than they were to talk about al-nakba. They semed relieved that I was not only interested in the more traumatic events they had experienced but that I also asked about their former daily routine. Younger family members did not always find this particularly interesting 105 . When I tried to interview younger people about their vilage background they often became embarased or even anoyed because they felt they knew so litle about their vilages. In al families, teling stories about vilage life in the past had probably not existed or only did so in the first decades after al-nakba. Older people’s lived experiences of rural life often contrasted sharply with younger generations’ vague images of lost vilage life. We were fallaḥîn [i.e. peasants]. The tomatoes we had – you should have sen them! They were not like the ones you se today. There were only tomatoes in the sumer because they were cultivated without water [irigation]. And we used to dry them to store them for the winter. And it was the same with zuchinis. And we made yoghurt. We had delicious meat and big zuchinis. Everything was delicious, not like today. e used to cut meat up and we put it in a jar. We cut the lamb into smal pieces, coked it and then we put it in a jar to store it there until it was finished. And we made stufed bread in the tabôn [i.e. an outside oven]. We had chicken, like the chicken here on the rof […] and we had doves as wel. […] In this season, we had ṣaber [i.e. prickly pear], but not like the one that is sold now. We used to cultivate it ourselves and would get 10 kilos. Today 2 fruits cost 1 shekel! And we cultivated figs - we used to get 90 kilos. When we shoed the horses, the man who did it he didn’t get paid in money, but he waited until the harvest and then got his payment in kind. There was not money like today, we ate from our land. Um Hasan, in her late 70s The pictures of vilage life painted by my informants interacted with nationalistic discourses about an authentic traditional past 106 . Above Um Hasan refers not only to her everyday duties in the vilage but also to a Palestinian national imagery within which the falâḥ, or peasant, and rural life tend to embody authentic Palestinian-nes 107 . Swedenburg (190) has for instance caled the Palestinian peasant a national signifier that contests Israeli claims of Biblical rights to the land. ‘By using the falah as signifier of their intimate conection to a landscape, Palestinians stake 105 The daughter-in-law of a woman I interviewed was working in the kitchen during the interview. At one point she interupted her mother-in-law to say: ‘[Nina] doesn’t want to know about this –tel her about the Jews!’ But for the refuges who had lived and survived the flight, it made sense to juxtapose these experiences with a somewhat mythic past. 106 The concern with tradition and authenticity in Palestinian society is shown in numerous ways; in Palestinian salôns as wel as at oficial exhibitions, items originating from a rural past such as farming implements, are often displayed. There is also a revival of Palestinian embroidery especialy of thoubs, the embroidered traditional female dres that was comon in parts of Palestine. Restaurants are also often decorated in ‘peasant style’ with agricultural tols hanging on the wals, sometimes mixed with a ‘Bedouin style’, tent-like décor. Petet (205a: 149) notes that men’s kefîyeh (the traditional black or red and white checked headscarf) has become charged with meaning as Palestinian guerilas have used it as an emblem of militancy. 107 Ideas about authenticity and tradition also inform several other national projects in the Midle East (cf. Abu Lughod 205; Salamandra 204; Shrycock 197). 83 out historical counter-claims as Israel makes the teritory over’ (ibid.: 2). Moreover, oficial nationalism has overloked social distinctions and used this peasant imagery to unite a dispersed Palestinian nation. People in the camps embody not only strugle and sufering but also a lingering Palestinian genuine vilage life; camps and their inhabitants are sen as loci of resistance, sufering as wel as authenticity, although wounded. The authentic vilage past was remembered as coloured by more elaborate traditions than those of today - wedding celebrations lasted for days and guests would be received in comunal guesthouses (se also Slyomovics 198). Dheisheans said that many customs and traditions from the vilages had disapeared or changed in the camp; for instance, mariage age was now higher both than it was in the past and than it is in neighbouring vilages. Another example I could note were the lack of stories about spirits or jin in Dheishe. Rothenberg (204), who conducted fieldwork some ten years ago in the vilage of Artas, just behind the camp, recorded many stories about jins but during my fieldwork in Dheishe, I hardly heard any. When I asked people about it, they simply said that they ‘did not tel these stories any more’. Some places are made in the absence of other places or as a direct response to the los of a place. For refuges in particular, memories of a lost place might become significant building blocks of emplacement somewhere else. When they arived at Dheishe or another Palestinian refuge camp, people not only registered as refuges but they also setled acording to their vilage origin and they named their neighbourhods after vilages (so-caled idraś hayyarat). This setlement patern was an atempt to socialy recreate the lost vilages 108 (se also Fafo 194; Farah 199: 125f; Petet 205a; Slyomovics 198; Sayigh 1979: 10). When people are in situations of displacement and crisis, they are usualy unwiling to experiment with social inovation but tend instead to consciously sek to maintain social and symbolic structures (e.g. Colson 1973). Dheisheans, however, managed only partialy to maintain familiar structures since people from the same vilage ended up in diferent camps and had to deal with the death and dispersal of relatives. For several decades, the divisions betwen vilages were recognizable in the camp. Thus, emplacement is not only a practical arangement but it may also comemorate or create continuity with lost places. When this is a colective undertaking, as it is in Dheishe, social memory interacts with powerful institutions such as states (e.g. Israel) or international organizations (e.g. the UNRWA). 108 Another example is provided by Slyomovics (198): some of the displaced Palestinians originating from the vilage Ein Houd, which is now an Israeli artist colony, replicated their vilage a few kilometres away from their lost homes. Ein Houd Al Jadida, meaning the new Ein Houd, was established by some of the original inhabitants, as a direct response to the los of their vilage. 84 While the Red Cros and the UN provided the physical structure of the camp, the newly arived refuges atempted to recreate their dispersed worlds moraly, religiously and socialy, for instance by caling to prayer. Abu Amir, a man in his fifties with a degre in Social Studies, said: I was thinking of what you said [Nina the other evening] about how a place is created. When my father [who was an imâm] came from Jericho, he found a high place to cal the prayer from, “alahu akbar”, and people started to pray. They [i.e. male family heads] also decided on the rules in the camp. “This is suitable, this is not suitable”. They had the same traditions as in the vilages. They solved their conflicts acording to traditions in the vilage. Abu Amir As Turton (205: 258) notes, making a place for oneself is concerned with meaning- production. Comunity formation in Dheishe folowed certain paterns that reflected both familiar social structures and the disruption that these structures underwent due to displacement (cf. Hamond 204). Another way of re-establishing the social structures of the lost comunities was to intermary acording to vilage. This overlaped with the ideal of cousin mariage, since vilagers were often related. As in Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon place and identity have ben mutualy constitutive: ‘Identities and afiliations, belonging to a particular group whether family or vilage, nuanced the proces by which camps became places of atachment and identification. In turn, these identities were profoundly transformed by life in these bounded spaces’ (Petet 205a: 10). On the other hand, in the early 21 st century, both the vilage quarters and vilage endogamy were disapearing. Abu Amir, who had maried a relative from the same vilage some 15 years ago, noted that the social boundaries betwen vilages were losing importance: Wel, the new generation considers themselves Dheishe camp inhabitants [first of al], you know people. Me for example, I was born here. I don’t know the old vilage. So I grew up, as I said, with this neighbour from Faluja and that one from Bayt Etab, another nearby vilage, and that one from Khurda, and that one from Khalis. We were together in the same place, playing, going, coming [together]. […] Now the new generation, young people of 18 years or 30 years of age no longer listen so much to the elderly about diferences betwen the vilages. They are living together. This one is maried to that one and everyone is mixed together. New social networks that extended beyond vilage origins were necesary and an outcome of the acidental comunity of the camp. Dheisheans’ social networks derived from ultiple sources such as schol, work, political party afiliation, NGO activity and location in the camp. 85 The importance of vilage origins did however linger on in other ways. Rural origins were, for instance, stil evident in camp dwelers’ acents, particularly those of older Dheisheans, and they were often clearly distinguishable from those of urbanites and vilagers around them. People also tended to know hich family and vilage other camp inhabitants came from. Abu Wisam, for instance, who was a Dheishean in his late thirties who owned a shop in Bethlehem, estimated that he knew from which vilage some 90 per cent of his felow camp residents originated. He argued that the relationships betwen camp inhabitants had compensated for the relationships that were lost with al-nakba and that there was a ‘camp matrix’ of rules of conduct in the camp. Since most of a person’s kin would stem from the same vilage, atendance at funerals and weddings alowed people to display suport both as kin and as co-vilager. In the traditional conflict resolution (i.e. ṣulḥa) that was often used in the camp, felow vilagers were an important resource for suport and solidarity. Some former vilages had also organized vilage comites or asociations (cf. Slyomovics 198; Fafo 194; Ghabra 1987) that suported members economicaly and socialy. People in Dheishe were normaly also buried at the local graveyard but in a distribution that reflected their vilage of origin. New naming practices also used the names of vilages. Abu Amir explained that ‘[People] put the name of the vilage [on a shop or busines]. For example in Aman as we have someone from here there, there is a pharmacy caled Zakariya [after the vilage]’. Children, especialy girls, were also ocasionaly named after the geography of Palestine. Karmel was a popular girl’s name taken from the Mount Carmel inside present Israel as was Yafa, after the coastal town Jafa. Slyomovics (198: 201f) notes that these naming practices are spread throughout the Palestinian diaspora. A rich cultural production had also evolved around vilage names and ‘authentic’ vilage life. At an exhibition during the days in May when Palestinians comemorate al-nakba, a political party displayed agricultural tols and traditional dreses that were used in the vilages before the flight. Privately, some people colected old items such as cofe tins that were imagined to have ben used in the vilages and they aranged them as decoration in their salôns, which are roms for receiving guests. The names of the more than 40 vilages that Dheisheans had come from had ben painted on the wals of the youth organization Ibdaa. There were also wal paintings that showed women dresed in the female traditional dres, thoub, carying water in jars from a vilage wel. At another NGO, Karama, children performed a play containing a scene about the past in which the children imitated the vilage dialects their grandparents stil spoke. Palestinian refuge camps are in themselves places in which remembered social structures have ben replicated but they also serve as stages for other kinds of comemorative activity 86 (Conerton 1989; Gilis 194). Activities such as the comemoration of martyrs establish social memory and mark some events out as symbolicaly important to the whole comunity. The political scientist Laleh Khalili (207) has investigated national comemorations among Palestinians and shown that they contain naratives of heroism, sufering and steadfastnes. She ses comemoration as fundamental in the constitution of Palestinian nationalism. A Community of Fate Palestinian national discourse has drawn much of its force from the sufering of displacement and encampment. Indeed, Dheisheans saw themselves as a comunity of fate and the camp was a place in which people shared sufering and strugle. Older generations of refuges in particular repeatedly confirmed their colective destiny by saying: ‘We have sufered a lot’. Sometimes the comunity was extended to include al Palestinians, who had al sufered in various ways. The construction of such a self-image provides one way to burst the constraints of labels and limiting conditions. Another proces that tends to transform identities is political mobilization. The location of refuges in particular places may afect institutionalization. Malki (195a: 237f), building on Foucault’s work on disciplinary institutions, argues that her field site, a refuge camp in Tanzania, ‘[…] as a technology of power, […] ended up being much more than a device of containment and enclosure; it grew into a locus of continual creative subversion and transformation’. Although refuge camps and other institutions such as prisons tend to fix and objectify people as ‘refuges’ or ‘inmates’, they may also become generative, productive sites for social and political invention (ibid.: 238). Objectification was thus not completely out of the control of Dheisheans. The Palestinian national discourse interacted with the refuges’ own elaborations of their bureaucratic identity so as to distinguish them as true fighters and suferers. The empowerment of politicization contested both victimization and marginalization; it was an atempt to reframe ‘the Palestinian refuge’ and the powerlesnes atendant upon this label. Dheisheans and other Palestinian refuges have also used their refuge status for concrete political aims, by claiming their right of return to their home vilages, refusing to pay bils to the Palestinian Authority (PA), protesting about PA coruption and autocracy and so on. A Palestinian refuge card stil also gives the holder aces to a number of services, such as fre healthcare, help for the handicaped and fre compulsory scholing 109 . To be a Dheishean was meaningful and valued in a number of ways. 109 Fafo (194: 5) reports that in Lebanon, the Palestinian refuges’ aces to UNRWA services has created a competition betwen Palestinians and their lower clas Lebanese hosts. This envy also had political implications. 87 When people in the camp consciously reflected upon the place in which they lived it was represented as ful of significance but also of ambivalence. An example of representation conected to emplacement (Hamond 204) was given by Abu Wisam: Camp people are the rot of the case [i.e. the Palestinian isue]. [Being a refuge] makes you think about politics a lot, and it helps you understand the conflict and want to join the conflict as wel, to fight. […] The Israeli side, they have tried to destroy [the refuges] psychologicaly, by puting presure on us to give up our right of return. So they wil resolve the most important problem in the conflict. This explains why the Israelis atack the camps. Let’s think about the first intifada, it started in Jabalyah camp [in Gaza]. It started in a camp because in the camp they sufer more, they have more presure [from the situation]. […] [The Israelis] want to make you give away your right to go back, to make sure that they are strong, so strong that you can’t even think about going back. To not be able to think about it even. They want you to think about the new problems they created for you, to make you forget the main problems that you started out [to strugle] for. The camp inhabitants’ extensive involvement in uprisings against Israel also exhibits their self- image as fearles fighters. The Israelis also tend to view refuge camps as more political and dangerous than Palestinian towns and vilages. However, Abu Wisam also outlined how a troubling apolitical identity may be emerging due to overwhelming concerns with survival. I heard another example of the political value of being a camp refuge when I was out walking one day with Rami. Rami was a high schol student and, depending on his mod, he would sometimes talk about Dheishe and show me sites that he considered important for my understanding of the place and its residents. I filmed with my digital video camera while he talked at the places he wanted to show me. That is how I came to know about the aley that children and youngsters run and hide from Israeli soldiers in after they have thrown stones at the main entrance. Rami described this aley as the heart of the camp and he said that if a youngster did not know about it and the paths and pasages conected to it they would not be able to get away. It was obvious that to Rami and his friends the camp was a home that caried political meaning. Ibin al-muḫayyam, literaly ‘son of the camp’, is an expresion sometimes used by the camp residents that hints at a multifaceted local identity. While being a camp refuge held political value and was an aset for receiving aid and fre services, it was stil a social stigma localy. Mounsir, a young unemployed camp resident, jokingly said while pointing at himself: ‘Here on my forehead, it’s writen that I’m a refuge’. Everyone present laughed. His friend Walid, a university student, continued by explaining to me that one became more serious by living in a camp because the conditions in the camps were harsher than at other places. A ‘son of the camp’ would own no land, like a vilager, and no company or factory, like townspeople. ‘Imediately, you can se from the way a person behaves or talks that he is from a camp. It’s not a problem, 88 but it’s your nature’, said Walid. For these young Dheisheans, the sense of belonging to the camp paralels the strong vilage identity that the refuges remember as having infused vilage life before al-nakba. Suming up this chapter, I have discused Dheisheans’ multifaceted identity formation as camp refuges. Becoming refuges involved both continuity and change with regard to social paterns as wel as politics, education and livelihod. Naratives of flight as wel as of vilage and camp life were used to order and manage experiences as wel as to reflect upon one’s predicament. Despite the tremendous changes Dheisheans had experienced since 1948, vilage origins lingered on in stories, in the memories of the elderly camp inhabitants, in social structures, in naming practices and in diferent cultural expresions. Deply ambivalent identities emerged in the confusing interface betwen the latent and manifest meanings of the refugee label. These often simultaneously implied victimization, empowerment and stigmatization. But in spite of ‘being people out of place’, the camp inhabitants had actualy become integrated in their new locality and they had created a new sense of belonging, although they lacked citizenship. 89 5. Living with Violence and Insecurity in Everyday Life This chapter investigates some themes related to resilience and to keping up ‘normal life’ under dire conditions. Events and behaviour that in ‘peace-time’, or in the Palestinian case ‘non- ocupied time’, would be considered abnormal, such as outbursts of hostility and fear, sudden deaths and political imprisonment, ned to be rendered manageable. This chapter is divided into thre parts; first, it investigates Dheisheans’ understandings of and reactions to their situation as an emergency. The abnormality of their life was shown in comparison with other people’s lives and in direct responses to fearful events. At the same time, as in many conflict-ridden societies, the camp inhabitants had to some degre got used to living under violent ocupation. The second part therefore deals with proceses of normalization. By maintaining daily routines and naturalizing diferent sorts of violations, Dheisheans extended the boundaries of ‘normality’. However, it is important to underline that people in war-like conditions do not simply get used to their predicament in an uncomplicated way. Camp residents were frequently flung betwen a feling of precarious normality, which defined some events as ‘ordinary’ because they were so comon, and an alarming state of crisis. In response to the violence people had become suspicious of the intentions of others and this was based on fear of Israel. In the final section, this chapter therefore discuses the many negotiations in Dheishe about whom to trust and whom to be wary of. A total breakdown of trust was avoided by upholding cultural norms of hospitality and stoicism. Betwen Emergency and Normality For those living in the afluent first world, crisis is understod as a temporary abnormality linked to a particular event […] But for those living in constant crisis and subject to repetitive traumas, and where ‘emergency is not the exception but the rule’ (Walter Benjamin 1969) the conventional wisdom and understanding of human vulnerability and resilience […] is inadequate. Scheper-Hughes (208: 36f) Scheper-Hughes notes that Western models of temporary calamity underestimate the human capacity not only to survive and live with terible events but even to thrive despite extreme violence and deprivation 110 . However, this is not a question of either/or; people tend to be both 110 Diagnosis such as Post-Traumatic Stres Disorder (PTSD) is culturaly constructed and unlikely to have universal resonance (cf. Kleinman et al. 197; Sumerfield 204). Nonetheles, PTSD-like syndromes can be observed in many parts of the world (Scheper-Hughes 208). Scheper-Hughes (ibid.) also writes that the trauma model is based on a specific view of humans as fundamentaly vulnerable beings with few defence mechanisms. 90 resilient and frail. This duality holds true for Dheisheans’ ways of coming to terms with prolonged crisis. In my experience, the situation in the Palestinian areas was distinguished by oscilating betwen aceptance of the order of things and panic. Building on his fieldwork in Colombia, Tausig (192: 18) described this condition as: a state of doublenes of social being in which one moves in bursts betwen somehow acepting the situation as normal, only to be thrown into a panic or shocked into disorientation by an event, a rumor, a sight, something said, or not said –something that even while it requires the normal in order to make its impact, destroys it. Normalization 111 as a tactic of resilience requires keping up familiar routines but also reframing anomalous events as ‘sort of normal’ (Macek 200; Scheper-Hughes 208). It was in this fluctuation betwen normality and emergency that Dheisheans developed concerns about other people’s intentions. The dificulties in having faith in others may also make it more dificult to bounce back since trusting relationships may function as protection against disintegration of self and comunity (Ruter 1987). Experiencing Ongoing Crisis As we saw in chapter 2, there was no shortage of emergencies and violence in Dheisheans’ everyday lives. These included army incursions, asasinations and the presence of snipers as wel as regular nightly arests, house-demolitions and curfews 112 . Such recuring crises made many fel that the lives they were living were not only abnormal but also threatened. For instance, one woman interupted her mother’s acount of the flight in 1948 by sarcasticaly teling me ‘Maybe there wil be a nakba biger than that one. Then you can write a new PhD, Nina!’ A comon response to stresful events and violence was for people to imediately relate what had hapened and repeat it many times to whomever was prepared to listen. One example of this was described in the introduction, when Um Ayman and her child bumped into an Israeli soldier in the dark. She retold the story many times, to anyone who came her way. This worked like a kind of spontaneous and individual ‘debriefing’. People in the camp were used to 111 I use ‘normalizaton’ as an analytical concept related to resilience. My way of employing this term should not be confused with how some Dheisheans used the English word ‘normalizaton’ to denote normalized relations with Israelis, often in the form of coperation betwen Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. In the context of a Palestinian uprising, such coperation was understod as betrayal by many locals at the time. 112 Some Dheisheans also semed to have a distorted sense of time, probably reflecting a sense of constant threat. Time tended to blur for many people in the camp who experienced living in a constant state of emergency. When Rami recounted his talks at Palestinian solidarity organizations in Europe it also became evident that he portrayed Dheishe to European audiences was as a place constantly under curfew and surounded by snipers. This was not actualy the case. I imagine that his way of describing the situation he lived in was not only designed to gain political suport for the Palestinian cause but was also an acurate reflection of how he experienced it. 91 listening to such stories and to acknowledging each other’s pain or ‘feling with each other’ as they put it. The shows of solidarity that were expected at funerals and prison releases (se below) could also ocur spontaneously. One evening I went with Dalal, an unmaried factory worker, to visit her neighbour. We found the neighbour in tears, woried about her sick son who was in jail. Dalal sat down to comfort the woman for an hour or so and this was understod as a ‘natural’ manifestation of empathy and solidarity in the face of deprivation. It was often posible to find someone to turn to like this within the Dheishean comunity, and this may be a crucial factor in recovery (cf. Ruter 1987). Many camp residents were moreover literaly sleping through their upseting experiences. When they came home after having traveled through the West Bank or having ben held at checkpoints or at gunpoint, they were often so exhausted that they would have to slep for hours. One report describes how Palestinian schol children se slep as a way of relieving the tension of dangerous or long journeys home from schol (Save the Children 203: 14). This ned to slep, which I also felt after experiencing stresful events in the West Bank, did not sem to come just from physical exhaustion but from general fatigue. Sleping can be sen as a response to the general exhaustion after four years of uprising (cf. Alen 208). Pain and depresion were silently manifested in Dheisheans’ bodies as the long-term responses to repeated emergencies. During fieldwork, I noted that many people, both men and women, felt that they were in bad health. They were constantly going to the clinic for medical check ups but the doctors were often unable to find anything somaticaly ‘wrong’ with them 113 . The painkilers and liniments that I had brought from abroad son became popular with my hosts, who found them uch more efective than local medicines. Camp residents were clearly seking both medical and social suport to deal with their fear and hardships. People semed to have diferent ways of making sense of their somatic responses to social sufering, with al their moral resonances (cf. Csordas; God et al. 192; Kleinman 195, 197). Sawsan for instance described her depresion as related to the political situation. My ageing hostes, on the other hand, made no conection betwen her difuse pain and her life experience. Huda, who was a housewife and about 30 years old, ached al over her body. She had also noted a general fatigue, which she related to fear and wory: I [have noticed] that people in general are tired. I know that psychological problems are reflected in their physical condition and capacity. I fel that everyone, young and old, has pain and they can’t do physical activities. For example, someone like me, why do I always have pain in my legs and back? It’s because I’m always thinking 113 I also heard women report that they were absent-minded and forgetful and they viewed these as symptoms of the stres they were under. 92 about the situation and the fear of living as we do. Also, you se it on the faces of people. For example, on hapy ocasions you don’t se people interacting [socialy] or being hapy. When my brother got maried, I was not in the mod to get dresed, fix my hair or my make up. If it hadn’t ben my brother’s wedding I wouldn’t have gone. Since Huda’s husband was in prison she did indeed have reasons to wory. The term ta‘bân in Arabic expreses not only physical tirednes but also felings of distres and unhapines (cf. Dabagh 205: 206). It is my impresion that although both men and women had somatic responses to their sufering, women tended to talk more openly about them. This was probably because Palestinian men were expected to be more stoical than women. The Absence of a Proper Life When asked directly, people in the camp would wilingly list a number of things that were upseting about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza taken as profs of its’ abnormality’ and their own uniquely vulnerable position in the world 114 . My informants used phrases such as ‘there is no life’, ‘we don’t have a life’, ‘I’m tired of everything’, ‘I’m exhausted’, ‘we just want to live’. They talked of having no future, no life or hapines. Life (ḥayâ) or to live (âś) had become synonymous with normality. Ahmed, Hanan’s husband, comented on the imposibility of planing even for the imediate future and how this made life uncertain and dificult: Two years ago I didn’t like to speak about our history. Now I don’t like to speak about this moment or our future because everything is bad. […] We don’t know our future, we don’t know the future of our children, how it wil become. We don’t know if we can continue to live. The future of our children is not clear, our future is not clear. I don’t like to live in this situation. Most Palestinians don’t like living in this situation, this is why we have ben strugling for 10 years. And I think we wil continue our strugle. Ahmed here talks about the imposibility of life, both for himself and for the Palestinian nation. The national strugle has to go on although the future is unknown. Al one could hope for was that an ideal order of normality would emerge at national, household and individual levels; these levels often interacted and were not always clearly distinguished but the ideal refered to how people would like to live. 114 One way of coping with the Palestinians’ predicament is for Palestinians to present their victimhod to an international audience and to tel detailed ‘stories of misery’ (se also chapter 8; Khalili 207: 103f, 204f). It is my impresion that most foreigners visiting the ocupied teritories are told such stories. It is, however, posible that Dheisheans tended to emphasize stoical ideals rather than dwel on their miseries, since in my experience ‘tragic naratives’ were more comon in the neighbouring towns. 93 It sems to be comon in violent societies or societies in crisis that the ideal state of a proper, moral life is frequently talked about in its absence, as a negation. One example is provided by Macek (200: 24f), who writes about Sarajevans under siege. Among them ‘[normality] was charged with a sense of moral, of what was god, right or desirable: a ‘normal life’ was a description of how people wanted to live’. While normality is socialy construed and constantly re-negotiated (ibid.) it often sems to become esentialized in societies where people lack the prerequisites for such a ‘normal life’. Most people in the camp understod the abnormality of their lives as directly caused by the Israeli state and to some extent also by individual Israelis. In an interview, Abu Amir recounted his discusion with an Israeli profesor at a meting some years earlier: I told him “in your whole life nobody insulted you or said a bad word to you or slaped you. It’s hapened to me in al my life. I have ben slaped and humiliated hundreds of times. And kicked. Every day at the checkpoint, Israeli soldiers humiliate me. […] And you want me to be like you, to be quiet and peaceful and to be… I can’t. There is great presure on me, on my shoulders. So when I se you, ok I can sometimes deal with you as a human being, but after ten minutes or ten days or months I remember that you are someone from the society that tok everything from my life.” I am from a family that was considered very rich in the vilage [we came from]. And who stole my future, my life, my hapines? I have become the way I am as a result. In Abu Amir’s acount, he had ben robed of the life he and his family would have had if it had not ben for al-nakba. The quote also mentions Palestinians’ frequent experiences of humiliation (of being beaten, ofended or prevented from oving) and this makes a sense of normal order imposible. Sawsan expresed her longing for a beter life in more poetic terms: ‘The bird, when you put it in a golden cage, is [that] a fre life? If you give it the best conditions, is [the bird] fre and hapy? No, it’s no life. And I am like the bird. I want a fre life and space.’ In these acounts there is no doubt about how extreme the Palestinian situation is; compared to the ideal moral order, the conditions in the camp ofered ‘no life’. The camp residents often compared their own situation with how they viewed or imagined life in other parts of the world to underline their own abnormal situation (cf. Åkeson 204: 79; Gardener 193, 195; Apadurai 191). Abu Amir pointed out that people in other countries were fre to come and go as they wanted, they could love and live, dance and sing. ‘You have al the fredoms and we have nothing here’, he concluded. Proper life was sen as what other people had. Palestinians do not have their own nation-state or pasports that are recognized by other countries; they are anomalies in the ‘national order of things’ (Malki 192). ‘Life’ could also be 94 envisaged as existing acros the Gren Line, inside Israel. For instance, Zaynab, whose morning we wil folow below, indignantly compared the situation of the Palestinians with that of the Israelis: ‘When a [Palestinian] father goes to work once or twice a year … Don’t his children want to eat and drink? Don’t they have the right to live and enjoy life? Don’t they have the right to play like the Israelis? Is it right or not? Why are [the Israelis] living and we are not?’ Thus, other ‘normal’ places were compared with the Palestinian teritories so as to render the later as sites of ongoing calamity. In an interview, Hanan told me how her young daughter had cried because they could not go anywhere when the camp was under curfew: ‘Before the intifada, there were no curfews, we used to take her to a swiming pol in Bayt Sahour [i.e. a neighbouring town]. She semed to be hapy. But these days we can’t even go to Bayt Sahour. When we se some nice place on TV, she says she wants to go to that place.’ This televized imagery of a complete and ful life at distant places further added to a sense of abnormality in Palestinian society. Sometimes I had the impresion that people in the camp found it hard to believe that anything sad hapened in more afluent parts of the world. Many people, especialy from the younger generations, wanted to leave the country to establish proper lives elsewhere, permanently or temporarily. I son lost count of al the Dheisheans who asked me to help them to study and work in Sweden. I also received several requests to mary men who wanted a chance to start a new life abroad. It was also aparent that most people had more than one strategy for improving their lives. A person might one day talk about leaving ‘Palestine’ to take an academic degre and the next day buy land in the hopes of being able to build a house there. One of my informants tried to get a work visa through an exiled relative who was living in another country but at the same time he was expanding his busines close to the camp. Given the uncertainty of their situation, their strategy sems to be to kep as many options as posible open. The camp residents who atempted to leave were often younger people, unmaried or newly maried. More men than women said they wanted to work in another country and some of the women I spoke to were encouraging their husbands to try to migrate to find work. A proper life was also nostalgicaly situated in the past. While the younger generations dreamed of life abroad, elderly people in Dheishe longed for their vilages and for the times before flight and ocupation, but also before consumerism; ‘now it’s al about money’ said Abu Akram, Ahmed’s ageing father. Most camp inhabitants also saw the first intifada as the ideal form of resistance because people had ben united. Some were even nostalgic for the often criticized Oslo period because at that time it had stil ben posible to work in Israel and things were beter 95 economicaly in the Bethlehem area. There had also ben hope then of a beter future. Some of the younger people in Dheishe had direct experience of this imagined normality in the past but young children knew of nothing else than the uncertainty of the intifada al-aqṣa and they often acted out their fear and showed les ability to deal with hostilities. Judging by their behaviour, they were simply to afraid. Extending the Limits of Normality Like other people involved in fredom fights, Palestinians have rendered their sufering meaningful by understanding it in political terms. However, faith in the Palestinian leadership and their way of prompting the national project has diminished considerably in recent years. Understanding experiences of violence as politicaly valuable is no longer a self-evident way of handling them and the amount of violence during the intifada al-aqṣa has probably limited people’s capacity to understand it in alternative ways. One means of coping that has grown in significance in Palestinian society is to cary on ‘as usual’ by concentrating on upholding mundane routine (cf. Kely 208). Keping Up Daily Routine: Zaynab’s Morning At dawn, Zaynab and her husband Sabri are woken up by the day’s first cal to prayer in the nearby mosque. While Sabri gets out of bed to spread out his prayer mat and pray, Zaynab fals aslep again, she can stil slep for another hour and a half before making breakfast for the family. At 6.30 Zaynab is out of bed and Sabri is in the bathrom shaving. Zaynab shakes her two oldest boys awake and while they get dresed in clean jeans and t-shirts with the UNRWA schol emblem, their mother prepares them swet mint tea in the kitchen. She brings back the tea on a large tray with some bread, olive oil and za‘tar (i.e. a spicy mix of herbs, mainly thyme). While the boys eat breakfast their younger siblings remain aslep on the matreses in the children’s rom. Sabri has prepared himself a cup of cofe that he drinks while smoking a cigarete and zaping betwen a local TV chanel and the news from the Arab Satelite chanel Al-Jazira. Sabri son heads of for his work as a caretaker at a local NGO in Bethlehem, promising his wife that he’l buy vegetables on his way home. Outside the camp he waves down a bus that departs for town. The boys finish their meal, grab their schol bags and leave for the short walk down to the UNRWA schol. Meanwhile Zaynab has washed herself, put on a white skirt and headscarf that she uses to cover herself while praying. After the prayer, she sits down to have some tea. She then goes downstairs to check on her father-in- law. The old man already has a cup of hot tea in his hand that his daughter made him so Zaynab sits down to talk for a few minutes. Zaynab’s father-in-law has heard some strange sounds during the night and wonders if the Israeli army has entered the camp to arest someone but they have not heard of anyone being arested and word 96 usualy spreads quickly. Then, Zaynab croses the stret to go to her husband’s brother’s house. Im Muhamed has ben up since the first prayer and has already baked bread. She hands some loaves to Zaynab who also borows some egs. Back in her own house, Zaynab puts the egs on to boil and starts washing the dishes from yesterday. She scrubs the plates and pans hard, working herself warm in the chily morning. Afterwards, she wakes up her younger children and brings them the boiled egs with some of Im Muhamed’s bread and some tea. Then she begins dusting the salôn, with its sofas, side-tables and knick-knacks. Since this is the rom for receiving guests it is especialy important that it is clean and tidy. She carefuly sweps this rom and then continues to swep the rest of the thre-romed flat. The children are already out playing on the veranda. Zaynab casts a glance at her children outside, ses that her son is not properly dresed and then scolds her daughter for not having helped her younger brother. When the boy is dresed, Zaynab continues sweping the flor and then throws the hot water onto the tiled flor. Scrubing the flor with a brom, she works her way through the flat, pushing aside any furniture that’s in her way. Using a large scraper, she then pushes the water into the bathrom and down the drain. From the veranda, Zaynab’s sister-in-law is caling her to come and have a cofe break with her and one of their neighbours. The thre women sit down for their cofe and decide that they are going to make waraq dawâli together this afternon. Waraq dawâli is a popular Palestinian dish consisting of delicious rols of vine leaves stufed with rice. It takes hours to make by hand and women often prepare it together to relieve the tedium. After cofe, Zaynab makes sure that her daughter does her homework and then she goes out to swep the veranda. Her daughter wil not be in schol until after 12 o’clock. Since the UNRWA schol is crowded the clases have to take turns, which means that the young girls start schol late, something parents in the camp are unhapy about. When the veranda is presentable, Zaynab climbs up onto the rof to colect the dry laundry. When she comes in with the clothes, Zaynab notices that her youngest son is stuck in front of the computer, playing a game. Sabri has used some of their meagre savings to buy the children a PC because he hopes it wil stop them from playing in the stret where Israeli army jeps pas by. By the entrance of the camp, young children and tenagers sometimes throw stones at the army jeps, though it has ben some months since anyone got hurt in these outbursts of violence. * Zaynab’s regular morning routine creates a sense of order and predictability. Everyday routines are linked to the ned for ontological security - a concept that Giddens (191) uses to denote the sense of continuity and order in events that is characteristic of large segments of human activity everywhere. Such routines are probably of particular relevance in places that are torn by hostilities. As Giddens (ibid.: 38) claims, such quotidian practices can ‘cary individuals through transitions, crises and circumstances of high risk’. In situations in which there is a great deal of uncertainty, shifts and risks are probably more frequent than in many other contexts. As we saw 97 in the last chapter, daily routines among Dheisheans also contributed to emplacement and the creation of a meaningful social place in the aftermath of displacement (Hamond 204). Zaynab’s day was nevertheles also afected by the political situation; for instance there were often Israeli soldiers in the camp both during the day and at night, there was frequently shoting nearby, her husband always checked the news in the morning to se if it was safe to leave for work and they had decided to buy the children a computer to kep them out of trouble. The sense of ‘normality’ she managed to establish was constantly threatened by emergencies such as sudden army atacks. Naturalizing Violations The folowing extract from y field diary shows that the boundaries of what was considered normal had expanded in Dheishe. Right when I was about to leave to my friend in Bethlehem there was some shoting here in the camp, two tenagers got slightly wounded. So I didn’t dare to leave. People said there were soldiers everywhere. At the same time everyone was talking about atending a wedding at the neighbours. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but stil came with [my host sister] to the wedding. It felt completely sureal. Everyone acted as usual, as if nothing had hapened – talk about normalizaton! After about half an hour I also relaxed and sort of forgot about the event. Very strange, al of it. After an hour or so I and [my host-sister] left and I decided to go to Bethlehem after al. I then spent some time with my friend and her aunt loking for a dres. Things hapen on the camp that would, in other circumstances, be judged as abnormal and would stop everyday practices. However, as in the case above, life does not come to a halt, plans are not changed but may only be delayed. These things are not always even worth talking about. One hears shoting, someone is wounded and there are armed soldiers around, but one stil atends a party and goes shoping. Zaynab’s morning practices were also a god example of how people were striving to get on with their lives, sending their children to schol, loking for new employment, going to Ramalah for a medical check-up, inviting people to a birthday party or planing a trip to Aman. Some of the things that used to be abnormal had actualy become ‘âdi or normal, ordinary, because of their frequency (cf. Alen 208). During a sumer vacation 17-year-old Rami was invited to Europe to give some lectures at Palestinian solidarity organizations. When he returned, he vividly described his first car trip on European soil. He had ben astonished at being able to travel for kilometre after kilometre without being stoped at any roadblocks or having to show his papers. Of course, he was fuly aware that checkpoints were not ‘normal’ in other countries, but because interupted journeys 98 were such a comon everyday ocurence for him he was stil surprised and shaken by the experience of being able to travel without being stoped. Because he was so young he hardly remembered the time when Palestinians could stil move frely and this reminds us of how responses to long-term violence are a generational isue as wel. Checkpoints had become so recurent in the ocupied teritories that Dheisheans hardly reacted to them any more. It was esential to be able to pas checkpoints without having a ‘nervous breakdown’ each time and they had to be treated as something ‘ordinary’ 115 . People in Dheishe were also becoming acustomed to seing gruesome scenes in the popular media, especialy TV. Many camp inhabitants had themselves sen people being kiled in real life and many no longer reacted to the images of mutilated corpses. A Dheishean friend once emailed me some horific photographs of dead Palestinians bodies folowing the Israeli invasion of the Jenin refuge camp. My friend was aparently used to this kind of picture and was not as shocked or disgusted as I was 116 . However, he had a clear political mesage to transmit to me - he wanted to upset me in order to show me the ‘truth’. Even children showed me these kinds of pictures. When Ahmed Yasin (the former spiritual leader of Hamas) was asasinated by Israeli forces, I went to visit a friend in the camp. My friend’s 12-year-old son caled me to his computer to show me some pictures of the late Ahmed Yasin with his head half blown of, his brain pouring out and his whelchair stained with blod. I loked away in disgust, and in vain tried to protect the boy’s younger brother from seing the photos, but both of the boys semed surprised by my reaction. It had become normal to lok at and to show pictures of death and destruction. Similarly, on my first meting with Taysir, an unemployed Dheishean construction worker, he showed me a photo of his recently kiled friend at a lit-de-parade. A related phenomenon has ben described by Alen (208). Most Palestinians tok no notice of the many posters and images of martyrs that invaded public space in West Bank towns and refuge camps. Nonetheles, some had not become used to violence and death. The first time I met Huda, she told me that she was often haunted by the terible sights she had witnesed. At night, when she was trying to get to slep, she would often se the Israeli army kiling a young man and the scene remained ‘extraordinary’ for her 117 . With this last example, I try to show how complex those proceses of normalization are. While many people had to some extent become 115 Some Palestinians panicked when pasing checkpoints. This is a god example of the oscilation betwen aceptance and panic that Tausig (192) writes about in the Colombian context. 116 The fact that I reacted to them was probably also related to the way television images of corpses are ‘censored’ in Sweden. 117 A trained psychologist might view Huda’s repeated re-experiencing of this event as a sign of trauma or post- traumatic stres disorder (PTSD) (McNaly 204). 99 acustomed to seing kilings and death, others had not and a person might react on some ocasions but not on others. Some violations had stoped being worth-mentioning and were acknowledged only by silence, not because they were frightening and dificult to talk about but because they were so comon. People semed ‘numbed’ to some of the extreme events. I always felt I was mising things when I left the camp because it was unlikely that people would tel me about recent events when I came back. Eruptions of hostilities did not even sem to be noteworthy for many adult Dheisheans; it was typicaly children or my field asistant who told me about them. Once, when I returned after having ben away for two weks, it tok several days before Rami told me that there had ben several martyrs (in this case Palestinians asasinated by the Israeli army) in Bethlehem during my absence. On another ocasion I came back from a short visit to Jerusalem in the late afternon and my host-family greted me as usual and we had diner as usual. Only later that evening did my field asistant tel me that an atack-helicopter, which is often used in extra-judicial kilings, had ben circling above the camp and two Palestinians had ben arested and another one wounded. Another comon response to constant presure, (which may co-exist with numbing), was a state of vigilance: an enhanced state of awarenes and a ned to know hat is going on. In Dheishe, it was not surprising if a 14-year-old boy could identify diferent kinds of arms by their sound or that we would al sometimes go up on the rof to get a beter lok at shoting betwen the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters in nearby vilages and neighbourhods. Standing on the rof was not without risks, but it was a way of gathering information so that one would not be caught unawares. This may be crucial in a violent situation. Chalenging Abnormality: Risk-taking Within the extension of normality, risks were taken and priorities were made in ways that chalenged the abnormal situation, sometimes defiantly. Being caught without an Israeli permit inside Israel could mean fines and imprisonment. Many camp residents tok considerable risks by going ilegaly to Jerusalem to work and this says something of the severity of their economic situation. Ilegal comuting was comon among maried women who had taken on much of the economic responsibility for their households since it was easier for them than for their husbands to move in the restricted landscape of the West Bank. Individual neds and desires did not cease just because the political situation in the ocupied teritories was dangerous. The bachelor Taysir, whose house-building we wil folow in 100 the next chapter, sometimes sneaked into Jerusalem just for the fun of it – he claimed that he neded the change and that it was worth the risk of ending up in jail 118 . Nor did people in the camp refrain from trying to fulfil their spiritual neds. Some therefore went regularly to pray in Al-aqṣa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem even though this meant exposing oneself to danger. Sabri, who is maried to Zaynab, once tried to walk around the main checkpoint betwen Bethlehem and Jerusalem but got caught by some Israeli soldiers. He told me that evening how the soldiers had taken his ID card and told him to folow them to the checkpoint to get it back. They were probably fuly aware of how problematic and even dangerous it is for a Palestinian to lose his ID. This hapened on a Friday morning and Sabri realy wanted to go to the mosque to pray. He decided to continue and only hours later did he return to the checkpoint to get his card back. To punish him, the soldiers kept Sabri at the checkpoint for many hours before finaly giving him back his papers and leting him go. The Israeli soldiers’ show of dominance here met with Palestinian defiance. With sometimes almost childish wilfulnes, some camp residents chalenged restrictions of their movement imposed by the Israeli army. Israeli soldiers who were posted at checkpoints and were suposed to stop Palestinians from pasing would also respond by teasing them 119 . Others, however, avoided risks as far as posible. People who could not stand the tension of pasing checkpoints and roadblocks betwen West Bank towns had stayed in the Bethlehem area for several years. Huda, who was alone with her thre children since her husband was being held in administrative detention 120 , explained: Now if a man wants to go and work in Ramalah, he has to be sure that going to work there means that he has to be away from his home for at least one month. He can only come home once a month. Also, these days it is very risky to be so far away from home. […] Maybe the army wil catch him and take him to prison and ask “why are you not in your area? What are you doing here?” And, if he is in an area that he doesn’t know he might go to places that are dangerous. He might get into trouble and sek help from people, but he doesn’t know them or whether he can trust them. That’s also why it can be risky. In the first intifada, people moved a lot, even betwen the West Bank and Gaza, the roads were open. And the road to Jordan was open to. So the main thing [today] is the dificulties in moving around. 118 Although Taysir probably wanted to show fearlesnes, which is part of the ideal of Palestinian masculinity in front of me, he also claimed to ned excitement in his life. 119 In Ben Ari’s study (198) of the Israeli army he outlines how such puerile games form part of the construction of a soldier’s identity. 120 Administrative detention refers to imprisonment of Palestinians from the ocupied teritories by Israel without charge or trial for a period of up to six months. This period is also renewable. Administrative detention is based on the ’Law on Emergency Powers (Detention)’ adopted by Kneset in 1979 (PASIA 204: 4). 101 Being in the wrong place during the intifada al-aqṣa was thus dangerous for various reasons. Compared to the first uprising, the restrictions on mobility were also much more severe. Normalizing Violent Death and Prison Experiences Some Dheisheans reflected upon the extended ‘normality’ they found themselves in. Um Ayman was wel aware of the kind of normalizaton that was hapening around her. Death has become so natural here. When people hear of a martyr (śahîd) or people dying naturaly they take it normaly. The heart of the mother, the sister, the wife or the daughter is used to agony and sadnes. Why would I be sad anymore, today [death] is in my neighbour’s house, tomorow it is in mine, today it is in my house, tomorow it is in my neighbour’s house or in my sister’s house, so why should I be sad? People take death in a normal way now, also because we believe more in God now; people are aware now that for each person there is a specific time and kind of death waiting. This is what God wants and we are not wiser than God. So, we prepare ourselves to lose a son, a husband or a brother at any moment. Scheper-Hughes (208) describes such routinization of premature death as a feature of resilience: ‘The experience of much los, to much death where life should be led to a kind of patient resignation (clinical psychologists would label it ‘acomodation syndrome’) that obliterated outrage as wel as sorow.’ The quote refers to the frequent death of infants among extremely por people in Northeast Brazil. In Dheishe, such resignation was definitely not developed to the extent that people did not mourn their own children. I would say that resignation in the face of death was more of a colective way of handling it. It was not the closest family or best friends that showed such resignation, but rather the local comunity as wel as Palestinian society in the ocupied teritories more generaly. It is, however, also posible to understand such normalizaton of death as a way of represing grief that may be necesary during ongoing conflict. Holding back emotions may, though, as Dickson-Gómez (203: 340f) describes in a Latin American context, have long-term damaging efects on individuals as wel as societies. The aceptance of death in Dheishe was facilitated by religious beliefs; death was rendered inteligible and sometimes also meaningful through religion. As the Palestinian Doctor Ahmed Baker noted in 191; ‘From a psychological perspective, to reconcile the posibility of death in a situation such as ours is a release’ (in Pitcher 198: 18). It makes it posible to go on with life. In the narative quoted above, Um Ayman chalenged the uncertainty and the randomnes of the strugle and the military ocupation with references to a divine order. There was a reason why some people died and others did not, although it was imposible to predict the turn of events. Um Ayman interpreted the misery of Palestinians in an alternative, more meaningful way; the future was ultimately not up to the Israeli military forces but to God. Trusting in God and a 102 fatalistic order was a way of countering the ontological insecurity of the situation. It semed to be a relief for Um Ayman to submit herself to God’s wil. Violent deaths were not, however, as ‘normal’ as Um Ayman made out because the Palestinians had a number of ways of symbolicaly marking the dead as martyrs, as we wil se in chapter 10. Palestinian nationalism also requires martyrs as part of realizing a political project. Other violent experiences, such as political imprisonment, were also routinized and ascribed meaning. In Palestinian society, the vast majority of political prisoners (singular masjûn, plural masajîn) are male and they have long ben considered national heroes, who are emblematic of Palestinian resistance (Bornstein 201) 121 . People in the camp were proud of their political prisoners and experiences of imprisonment had become somewhat normalized. Some brutal interogation procedures were, however, harder to se as ‘natural’ (Rosenfeld 204: 239f) 122 . In the early years of ocupation, there were also fights for recognition as political prisoners within Palestinian society; they were not criminals as the Israeli authorities claimed but fredom fighters (al-Nashif 204/205: 54f). Such politicized reframing is related to the limited options of Palestinians in a context of constrained agency; basicaly, it was a response to the fact that Israel constrained Palestinians and was not a strategy to fil Israeli jails with Palestinians. Palestinian society has developed ways to deal with political persecution and asist those who have ben most afected. Um Ayman gave examples of how custody was socialy framed as a heroic act: The family plays a major role, especialy if the prisoner is honourable, by saying nice things to him such as: “you have brought honour on us”, “we are proud of you”, “you have emphasized the spirit of resistance”, “what hapened to you in prison is the reason why we are stil strugling and the reason for us to exist” - swet and encouraging words that make him regain confidence and fel proud. For example, two men from the camp were sentenced to several life sentences; [but] were released in an exchange of prisoners. […] They had very painful memories of their time in prison, as they had ben badly tortured. They had ben atacked by wild dogs and their bodies were realy eaten up, their faces, their hands, everywhere, which was very ugly. Yet, people were always encouraging them by saying nice things to them […] They might be able to turn their bad memories of prison into god and heroic acts because of what people say to them. This alone wil make the prisoner proud of himself and he can regain confidence in himself; he wasn’t in prison for a crime, he was in prison for a just cause. He wil even say ”Yeah, I was in prison, I did this and that, I was tortured” and he wil be proud of the things he has ben through. 121 Prisoners form part of a galery of the national images, which includes fighters, refuges, peasants and martyrs (cf. Khalili 207). 122 Al-Nashif (204/5: 7) writes that Palestinian experiences of captivity may be aproached from diferent positions: arest, interogation, court, daily life in prison etcetera. Here I wil however discus prison experiences in a more generalized way and from the perspective of Dheisheans as a colectivity rather than from the perspective of the prisoners. 103 The glorification and politicization of prison experiences made sufering at least partialy meaningful and might even transform them into a form of empowerment. Visiting detaines in prison and showing solidarity with their families also became political acts during the first intifada, particularly for the mothers and sisters of prisoners. Welcoming parties for those who have ben released are stil a way to suport and show respect for the prisoners in the camp (cf. Rosenfeld 204: 240). The gathering for a released prisoner that I atended in Dheishe was sex- segregated. The women who had gathered were given chocolates by his female relatives but we never actualy met the young man, who stayed with his male visitors. When several prisoners are released at the same time camp residents also arange a stret party as a comunal celebration. Rosenfeld (ibid. chapter 10) writes extensively about the social and political significance of experiences of incarceration in Dheishe and how these are linked to education and political consciousnes. By refering to prison as a ‘university’, ex-prisoners and their relatives were making a politicized inversion of the meaning of an institution that represents ocupation and opresion and gained a sense of agency in adversity (cf. de Certeau 1984 in Waters 208). Just as refuge camps had become ‘technologies of power’ (Malki 192) so had Israeli prisons. Improving one’s knowledge about Palestinian history or diferent political ideologies and the role played by internal organizations among prisoners semed to be significant 123 . However, although this might have ben a coincidence, I only heard Dheisheans describe prison as a university in relation to past experiences but not in relation to intifada al-aqṣa. It is posible that this political way of making sense of imprisonment and its transformative dimensions was diminishing in importance (cf. Petet 194). Palestinian ex-prisoners often tel detailed stories about the conditions in Israeli prisons. Their naratives sem to reconcile them to the hardships they experience in jail rather than normalize them. The sociologist Esmail al-Nashif (204/5) writes that these conditions are also a contested isue; prisoners regularly organize mas protests about the por conditions while the prison authorities try to maintain control and deny that improvements wil be made in response to protests (ibid.: 5f). The clandestine comunication networks developed by the captives may be sen as proceses of comunity building and a bodily materialization of a colonial predicament as wel as resistance, writes al-Nashif (ibid.). He argues that by hiding writen mesages on or in their bodies Palestinian prisoners resist the control of their bodies and their isolation from society. 123 Se Rosenfeld (204 chapter 10) for a detailed description of the organization of political parties, study groups, hunger strikes and authority among prisoners. Also al-Nashif (204/5) discuses how building relations and leadership in Israeli jails has ben crucial for dealing with the deprivations – the crowded sleping spaces, por fod and limited medical treatment. 104 Salo et al. (205) writes that some Palestinian former prisoners grow moraly and spiritualy despite or even thanks to dificult experiences in Israeli political detention 124 . Um Ayman related such ‘suces stories’ to social suport, while Abu Amir, who was stil being praised by other refuges for how he had coped with interogation and imprisonment, stresed that apart from gaining iner strength he had also ben lucky to get an easy job in the prison kitchen. Huda sugested that the efect of prison had to do with the character of the individual detaine. Her husband was in prison again when she noted that: The prisoner himself is strong and can overcome his problems. The person who experiences bad torture and doesn’t confes is able to overcome anything in the world. The main thing that afects the psychology of the prisoner and afects him al his life is whether he was able to resist or whether he confesed. If he gave in, he wil fel weak … because the investigators beat him and won. It’s very dificult to confes about yourself and about others and cause disasters for others. […] Of course, the family tries to help the prisoner to overcome the crisis. When he comes out of prison it means he has overcome half the crisis. I se that most young men re-integrate into society and don’t show what’s inside. It’s like he says that “I was able to endure prison, so shouldn’t I be able to deal with maters outside?” I was very strong [i.e. active] in the first intifada, but if I had ben arested I don’t imagine that I could ever have endured torture. This is why many people would prefer to die than get arested. The heroism of imprisonment was not, however, automatic but was often questioned localy. The status of honourable prisoner was a form of social and political capital that had to be kept pure. A Palestinian prisoner is suposed to withstand torture and bad treatment without confesing or, most importantly, squeal on a felow Palestinian. However, the Israeli military court system depends heavily on confesions and information gathered from detaines (Cok et al 204: 30f). Although people rarely admited to me that they had betrayed anyone (se also Bornstein 201), Rosenfeld (204: 241) claims that it is comon to do so. People told me only in general terms that other people had squealed. Although, as Huda pointed out, most ex-prisoners were re-engaging in society, the social recognition of their sufering as politicaly valuable was not enough for everyone; some ex- prisoners had unsetling experiences of prison (cf. Bornstein 201; B’Tselem & MaMoked 207; Khamis 200; Punamäki 198). I noticed that events that would be labeled traumatic and behaviour by ex-prisoners that would be considered evidence of psychological problems in 124 Cf. Scheper-Hughes (208: 50f), who notes that one method of resilience may be to enter a kind of transcendental state, similar to a mystical experience, in relation to asaults such as rape or torture. A man who survived a bombing in South Africa stated, for instance, that he had never felt closer to God than at that moment. 105 Sweden were often overloked and sometimes even denied 125 . Although Palestinians often describe sufering as colective and as integral to Palestinian identity, the individual sufering of torture and so on were given litle atention. Some camp residents reflected upon the experiences and behaviour of individuals but they seldom psychologized them. An ex-prisoner’s outburst of rage might be explained as a physical rather than psychological efect of having ben heavily beaten on the head while in prison. On one ocasion I sugested that the domestic violence caried out by a male former detaine could be related to his prison experiences but his family denied this and said he was released to long ago for that to be the reason. I sugest that much of the silence surounding these problematic aspects of imprisonment was related to a complex set of factors that are not unique to the Palestinian strugle. Eastmond (1989) noted a similar patern among former Chilean political prisoners: there was silence about personal ordeals and sufering was only given relevance as part of the colective strugle. These factors evoked a sense of shame both in families and in Palestinian society at large. Ex-prisoners, the overwhelming majority of whom are male, were expected not to expres emotions but to show resilience. It was shameful for a family to admit that a member had psychological problems, acted inapropriately or was unable to lead the life of a responsible Palestinian adult man with al that this implies (se chapter 6). As in the Chilean case, this reflected a male discourse of heroism, which had political conotations. Acknowledgement of deep wounds in so many Palestinians would have ben to grant victory to the Israeli enemy and would have revealed it is not always posible to reframe imprisonment and torture as heroic acts. The Isue of Trust Long-term conflict and violence tend to destabilize social relations and divide comunities. As anthropological studies have noted, in some circumstances fear ceases to be an acute response to danger and becomes a more or les chronic condition (e.g. Gren 195). Individuals’ basic trust - belief in the reliability of others - may also disolve after the ordeals of war and violence (Dickson-Gómez 203). Not al disruptions are manageable; there are limits to people’s resilience. In Dheishe, some dificulties in showing resilience became obvious in relation to trust; although there was not a complete breakdown of confidence, trust had ben severely jeopardized. Below I focus on negotiations that tok place concerning whom to trust in the camp. For my purposes, I view trust as the belief that another person’s intentions are benign and that they do not threaten one’s personal security or the integrity of the comunity. A lack of trust was 125 In my experience, psychiatric diagnoses are considered embarasing for Palestinians. However, they are not usualy completely denied. 106 manifested in everyday life in the camp mostly in rumours and suspicions 126 . Outsiders were regularly suspected of having bad intentions. The main threat that underlay this distrust, of both outsiders and insiders, was Israel. Considering the situation, the constant negotiations about trust would sem to be apropriate acomodation strategies. In order to earn the trust of the camp residents a person must be known. It should be clear which family and place a person belongs to; idealy, their family origin should be traceable to several generations back. A person to whom one had a conection, however distant, was also considered more trustworthy. In general, Palestinians who had ben involved in the national strugle and who were considered to be sufering were also more trusted than others. For instance, one reason that my female field asistant - a Palestinian Christian and partly an outsider - was acepted when she worked with me in the camp was because a close relative of hers had ben martyred in the first uprising. Fear of Outsiders and of Conspiracy Theories of conspiracy abounded in the camp. Since such theories sometimes prove to be true, I shal not dismis them as imaginings but wil discus them as aspects of the negotiation of trust. The camp inhabitants’ more sober acounts argued that Jewish ownership of international media speled ruination for the Palestinian reputation and that Jewish influence in the US government was decisive for American policy in the Middle East. Some people claimed Islamophobia in Europe made the West discriminate against Arabs. Others speculated that the lack of suport for the Palestinian cause from Europe was designed to stop Jews from returning to European countries. I also heard some doubt that so many Jews were actualy kiled in the Holocaust and some believed that the Holocaust was indeed partialy orchestrated by Jewish Zionists as a way of enabling the establishment of a Jewish state 127 . The idea of the omnipotent Jew and denials of the Holocaust are not unique to Palestinians; both are comon to anti-Semitic discourses in other Arab countries as wel as in Europe and the US. Apart from this wider context, in Dheishe, theories of conspiracy semed to be colective reactions to asaults. People like Abu Amir, who was politicaly moderate (for instance, he oposed suicide bombing), claimed that there was a hidden agenda: 126 However, on one ocasion, a man had profesionals investigate his cel-phone because a ‘suspicious’ person had borowed it and he wanted to make sure that the phone had not ben tampered with. 127 Initialy, I personaly became very upset when listening to statements that diminished the Holocaust. With time I managed to handle them beter and sometimes questioned this reasoning in a more moderate way, which I felt was more constructive. 107 I believe nowadays that Israelis and Jews control the media everywhere. The [international] news agencies are close to the Israelis and the Jews. [Israelis and Jews] are ready to give [news agencies] the money they want, as long as they kep in line. […] [That is] to show events as [the Israelis] chose, because money makes everything, money changes the truth everywhere. And we should do something about this. Camp inhabitants often cited the overwhelming power of the Israelis, who are Jews living in a Jewish state, not to excuse Palestinians but to explain their situation. Anti-semitism has, however, ben tabo in Palestinian nationalism in favour of anti-Zionism (Swedenburg 203: 147). Some of my informants were therefore often careful to clarify that they did not have anything against Jews in general, but that they disagred with the Zionist state-building project. The anthropologist Ted Swedenburg (ibid.: 139f) who investigated memories of the Palestinian peasant revolt (1936-1938) against the British, reported on how his former rebel informants reasoned. Although the older men had ben deply involved in planing and organizing the revolt, they stil maintained that the British were behind the uprising and they identified the outcome as the cause. Some of his informants reasoned that ‘[s]ince the ultimate result of the uprising’s failure was the establishment of the state of Israel, […] this must have ben England’s plan al along’ (ibid.: 141). Many Dheisheans reasoned similarly about US policies in the Middle East, about Israel and about the PA. Since the Oslo proces has simply led to further misery, this outcome was asumed to have ben the hidden agenda of the peace negotiations from the start. The result was sen as prof of others’ intentions to harm Palestinians. The destabilizing efects of violent conflict on social relations informed the refuges understanding of global power relations just as macro-politics conversely afected individuals’ ability to trust one another. It is early March 203. I’m siting in a servis, a shared taxi, and for the second time this day a taxi driver has asked me about my nationality. People around Bethlehem are quite used having foreigners around; for many years, even centuries, independent travelers, tourists in chartered buses, pilgrims, volunters from abroad as wel as foreign monks and nuns have ben visible features of the town. A considerable number of foreigners, especialy women from Eastern Europe who are maried to Palestinian men, live permanently in this part of the Palestinian teritories. Taxi drivers have not usualy ben bothered about where I come from, but now, with the begining of the Iraq war, my nationality has become a comon concern. Fortunately, the Swedish government has decided not to suport the US-led invasion of Iraq and my answer that I’m Swedish is therefore greted with pleased noding. These days, Sweden is god, even if it is not as god as France, which stubornly criticized the invasion. When necesary, I coment that I think Bush is ‘ibin kalb’ or a dog’s son – which, with my faltering Arabic, always provokes a laugh. During the first weks of the invasion, people in Dheishe are stuck in front of the TV folowing the news as 108 many hours as posible. Unsurprisingly, nobody wil agre to be interviewed. The only one who tels me why is Ahmed. He admits that he gets furious every time he ses a foreigner these days, me included 128 . Thanks to my field asistant’s eforts, we can slowly begin work again after a couple of weks. * This is an example of how local distrust of foreigners echoed top-level politics and suspicion of Western policies. At the time of my fieldwork there was widespread solidarity betwen the Palestinians and other Arabs based on felings of cultural and religious same-nes as wel as Palestinian gratitude to Saddam Husein for suporting their cause. Despite the solidarity among Arabs during the Iraq war, in Dheishe, as in other parts of Palestinian society, there was also distrust of the Arab governments. Palestinians have often felt betrayed by their neighbouring Arab states as wel as by the international comunity (cf. Petet 195, 205a). However, like Petet’s informants in Lebanese refuge camps (205: 184f), Dheisheans had complex felings about other Arabs. ‘[T]he refuges were wedged uncomfortably betwen a pan-Arab discourse of belonging, identity, and cultural afinity, or Arabnes, and a ken awarenes of Arab state interests and actions that undercut their strugle’ (ibid.: 185). Some months after my taxi journey, Rami’s older sister Shiren draged me into the kitchen and whispered in my ear that she did not like the French journalist who was siting in the reception rom; he hapened to be a friend of mine and I had recently introduced him to Shiren’s family. When I asked why she disliked him, she whispered: ‘He speaks Arabic. He said he doesn’t understand, but he does. I think he’s a spy.’ 129 For the first time, I realized that my imperfect Arabic had actualy ben an advantage in my introduction to the field. On a number of ocasions, I came acros camp inhabitants who claimed that any foreigner who came to the camp and spoke ‘to god Arabic’ might have ben sent as a spy by the Israeli security forces (se also Rothenberg 204). There were rumours about a Western girl who was working as a volunter in the area. Some said that she pretended not to speak Arabic but that she actualy spoke fluently and that she had voluntered to bring people’s ‘important papers’ out of the country, through the Israeli border control and this was considered very suspicious. On top of this, it was rumoured that she would sneak away to make cals on her cel phone to someone with whom she spoke Hebrew. People wondered who the girl actualy worked for. Was she an Israeli spy? Concerning an outsider, it might arouse suspicion whether one speaks Arabic or not, god Arabic or bad or if 128 On the other hand, several locals expresed that they were hapy that I was with them and that I did not plan to leave when war aproached. 129 Some days later Shiren admited with some embarasment that she had ben to quick to judge the journalist. 109 one speaks Hebrew. Language is not only a marker of national identity 130 but also gives clues about where one’s loyalties lie. Language and also religion could be sen as warnings. It is likely that some people talked about me in a similar way to the way they talked about the girl described above. Some Dheisheans thought I loked Rusian 131 . However inocent such a remark may sem, it sugested a questioning of my identity as Swedish (my family is, by the way, Swedish as far back as anyone now living remembers). Perhaps they wondered if I had some Rusian Jewish rots? A question about a foreigner’s nationality and religion often means that there is doubt about the person’s motives and loyalties. Acording to Salamandra (204) 132 , who caried out fieldwork in Syria, suspicion of foreign researchers and fear of political elites are also comon in other parts of the Middle East. I had expected to be met with suspicion during my fieldwork, but I had not thought it would cary on for more than a year. By the end of my last field trip, Layla, who I knew el and who liked me, stil could not resist from asking: ‘Could you become an Israeli spy, Nina?’ Some of the women in my host-family nevertheles showed trust in me by saying ‘you understand us’, inti btifhamîna in coloquial Arabic. Although lack of confidence in other Arab countries was comon, some people, like Huda, who trusted neither the Palestinian leadership nor Israel, pined their few remaining hopes on other Arabs: The solutions [Arafat] believes in are not doing us any god because we are being kiled every day, without any benefits. I also believe that if there is any solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] and there would be a Palestinian state, Sharon or any Israeli leader would come up with any excuse to atack this state, destroy it and kil its people in a more violent way. […] There’s no motivation to find a real solution, it’s just a game played against the people. The only Israeli ambition is to kil the Palestinians and transfer them away from here and turn Palestine into Israel without any Palestinians. For the time being, I don’t se how e can go into any negotiations or solutions similar to the Oslo proces. It wouldn’t do us any god. Maybe we should wait, and maybe if we wait the Arab countries wil wake up. Fear from Within As Huda said above, the threat against the comunity was not only understod as coming from outside, but perhaps more alarmingly, from within. Gren (195: 105) writes of Guatemala that: 130 Since many Palestinians and Israelis speak ‘others’ languages, language is a more ambiguous national marker than one might think. 131 There are today many Israelis who have a Rusian background, since Rusian imigration became posible with the perestrojka. Some Rusian women are also maried to Palestinian men in the area. 132 Se Swedenburg (203: xxi), who writes that Palestinians are sometimes suspicious even of local researchers. Se also Shryock (197) about anthropological fieldwork in Jordan. 110 Fear destabilizes social relations by driving a wedge of distrust betwen members of families, betwen neighbors, among friends. Fear divides comunities through suspicion and aprehension, not only of strangers, but of each other. Fear thrives on ambiguities. Rumors of death lists and denunciations, gosip, and inuendos create a climate of suspicion. No one can be sure who is who. The spectacle of torture and death, of masacres and disapearances of the recent past have become deeply inscribed in individuals and in the colective imagination through a constant sense of threat. […] Fear is the arbiter of power – invisible, indeterminant, and silent. Similarly, Palestinian society has experienced the destabilization of social relations as wel as eforts to establish social contracts betwen the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ‘citizens’. Here I shal discus fear and distrust of two sorts of insiders, people working with the PA and Palestinian colaborators, who were sometimes thought of as being more or les the same. An iluminating rumour was spread in the Bethlehem area in 204. It claimed that the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Quray (a.k.a Abu Ala), was seling the cement that the Israelis used to construct the Barier and that he was thereby profiting from the misery and restricted mobility of his felow Palestinians. The fact that someone so prominent in the authorities was viewed with such suspicion ilustrates the curent lack of confidence in the political leadership. This ethos was not only comon in Dheishe but reflected a general trend in Palestinian society, as confirmed by several pols 133 . For Palestinians, Arafat began in the 190’s ‘to sound more and more like a U.S. politician, condemning ‘extremists’ on both sides and making the violence of the ocupier and the ocupied apear somehow equivalent’ (Swedenburg 203: 201). Such ambivalence towards the authorities gave rise to uncertainty about the rules of the game. People in the camp were often uninterested in even talking about the authorities 134 . A typical way of expresing their mistrust and disinterest was when a group of friends who were invited to Ahmed and Hanan’s home informaly comented on the apointment of Mahmoud Abas (a.k.a Abu Mazen) as prime minister in 203. When I asked what they thought about him they shruged their shoulders and said laconicaly that Abas was from the PA so his apointment would not improve anything. One of them added that things had deteriorated since the establishment of the PA 135 . The PA had quite simply failed to deliver what people expected of it. 133 Acording to pols caried out from December 202 til June 204, about 30 per cent of the Palestinians in the ocupied teritories did not trust any Palestinian political figure or faction (ww.jmc.org/publicpol/results/204/no51.pdf 13.05.209 10.30). 134 My impresion is that this was not out of fear, but out of fatigue. 135 The people in the ocupied teritories also had high expectations of their leadership and their own political gras-rot activism under ocupation made them long for democratic practices. 111 Abu Akram, Ahmed’s elderly father, saw the impotence of the authorities as a result of the power asymetry betwen the Israeli state and the PA: They haven’t done anything, the authorities. They can’t do anything and they are blocked. They can’t do anything against the Jews. Neither in this [intifada] nor the other one could they do anything. Did you se in Gaza yesterday, [the Israelis] tried to kil Abdul-Aziz Al Rantisi 136 , but they couldn’t and they kiled someone else and a lot of people got injured. You saw it on TV, didn’t you? This is the intifada, this is normal, [the Israelis] do what they fel like. There is no justice. Even during my first minor fieldwork in Dheishe in 200, the refuges were expresing disapointment with the coruption 137 and human rights violations of the PA. Acording to a pol caried out in June 204, about 90 per cent of Palestinians believed there was coruption in the PA 138 . Hasan, a middle-aged man who suported Fateh and worked in the police force, comented as folows in a group interview: ‘Everybody disagres with this [Palestinian] leadership. From the nation [i.e. the people], who agres with this leadership? Who agres with this oficial leadership? We suport change, to stop the coruption.’ In the sumer of 204 there were several kidnapings of and threats to PA oficials by Fateh-related resistance groups 139 . Several demonstrations were held in Gaza and Nablus against the Palestinian leadership. These events during my research period foreshadowed the election of Hamas and hostilities betwen diferent resistance groups that would erupt in the coming years. Dheisheans have combated the marginalization and stigmatization implied by refuge-nes by engaging in political resistance and thus contesting the meaning of the label aplied to them. But their political engagement has not paid of in terms of influence. Those I interviewed felt that they had ben left out of the state-building proces. Abu Wisam linked coruption to lack of representation of refuges and to conections betwen the Palestinian elite and the Israeli state: [T]he idea of the PA is like a busines or an income for the people in the PA. I can’t se anyone who lived through al-nakba, any refuge, who has a voice in the PA. He [i.e. someone with a high position in the PA] has no problems like I have or like my son has. One minister’s son studies at a Jordanian university. Every day he goes with his own car to Jordan, he goes and comes back. There is no problem [with the Israeli border control]. If I had my father there and he was dying, [the Israelis] stil wouldn’t alow me to go and se him. 136 The Hamas-leader Rantisi was asasinated by Israel a year later. 137 It has ben argued that the coruption was a continuation of the patronage system the PLO established during its years in exile. 138 Se ww.jmc.org/publicpol/results/204/no51.pdf 13.05.209 10.30. 139 Most of these events ocured in Gaza in July 204. The groups behind the kidnapings declared that they would act against coruption and promote political reform. Se for instance Revue d’études Palestinienes (205). 112 In the restricted landscape of the West Bank, only a minister’s son was thought to be able to pas through the Israeli border control on a regular basis and this underlines the powerlesnes felt by ‘ordinary’ people. The widespread lack of confidence in the PA and the political elite sugested uncertainty about their belonging. Were people working with the PA outsiders or insiders? Were they ‘true Palestinians’? Many of them had in fact returned from exile upon the establishment of the authority and were met with criticism of their so-caled foreign lifestyles (Lindholm 203a; Hamer 205). Um Ayman argued that not only the por people should have to sacrifice their sons, the powerful should also strugle and sufer. She disliked the fact that the leaders sent their children abroad when the new uprising started, to safer places than the Palestinian teritories, and said ‘only God knows what they do there’. Um Ayman intimated that the families of the leaders may be moraly corupted by leading their Western lifestyles, for instance by drinking alcohol and having lose sexual morals. The Palestinian leadership’s growing wealth was also viewed as moraly disturbing. Concerns about morality in Dheishe were related to a general sense of threat to their comunity. Political legitimacy does not only derive from democratic practices but from belief in the moral authority of a state or leadership (Lindholm 203b). The source of moral legitimacy of the PLO had ben the strugle and the leaders of the intifada in the late 1980s were also depicted as struglers and therefore as moraly pure and natural decision-makers (ibid.). The leaders who returned from exile, though, had dificulty re-establishing their legitimacy since it could no longer be based solely on the strugle. Aside from growing disagrement over who were the real fighters and the realy sufering Palestinians, other discourses about morality also began influencing politics. The Threat of Colaborators In addition to more direct control mechanisms in the ocupied areas, Israel also established a network of Palestinian colaborators, a system of domination that has agravated mistrust and fear among Palestinians 140 . Colaboration is an extremely sensitive and shameful subject for Palestinians because it questions their moral integrity. However, it has ben an isue for them since the peasant revolt against British rule in the 1930s (Swedenburg 2003). The kiling of Palestinian quislings by nationalists began at this time and has continued until now. In coloquial 140 Rigby (201: 9), who has studied colaboration in many contexts, notes that ‘[i]t is imposible to live under ocupation without some form of colaboration with the ocupier, unles you want to be a hero or a martyr, and most of us are weak human beings with al the acompanying faults and failings’. This is also true for many West Bankers and Gazans. 113 Arabic, al-‘amîl is a comon word for colaborator, but there are also a number of other terms used for diferent kinds of traitors (Abdel Jawad 201: 19f). Land dealers, informers and armed criminals are also considered colaborators. Those caled colaborators by Palestinians are not necesarily sen as colaborators by Israelis but instead as ‘coperative Arabs’. During the first intifada, some Israelis even sugested caling colaborators ‘Arabs who desire peace’ (Swedenburg 203: 195). After signing the Oslo agrements, Israel lost some of its ability to recruit informers and spies since les people were arested and Palestinian dependency on the Israeli administration lesened (Abdel Jawad 201: 27). Considering the clandestine nature of the mater, nobody actualy sems to know how many colaborators there may be. Depending on how one defines colaboration, there may have ben betwen 8,00 and 90,00 in the 190s - the largest figure constitutes about 4 per cent of the Palestinian population (Rigby 197: 4). With the outbreak of the intifada al-aqṣa, however, it is likely that the number of colaborators increased. After sumary procedings, the PA executed several traitors. Others were asasinated without trial by political factions or vigilante execution squads (Wiliams 201) 141 . At the time of my research, many camp inhabitants were claiming that the number of colaborators was growing. However, Taysir told me that there had ben many more during the first intifada. My field asistant also explained that some of those believed to be turncoats were actualy Israeli citizens and soldiers operating in the teritories: [T]hese two guys [who an informant concluded must be traitors] are Israeli guys, soldiers, but they wore Arabic clothes and they speak perfect Arabic. Sometimes they are from the Arabs of 48 [i.e. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship] or Druze. […] Or from the colaborators who are inside Israel because there are two camps for colaborators 142 . It is likely that acounts about a growing number of traitors reflect a perception of increased threat rather than actual numbers. Although it is wel documented that Israel uses Palestinian colaborators in a systematic way, stories and rumours about betrayal tend to gather momentum. Israeli leaders may also try to fuel rumours since it is to their advantage if Palestinians believe that their comunity is ful of spies. Localy, there were several explanations for the existence of Palestinian colaboration. Dheisheans argued that most colaborators had ben forced into it under torture or threat while in Israeli custody. Some informants sugested that certain individuals were les able to handle 141 Concerning the first intifada, estimates of kiled suspected colaborators vary betwen more than 70 and more than 90 (Rigby 197: 54). During the second intifada about 120 Palestinians suspected of colaboration have ben kiled (ww.btselem.org/english/Statistics/Casualties.asp 29.04.208 15.15) 142 Israel has established two sanctuaries for Palestinian colaborators inside Israel to protect them from Palestinian rage as wel as to show them gratitude. 114 presure; they were more likely to give in to Israeli coercion because they were so afraid. Huda presented her view thus: [It’s n]ot only in the camp. [There have ben lots of colaborators] for a long time. In the first intifada, [the Israelis] arested guys at 13-14 years of age, they tortured them, scared them and atacked them sexualy. People who are now colaborators, they were arested in the first intifada. I was terified of being arested. [N: They say that young people who are arested talk about their friends.] – Before they arest anyone they have a list of names, but they ned to get them to confes to give them life sentences. A house of a kid, 17 years old, is demolished. [There’s a] court. They arest someone, the next day they arest another, then the next one. People gues which one. There have ben lots of confesions. Most of them are by guys under 18. Before, I saw lots of children in the strets, now I se no one. Despite the fact that ‘the political prisoner’ has ben sen as the vanguard of the strugle and a metaphor for the Palestinians under ocupation (Bornstein 201), it is not an unambiguous concept. Bornstein (ibid.: 55) writes that the ‘giving of names’ to the Israeli authorities not only contributes to more arests but it also creates distrust of neighbours and even self-doubt. In Bornstein’s experience as wel as mine, men who have ben to prison rarely mention whether they themselves ‘gave names’ or confesed. ‘By de-emphasizing the dynamic of confesion, the narative of torture became a story of initiation, a story whose focus was not on the wil of the prisoner to resist but the sufering endured’ (Bornstein ibid.: 55f). Apart from using presure on Palestinians in Israeli confinement to colaborate, the recruitment procedure has mostly relied on Palestinians’ ned for permits and licenses from the Israeli bureaucracy (Rigby 197). Traditional Palestinian society was highly divided and permeated by patron-client relationships. This made people dependent on conections, ‘brokers’ or ‘go-betwens’, so-caled wâsṭa, to addres someone with status and influence, but favours were also suposed to be returned. The ocupiers partly manoeuvred themselves into this system as a new influential category of patrons who could provide favours that demanded reciprocity. Israelis thus became ‘patrons of the patrons’ as Palestinian vilage leaders and civil servants became ‘brokers’ (ibid.: 4f). Rami, like others, explained colaboration through reference to poverty and Palestinian dependence on the Israeli labour market. In Rigby’s view (197), such people may be sen as acomodationists who se no other alternative than to work for the enemy - hardly a surprising strategy in a situation that ofers so few options to act. Rami said that Israeli employers were in a position to demand ‘favours’ of their Palestinian employes in the form of information about felow Palestinians that might sem harmles. Later, Rami said, when a person had started to inform on others, the nature of the questions would change to more important maters such as 115 how many people had caried guns in a demonstration or who was planing atacks against Israel. Once they had given in to presure, a worker became an easy target for blackmailing since the Israelis could threaten to disclose that this person was one of their informers. Another category of Palestinians has ben acused of colaboration because of their lifestyle and por morality. ‘Anti-social’ activities such as infidelity or drug abuse are deemed to damage Palestinian society and undermine the national strugle. My informants also said that people with these habits were vulnerable to presure; the Israeli agents could easily blackmail someone who had things to hide, such as extra-marital relations (cf. chapter 9). To remain a moraly worthy Palestinian means, for both men and women, upholding sexual mores and maintaining boundaries against Israelis. During my fieldwork, I came acros several stories from the first intifada of how young girls had ben photographed naked with a man. This is caled isqâṭ 143 in Arabic (se also Shalhoub Kevorkian 193; Rigby 197). Acording to the stories, the Israeli security services would threaten to distribute these pictures in the comunity, which would ruin the young girl’s as wel as her family’s reputation. The girl was thus forced to work with the Israelis. Men could also be blackmailed by being photographed with naked women. Many Palestinians have also reported that they have ben threatened with rape or the rape of family members when they have ben arested (Btselehem & HaMoked 207) 144 . The character of Palestinian colaboration is often situational rather than esential, concludes Swedenburg (203: 157) refering to both the 1930s and the first intifada. Charges of colaboration have also ben leveled against people from rival political parties or against personal enemies for non-political reasons (Rigby 197; Swedenburg 203). During fieldwork, felow Palestinians were ocasionaly caled ‘colaborators’ even though it was clear that this meant that they were considered a bad person in general or that they were involved in a clan conflict or political competition. Dheisheans also argued that the internal lack of confidence had consequences for the wil to engage politicaly. Walid, for instance, woried that: ‘Maybe the one who invites you to a demonstration, maybe he is a colaborator, nobody knows.’ There were frequent claims that it was not Palestinians who started to throw stones at Israeli soldiers at demonstrations but unknown people, suposedly colaborators. Stone-throwing then gave the Israelis an excuse for responding with bulets. Samar also said that people were afraid since there was no trust (i.e. thiqa) 143 Isqâṭ literaly means to make fal down. 144 The ocupation and the relations betwen Israelis and Palestinians are highly sexualized. Intermariages are rare but do exist and some Israeli women were reported to be living in Dheishe, having maried men from the camp. Although rapes may be rare (or undereported) in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ‘sexual methods’ of opresion are stil used. Such sexualized procedures include threats in prison about rape of the prisoner or female relatives, fear of isqâṭ and rape by soldiers, being forced to undres in prison or at checkpoints. 116 betwen them: ‘For example if I go to two people who want to organize me [in a resistance group] one of them wil be a colaborator and wil inform the Israelis about me, although he’s the one who wil send me to do something.’ Another example was given by Layla in a group interview ith some maried women in their 30s: [The Israelis] arested more that 1,50 young people from the camp. Do you think that these 1,50 are al patriots? No, of course not, there must be some who are working with the Israeli Mosad [i.e. the national inteligence agency of Israel]. They are everywhere, in every neighbourhod and maybe in every house, so people are afraid of each other. You are not given a chance to do something. Acording to Layla, one could not always trust everyone in one’s own quarter or even in one’s own family. This is remarkable given that for Palestinians trust is deeply asociated with family (Petet 195). ‘[T]rust is, to a large extent, built into the meaning of kinship relationships. Family is a bulwark of sorts against precisely the mistrust that colors extrafamilial social relations. It is in the domain of extra-familial relations that trust must be nurtured’ (ibid.: 169). However, Petet argues that with al-nakba, Palestinian refuges lost trust in themselves, both as individuals and colectively since they had ben unable to defend their comunities and became dependent on relief (cf. Daniel & Knudsen 195). This may mean that trust within the family has ben questioned for a long time among Palestinian refuges. Nevertheles, everyone has to trust their family since kin are vital for economic and social suport. If a relative in prison canot withstand the torture and reveals information about others or agres to colaborate with the Israeli security services this may have dire consequences for his or her social relations. Um Ayman explained how prisoners may dishonour their families: In prison they [i.e. Israeli guards and investigators] put so much presure on the prisoner, for example [presure to] report on activities in the [prisoners’] roms […]. With time, a prisoner may give more sensitive information. Then he would be released but would leave [jail] in disgrace, dishonour and shame. If this hapens in prison it can be a disgrace for the whole family for a long time even if the person repents and becomes clean after he comes out. Stil people wil say that he was this or he was that. For a long time it wil remain like this. And some families, they wil not acept it [but wil kil him]. Even if he returns to the straight path it wil be dificult to regain the trust of the people because they know this person was conected with the Israelis, which is a shame. He is not god. Rumours about traitors were often conected to the Israeli army’s extra-judicial kilings of Palestinian activists. Rami, the young man who went to lecture in Europe, claimed that there were many colaborators living in the camp. An indication of this was an Israeli helicopter atack 117 in 202 that targeted a car loaded with explosives in the middle of the densely populated camp. Thre young Dheisheans were kiled in a macabre scene of flying body parts and car pieces. The question for the camp inhabitants was who had told the Israelis about the explosives. Someone guesed it was a particular person, someone else argued that the Israelis rarely used colaborators in this intifada but could use their high technology to track a person through his or her cel phone. The camp thus became a deeply ambivalent place that signified both comunity and lack of trust. Rami said that he thought the Palestinians neded to change to be able to improve their situation because, in his view, half the camp was colaborating with Israel. The stigma of being acused of colaboration leaves a lasting mark on a person and his/her family. At one point during my stay, I was warned by people from the camp not to have any further contact with a family in Bethlehem which had, acording to the rumours, a ‘dirty history’ from the first uprising more than ten years earlier. Acording to Rothenberg (204: 120,127), Palestinian men are often understod to be exposed to multiple levels of menace because they have a greater and more intimate contact with Jewish Israelis than women do. This contact may be through work, prison or sexual relations with Israeli women. Men in Dheishe were generaly beter Hebrew-speakers than women and some kept in touch with Israeli friends they had met at work before the intifada al-aqṣa. Palestinians sem to become colaborators or are asked to become colaborators when they are especialy vulnerable, or ‘on the border’. Mustafa, a bachelor working in an NGO, recounted that when he was actualy crosing the border to Jordan, he was asked to become a colaborator; the Israeli security oficer, who questioned him and could have stoped him from traveling, had sugested that Mustafa neded money to get maried and said he could get this by colaborating. Insiders who were not trustworthy had transgresed the moral boundaries of Dheisheans’ comunity and poluted an already disintegrating society (cf. Douglas 202); ‘they were people out of place’ so to speak. Trust was thus related to concerns about morality and the establishment of clear boundaries betwen Palestinians and Israelis. Cultural Norms that Counter Distrust Judging from the widespread fear and lack of trust among Palestinians, it would be easy to conclude that it is extremely dificult for strangers to visit or work in the Palestinian teritories 145 . However, distrust of outsiders may co-exist with norms of hospitality, although not without ambivalence, as Stefanson (203) notes about post-war Bosnia. In the camp, there was a strong emphasis on hospitality; a god Palestinian was expected to welcome guests generously. 145 More surprising perhaps was that the sense of ‘paranoia’ among the refuges and other Palestinians semed to be contagious; I noted that many foreigners (including myself) frequently expresed similar felings. 118 Preferably a guest should be ofered cofe or tea, biscuits and fruits. A proper meal and a place to spend the night might be included if a visitor lingered. Foreigners were received with similar hospitality but were also subjected to eforts to influence their views in a pro-Palestinian direction. Even though a foreigner may have acted suspiciously, many Dheisheans semed to be wiling to take a calculated risk and nevertheles try to convey a political mesage to the ‘West’ (se also chapter 8). Some camp residents semed beyond fear. One of these, Sabri, strongly suspected some European visitors of being spies but he added: ‘ana ma baḫâf’, ‘I’m not afraid’. Not showing fear was the cultural and political ideal in Dheishe. In relation to resilience and vulnerability in diferent cultural contexts, Scheper-Hughes (208: 43) notes that ‘[s]trength, emotional control, courage, and self-suficiency, along with a certain display of ‘invulnerability’ to pain and sufering are moral virtues in the Stoical tradition’. In the field, I was often struck by how stoicaly people around me acted. This principle of fearlesnes is informed by notions of gender in Palestinian society. Petet (194) argues that masculinity in the Palestinian and broader Arab context is partly constructed around ‘fearlesnes’. The image of a fearles Palestinian fighter is often highlighted as a role model, and the fighter is normaly male. Being fearles also refers to the tolerating of torture in Israeli prisons without squealing on felow Palestinians. In general, female informants spoke more readily of their fear than did men since Palestinian womanhod does not demand fearlesnes. Hanan, for instance, woried about helicopter atacks in her neighbourhod; she knew of a wanted man who was living near her house and she feared that the Israeli army would try to asasinate him without taking into acount the safety of other people. But many women also put on a stoical face and were unwiling to show signs of alarm. The frequent violence sometimes prompted cynicism. For instance, when I woried about a posible Israeli army intrusion, my female informant Dalal simply said ‘let them invade the camp, they’ve done it so many times before’. However, the ideal of fearlesnes was often dificult to live up to. A man in his 30s who told me stories about how he had, as an imprisoned tenager, refused orders and stod up against the guards, semingly fearles, once admited that he had ben realy scared in prison. On a number of ocasions, I observed that many Palestinians were terified when they aproached Israeli checkpoints or roadblocks. One of my Christian girlfriends, who regularly pased the checkpoint betwen Bethlehem and Jerusalem, told me how a soldier once refused to let her pas despite the fact that she had a permit. He told her to go to another crosing but she lost her temper and shouted ‘to hel with you’; she told me she realized at once that he could shot her and she became overwhelmed with fright. 119 Fear is an efective way of keping people subordinated (cf. Bourdieu 200). On the other hand, not showing fear may be a way of confronting domination. Palestinians therefore frequently condemned the fact that some Palestinians acted fearfuly. They could become frustrated and angry if someone hesitated to walk up to an armed Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. Children were reprimanded for showing signs of fear at the sight of Israeli army jeps. Not feling fear was a political necesity but a human imposibility in the West Bank. Moreover, people in Dheishe often claimed that it was the Israelis who were the frightened ones and this was the reason for the state-sponsored opresion of Palestinians. Suicide bombers were said to be a way of increasing Israeli fear. Suming up this chapter, it may be said that in the refuges’ atempts to uphold their everyday lives despite deprivation and danger, they oscilated betwen a sense of emergency and a sense of extended normality, which redefined anomalous events as ‘sort of normal’. In responses to the violence and sugesting the limits of resilience there was great uncertainty about other people’s intentions. This was based on a realistic fear of Israel and her suporters. This evoked concerns about boundaries and impurity, but it also activated cultural ideals of hospitality and strength that countered the breakdown of trust. 120 121 6. The Making of New Homes Family life and the obligations of kinship are the bases of the kind of ‘normal life’ that camp inhabitants told me they desire. However, the conflict betwen Israel and the Palestinians manifests itself also in the area of domestic life. The constraining efects of exile, military ocupation and economic dependence al afect the camp inhabitants’ ability to provide for themselves and to live up to kinship obligations and build proper lives as adults and parents. This chapter discuses younger Dheisheans’ culturaly and politicaly coloured atempts to establish new households by building houses, geting maried and having children. Such social reproduction implicitly re-creates the bonds and lines of family that have ben broken by al-nakba and recent violence. The homes of camp families have also literaly become political stages on which the conflict with Israel has ben played out, bringing both violations but also empowerment. This chapter also provides an acount of how camp inhabitants rely on kin and other close social relations for economic survival and general suport. Through the chapter, we wil folow Taysir’s and other young camp residents’ eforts to establish homes. The chapter also provides examples of the many practical obstacles and moral dilemas that al Dheisheans face when honouring family life and kin relations in a situation of severe constraint in which the political situation demands solidarity with a wider Palestinian comunity than family. People find themselves traped betwen their personal concerns as members of households and families and their duties as Palestinian patriots and camp refuges. To Build a House is to Make a Life Taysir was working on his house. The outside wals had ben finished for some years while the interior was stil a mes. As an unemployed construction worker he had the time and the skils to build it himself but he didn’t have enough money to finish his work. Like many others who did not have enough money to build outside the camp, he was ading another flor to the family house. When he eventualy ran out of money the work was stoped. Taysir was in his late twenties and his house had to be finished if he wanted to mary and establish a new household. Taysir’s task is therefore important; a house or a flat for the new couple is one of the conditions a future bride and her family normaly lay down in mariage negotiations nowadays. For both men and women, house-building is thus central to homemaking and becoming an adult member of Palestinian society. Whenever my field asistant and I had some time during the weks when Taysir was building most intensively we poped by to se how his work was progresing. He had it al figured out; ‘here’s the bathrom, here’s the bedrom and the salôn (i.e. rom for receiving guests). And I want some spotlights over here’. He had decided to build a large flat so he would not have to ad new roms when his family began to grow. He mentioned 122 his uncle’s chaotic house as a bad example of house planing. The money Taysir was going to ned to finish his house semed unobtainable given the local situation. * Taysir’s wish to finish his house and get maried was his atempt to establish ‘a life’ by becoming a husband and father. Ataining moral adulthod is conected to mariage and parenthod in Palestinian society as elsewhere. The link betwen mariage and house building is often clearly expresed; mariages are ocasions for the building, renovation or extension of houses (204: 43). Lévi-Straus (1983, 1987 in ibid.) sugested in his work on ‘sociétés à maison’ that mariage is the central relation on which houses are based. Houses are also often ritual sites where parts of the wedding celebrations are caried out. As in Hamond’s (204) study about returning Ethiopian refuges, house building and wedding celebrations are among the practices that bring about emplacement. House ownership is culturaly significant in Palestinian society (Mors 195a: 46). On the camp, owning a house is very meaningful for most people and this contrasts with the past in the vilages where land ownership was more important 146 . The majority of the refuges in the ocupied teritories own their houses 147 although in camps they do not own the land on which their houses are built since camp land is leased by UNRWA. The camp refuges thus find themselves in a latently precarious situation because they buy and sel houses in the camps to which they have only ocupancy rights. In addition to their social significance, houses have economic importance as one of few options for investment in an unstable political situation (Mors 195a: 45f). Remitances from abroad have also largely ben spent on housing (ibid.). With the militarization of the intifada al-aqṣa and the lack of trust in political leaders, suporting a family tok on more importance than engaging in political (frequently military) activism. It is my impresion that the desire for a ‘normal life’ and reliance on family held true for many Palestinians in the ocupied teritories at the time of my fieldwork (cf. Alen 208; Kely 208). However, the establishment of new families and homes in the camp caried symbolic conotations and implied economic chalenges that many other West Bankers did not share. 146 Elderly refuges’ naratives of vilage life seldom included descriptions of lost houses (cf. Sayigh 205). When asked, my elderly informants nonetheles told elaborated stories about house-building. This is probably related to the rather simple houses many peasants lived in at the time. In contrast, to prominent town families, houses have since long symbolized social position and ‘dep-roted-nes’ (Mors 195a: 46). Also in Palestinian memoires of the urban elite, there are more vivid descriptions of lost houses (e.g. Said 199). 147 Acording to a survey caried out in 203, 47 per cent of the Palestinian refuges in the ocupied teritories own a house inside the camps, while 48 per cent own a house outside the camps (PCPSR 203). 123 Economic Constraints on Establishing New Homes For many Dheishean families, as for other por people in Palestinian society, the project of homemaking may bring considerable financial problems. Apart from the costs of building the house or a flat there are costs for fiting out the bathrom and kitchen and for furnishing the bedrom. In addition to the costs of housing, the bridegrom’s family also covers expenses for the wedding party, the bride’s dreses and gold (often refered to as her mahr 148 ). The bride’s family normaly pays for the party on the ḥenna night 149 . These costs have ben a particular problem for camp refuges who lost most of their land and property in 1948. Khaled, for instance, compared his situation as a 30-year-old bachelor with that of his age mates in a nearby Palestinian vilage, where he used to go to schol: When I was 17 years old some boys in schol from the vilage [their families] already had houses for them, they got maried and they had children at the age of 17. I am 30 years old and I have to do everything on my own, to study, and I have to be responsible for geting maried, I have to pay for everything myself. But the young guy in the vilage he had everything, his father had built a house for him and he got him aried. Many camp refuge families have not caught up financialy with families in neighbouring vilages. In Palestinian vilages, people usualy own land that can be used to build on or sold to pay for the establishment of a new household. Khaled notes the impoverishment of the refuge population. Their los of resources has profoundly afected their ability to establish homes (i.e. both to build houses and to pay for weddings) for themselves. His mother, Um Khaled, who told us about her memories of flight, often woried about her son stil being unmaried and repeatedly said that she wanted to se him as a grom before she died, but she did not have the money to help him. Idealy, a parent helps a son to pay for his wedding. Rosenfeld (204: 184f) has argued that delaying mariage has become a strategy to ease the economic situation of entire families in Dheishe. My informants also said that they tended to get maried later than other Palestinians 150 . 148 Mors (195a: 7) writes that in legal literature the most comon English translation of mahr is dower. It can both refer to the gifts the bride obtains at mariage (prompt dower) and to what she receives when becoming a widow or in case of divorce (defered dower). Other terms such as brideprice/bridewealth or dowry is misleading, acording to Mors, since the former concerns payments for the bride rather than to her and the later gifts from parents to their daughter. Mors (ibid.) has documented a sharp decline of the prompt dower in favour of the defered dower since 1967. For a lengthy discusion on al the complexities of the mahr, se Mors (ibid.). 149 Laylet al-ḥena is a celebration before the weding, normaly starting by a party at the bride’s home with her female friends. Her future husband’s female relatives come to pick her up, dancing for her with ḥena, flowers and cofe on a tray. The bride gets ḥena on her finger or hand and is brought to the bridegrom’s family house for another party. 150 In the Bethlehem district, the age of mariage was 17 years for females and 2 years for males in 195 (PCBS 197 table 24). 124 However, at the time of my fieldwork many Palestinians who were not refuges had similar problems geting maried and mariage was becoming increasingly unafordable in the ocupied teritories (ESCWA 207). The economic and political situation was so severe that young men were unable to secure an independent house or to provide for a family. Palestinian couples were marying at later ages than before; this change was particularly noticeable among rural families that had a tradition of early mariage (ibid.). To overcome the troubles involved when establishing new households, men in particular had to mobilize their networks of relatives and friends to obtain manpower as wel as money. Most of the time Taysir, who we met above, worked on his house by himself, although his brother-in-law ho was an unemployed electrician came by for some days to help instal the electricity. Later on, a friend of Taysir gave him a hand with the wals. Taysir’s mother served the workers brunch or cofe among the rubish and the sacks of cement in the unfinished flat. Both Taysir’s mother and older brother reported that they had spent their own savings on his house project. His paternal uncle also contributed with some building material. This is an example of how close relatives from diferent generations may become involved in the homemaking of younger men. While the men were building houses for their future families, the women who were son to be maried would decide on furniture and decoration for their future homes using money belonging mostly to the grom. Idealy, everything in a new household should be aranged before the wedding day. The furniture of the bedrom, which normaly includes a double bed, side tables, cupboards and a dresing table, is more or les obligatory in the new home and an expensive bedrom is a source of status among the camp inhabitants. Taysir claimed that the custom of buying a complete bedrom for the couple was introduced 15-20 years ago. When Taysir’s sister Maryam got maried during my fieldwork, her extended family gave her shets and a number of smal items that her mother had saved for her, such as cofe cups. The wedding gifts from her family and friends also included electric household apliances such as a blender and a washing machine. Another example of someone who strugled to make a new home was Jamila. After her husband divorced her, Jamila had a miserable time trying to secure the custody of or at least aces to al her children, facing ocasional unemployment and housing problems. She had moved back to her fathers’ house, but in her depresed state, she was unable to get along with her parents and siblings. To get some peace, she and the child who was living with her established their own household in an older part of the house that had ben used for storage; there was a rom and a smal kitchen that originated from the first constructions the UNRWA 125 built in the 1950s. Jamila tried diferent strategies to ‘change her situation’. Among other things, she tried to investigate a housing project the Palestinian Authority (PA) was planing for employes and she checked some rental apartments outside the camp. The housing project turned out to be in the early stages of planing and she found the rents far to high for her salary in a kindergarten. Like many Dheisheans, she felt that renting acomodation was an unsatisfactory solution and prefered to have her own home. Jamila therefore tried to buy a house in the camp together with a relative, but despite some hard bargaining the price remained to high for their budget. Her eforts brought her into conflict with her brother, who thought it would be beter for her to opt for a cheaper alternative and build a new house on top of the old construction. Such constructions were comon in the camp; some houses were more or les hanging in the air since they were only partly built on top of old buildings. Compared to Taysir, who was suported by his family in his efort to finish his house, it was rather striking that a divorced woman like Jamila was trying alone to improve her acomodation for herself and her child. Sa’ar (206: 410) notes that Palestinian divorced or unmaried women in general have dificulties earning respect in their comunities and this respect is often neded to gain suport for various undertakings. Notions and Patterns of Mariages When Taysir’s house is eventualy finished he wil most likely lok for a bride through his acquaintances in the camp and in the Bethlehem area. Dheisheans often mary other Dheisheans or refuges from a nearby camp or elsewhere in the area. In Dheishe, mariage preferences folow an ideal of ‘samenes’ (or endogamy, to use a more traditional kinship term) 151 . People from the nearby vilages and from the Bedouin tribe Ta’amre 152 also maried people from the camp. With the dispersal of kin groups, new social networks and restricted mobility, the choice of mariage partner sems to be based more on locality than kinship. In general, Dheisheans do not tend to mary Christians or Israelis 153 and they do not find spouses in old Muslim Bethlehem families. Practice is, however, more fluid than ideals and despite the ideal of samenes, a number of foreign women and at least one foreign man had maried into camp families by the time of my 151 Tuastad (197: 107) has described the cluster of mariage preferences in a Palestinian refuge camp in Gaza: idealy, a Palestinian should mary a Palestinian, a Muslim should mary a Muslim, a refuge another refuge, a refuge with peasant origin his or her alike, a camp resident another camp resident, and if posible a mariage should remain within the ḥamûla. 152 Granqvist (1932: 14) mentions that the tribe Ta’amre were considered former powerful enemies to her informants in the vilage Artas, but the beduins and the vilagers also intermaried. 153 There were actualy some rare exceptions; notably some Israeli women had maried camp residents. When Muslims and Christians get maried today the couple generaly run of and cary out the weding without their families’ aproval. Some serious conflicts have erupted because of such mariages (Bowman 201). 126 work. Since Muslim and Palestinian as wel as refuge identities are transfered to new generations from the father, it was more aceptable for a Dheishean man to mary an outsider than for a woman to do so. As early as the 1920s, Granqvist (1932) noted a considerable number of exogamous mariages in the Palestinian vilage Artas. It would therefore sem that mariage paterns have ben quite flexible for a long time. As Johnson (206: 65) writes, the logic of ‘marying close’ is not necesarily the same as it used to be; it is embedded in historical proceses and it may reflect responses to threat and insecurity as wel as being a source of symbolic and material capital. The ideal of samenes in relation to mariage is thus relatively dynamic. Mariages betwen close relatives, idealy betwen patrilineal paralel cousins (i.e. betwen two brothers’ children: a father’s brother’s daughter or son), semed to be becoming increasingly uncomon in the camp 154 . Statistics also show that camp refuges tend to find a non-related spouse slightly more often than do other Palestinians (ibid.: 68f). Hamami (193: 286 in ibid.) has sugested that mariages based on kinship persist as a way of preserving identification with dispersed comunities and, I would add, interupted lineages of kin. The isue of mariages betwen relatives is complex. Rosenfeld (204), who completed her fieldwork in Dheishe in the early 190s, noted that cousin mariages develop for a number of reasons, such as personal preferences, political activism and romance. For instance, a girl in the neighbourhod where I stayed maried her maternal aunt’s son from a vilage outside Bethlehem, a mariage that the girl herself labeled ‘a love mariage’. Sholkamy (201: 75), who works in Egypt, also writes that related couples often have the time and space to nourish love and compasion both before and during engagement. On the other hand, there is a normative discourse of modernity in Palestinian society that expreses concerns that close relatives wil give birth to children with geneticaly transmited disabilities and diseases (Johnson 206: 85f). Acording to Sawsan, marying acording to one’s own choice has ben comon for the last 20 years in the camp. The authority of the older generation over mariage has diminished considerably, especialy since the first uprising, which is often considered to be the point at which traditional power structures in Palestinian society were inverted. Although few camp residents are forced to mary these days, mariages continue to some extent to be aranged by the couple’s families. For instance, people ocasionaly have secret afairs that lead to mariage but oficialy these mariages are ‘aranged’ and must be negotiated by the couple’s families. 154 This builds on my informants’ acounts in adition to my own observations and not on any statistical survey. Acording to Johnson (206: 67) about 4 per cent of the mariages of ever-maried women in the ocupied teritories were betwen relatives in 199. There are however also statistics that show that betwen 195 and 200 the mariages betwen relatives (including first cousins and distant cousins) were diminishing (ibid.: 68f). 127 Taysir may aproach a woman indirectly and unoficialy by asking someone who knows her if they think she wil acept him or he may try to talk to her discretely himself. He may then oficialy propose to her with the help of his relatives. Alternatively, he may simply go in the company of a male relative and ask for a woman’s hand. His female family members, in particular his mother, may also be sent to negotiate a mariage deal (cf. Tuastad 197). Unmaried women play a more pasive role in mariage arangements since they do not build houses and canot propose to someone or ‘date’ openly. However, a woman may mobilize her network; her female friends may for instance tel their brothers or other relatives who are loking for a spouse about her. She may also try to enhance her options by geting an education and a god job (though some suitors prefer women not to work), keping herself beautiful, wel-dresed and wel- manered and groming her reputation as a chaste woman. As we wil se below, for women, the experience of having ben in prison may jeopardize their reputations and thereby mariageability. Mariage in a Politicized Context In the politicized context of Dheishe, the kinds of choices people make in terms of mariage are afected by political considerations. Mustafa, Taysir’s brother, told me that he and his extended family always tried to ‘check’ on any man who asked for the hand of one of their female relatives. Besides checking his personality and social status, they would want to make sure that he did not have any ‘political problems’. In this family, this meant that the man must not be suspected of colaborating with Israel. In other families it might mean that the suitor should not be wanted by the Israelis. A suitor’s political reputation may acordingly influence his mariageability (se also Mors 195a: 89). Khaled had a story to tel about this. Using one of his sisters as a go-betwen, he had asked for a girl’s hand. When the girl, who suported Hamas, learnt that Khaled was working in the Fateh-dominated PA, she imediately turned the proposal down. This girl’s political opinions as wel as her mistrust of the PA was sen by her family as a valid reason for turning down the proposal, even if we do not know if she also had other reasons. By contrast, a few camp mariages had ben entered into on the basis of shared political comitment. Rosenfeld (204: 310) notes that in the 1980s and early 190s a number of mariages tok place in Dheishe that were based on the couple’s comon political afiliation and activism. My informants Ahmed and Hanan had for instance met and fel in love while engaging themselves in political activities during the first intifada. Mariage strategies also expres the constraints of imobility. Some West Bank men have tried to mary Palestinian women who have Israeli citizenship because this would give them 128 aces to the Israeli labour market (Bornstein 202a) 155 . However, in 2003-204, it was becoming more dificult to acquire permision for family re-unification with a spouse living in Israel 156 and mariages acros the border were sen as disadvantageous in Dheishe, at least for women. It was becoming increasingly dificult to maintain contact with and to socialy suport a maried daughter or sister in another area. An unmaried woman named Dalal, who worked in a factory in Bethlehem, had several suitors who had Israeli citizenship but since these men were unwiling to setle in the ocupied teritories Dalal’s family turned down their proposals. Her relatives told her that if she had problems in her mariage, they would be unable to help her because of the dificulties in entering Israel. As is the case in many societies, mariage in the teritories is the concern of the couple’s extended families; if a couple has problems in their mariage, their families wil usualy intervene. Hence, Israeli politics of separation and restricted mobility clearly limit people’s mariage options. Formerly, however, social bonds were often re-established acros the Gren Line, notably through inter-mariages betwen Israeli Palestinians and Palestinians in the ocupied teritories. These mariages brought new social and economic oportunities that have taken on particular relevance in the curent situation. Among my informants were, for instance, several women who held Jerusalem ID cards. Zaynab, whose morning routines we folowed in the last chapter, came from a vilage outside Jerusalem 157 and her Jerusalemite status meant she could bring her young children through the checkpoints on cherished visits to Jerusalem, to her parents’ vilage and to her siblings who also lived in Israel. Unlike other young children in Dheishe, her children went on a trip to Tel Aviv and the Mediteranean in the sumer 204. Because of their aces to the Israeli labour market, her natal family’s economic situation was also beter than her husband’s and she would return from visiting her parents with new clothes for herself and her children. Cultural and Political Conotations of Wedings Although house-building and weddings are costly, geting maried is a reason to celebrate but how to celebrate has changed during the years. Moreover, Palestinians often view eddings as emblematic of their culture and as expresions of nationalism. In everyday life both men and 155 During my fieldwork, Palestinians often talked about Palestinian men who wanted to mary foreign women only because these men wanted to setle in Europe or the US or get other advantages. 156 In May 202, Israel temporarily suspended the procesing of family reunification claims betwen Palestinian citizens and Palestinians from the ocupied teritories (PASIA 204: 38). Se Kretzmer (202) for a more extensive discusion about family unification in the Israeli-Palestinian context. 157 Zaynab comes from a vilage that lost about half of its land to an Israeli setlement, built in the 1970’s and whose inhabitants had ben given refuge cards, but also Jerusalem IDs in 1967. 129 women chat regularly about weddings and mariage strategies 158 (se also Kely 208). Seng and Was (195: 23), who write about Palestinian exiles in the US and the revival of traditional Palestinian wedding dreses as a sign of national pride, note that: Weddings themselves serve as a symbolic microcosm of the sociocultural order. They are a celebration of the future as wel as the past, a celebration in which identity is reafirmed, values re-instiled, and relationships cemented. They bring focus to bear on the family, the social and economic unit of Middle Eastern society, and subsequently upon women and their role within the family. […] The critical focus of the ritual is […] upon women, for the wedding signifies not only the reafirmation of the identity of the comunity but also the redefinition of the woman who leaves the house of her family. Many Palestinian folktales also focus on family life, courtship and weddings (cf. Muhawi & Kanana 1989), as do contemporary cultural expresions, such as Palestinian films 159 , Arab soap operas and Arab pop music. For instance, a number of popular music videos that are broadcast daily on Palestinian TV end with the singer and his or her beloved dresed up for a wedding 160 . As we wil se in chapter 8, weddings are also ocasions for enjoying oneself and relaxing. In addition to everyday asistance betwen kin, life cycle rituals such as weddings also cary individuals through crises and disorder, reinforcing kinship ties and contributing to a sense of ontological security (Giddens 191). During the first uprising, the suspension of proper wedding celebrations was a significant form of resistance at the gras-rot level. It was an atempt to politicize daily routine (Jean-Klein 201) as wel as to reduce the economic burden on families that were living under strain (Mors 195a: 12f). By puting ‘normality on hold’, ordinary people could restore a sense of personal and colective self-control; strategies like this complemented the more formaly organized national liberation movement. At the request of the national leadership, civil servants resigned from their positions, comercial strikes were introduced and enforced, Palestinians refused to pay taxes to the Israeli civil administration, but people also sacrificed activities such as daytrips, picnics, leisurely evening strols, social visiting and especialy ostentatious wedding celebrations (Jean-Klein 201). 158 Also researchers have shown interest in Palestinian wedings; the Finish ethnographer Granqvist wrote extensively about wedings and mariage conditions in two volumes published as early as in the 1930’s (Granqvist 1932, 1935). Se also Rothenberg (204). 159 E.g. the movies Weding in Galile by Michel Khleifi (1987) and Pomegranates and Myrh by Najwa Najar (208). 160 This can be related to the fact that romantic relationships outside wedlock are socialy and legaly condemned in many Arab societies. 130 The suspension of wedding celebrations (zafat 161 ) semed iconic of the entire range of cultural activities held in abeyance. ‘There are no more weddings now!’ people comonly concluded their reports, of whatever form of personal and comunal self-restraint. (ibid.: 96) Jean-Klein (ibid.) furthermore describes these personal sacrifices as an ongoing reflexive examination of practice that created politico-symbolic capital. It has ben reported that martyrs’ funerals (se chapter 10) have rhetoricaly ben caled patriotic weddings (i.e. ‘a‘râs waṭaniyye) and they are atended with stret procesions and ululation similar to those at traditional Palestinian weddings (ibid.: 10). This sugests a further political conotation of weddings, though none of my informants refered to funerals in this way. As noted, the intifada al-aqṣa difered from the first uprising in a number of ways. One of the diferences was that ordinary Palestinians no longer felt involved in the political strugle; the ‘ethos of self-restraint and routines of abnormality’ (ibid.) no longer infused the everyday life of Palestinians. Nor did the Palestinian leadership urge Palestinians to refrain from celebrating weddings or enjoying other activities during the new uprising. In 203 and 204 in Dheishe there were many weddings with stret procesions. Some people told me that this kind of ‘real’ wedding was a revival that they had not sen since the present intifada had begun a few years earlier (cf. Kely 208). Although the Palestinian leaders had not oficialy promoted restraint, it semed that the kiling of Palestinians at the start of the intifada al-aqṣa, the curfews and the sieges had discouraged people from holding elaborate weddings. It semed that this was not so much a political strategy but simply that people were concerned to show respect for mourning families nearby and were woried about the risks given the political situation. In May 204, the situation had changed and wedding celebrations had become boisterous events. One evening the strets were filed with the loud noise of a wedding party that an extended family in the camp was holding for one of the sons on his ‘ḥenna night’. However, not everyone felt comfortable about this. My host-brother, who was not particularly fond of these neighbours, comented on the improper behaviour of the young men at the party who had opened a botle of wine to celebrate. This clearly disturbed my host-brother’s Muslim sensibilities. When I asked whether the celebrating family had any members in prison, my host- brother mutered that they had at least four members incarcerated. He was no doubt aware of how improper this ostentatious wedding would have semed during the first intifada, though he and many others were resigned to the fact that the curent situation was diferent. Sawsan comented that it was to hard for people not to celebrate weddings, that not celebrating made 161 As Jean-Klein (201) notes, zafat means weding procesions, not wedings, but in the context during the first intifada her informants used this word to denote a range of ceremonies asociated with wedings. 131 them tired; people neded to party to cope with the situation. As Scheper-Hughes (208) has noted, enjoying oneself is a comon way for people to recover from hardship. The kind of political weddings described by Jean-Klein no longer existed in the camp 162 . To sum up, in the context of a Palestinian uprising, not postponing weddings had become part of a proces of normalization that was asociated with the mases’ political disengagement. Some camp inhabitants, however, remained highly ambivalent about these celebrations. Furthermore, in the camp, weddings fited into a narative of social change and los. At refuges’ weddings fod was not served, at least not to al guests. Economic restraints meant that normaly only soft drinks and cokies or swets would be provided. Those who could aford it would hire a hal in Bethlehem or any of the nearby vilages for the ocasion, but most people held their weddings at home in the camp. The weddings of middle and uper clas Palestinians usualy involve both a diner and the hiring of a hal. Acording to the camp residents the lack of fod at weddings was problematic and unsatisfactory; the omision of fod was said to make wedding celebrations very diferent from those prior to 1948. Um Khaled told me that: ‘At a wedding [before al-nakba] they would take the bride al around the vilage on a camel, and the matreses with her and they went al around the vilage. They used to celebrate for 15 days, dancing and singing. They used to kil shep and fed al the vilagers at weddings.’ Acording to this elderly woman and several other camp residents, weddings also used to be celebrated for more days than today, though the exact number of days that informants claimed used to be celebrated difered, posibly reflecting diferences betwen vilages. Jean-Klein (201: 9) reported that her informants made many nostalgic coments about the fod (in this case mansaf i.e. a dish with meat and rice) that used to be served at weddings before the first intifada. Since so much money was spent on for instance the preparation of bedroms, it is posible that not serving fod at weddings was a political statement after al. Alternatively, it may nowadays simply be felt to make more economic sense to invest in a house than in the prestige that may derive from serving diner to one’s wedding guests. Imprisonment Delaying Life In Dheishe, detention and political imprisonment make it dificult for people to fulfil their dreams of a proper adult life. Taysir was imprisoned for a month by the Israeli authorities for having crosed the Israeli border ilegaly. He later explained to me that he had gone to Israel to gain an income; he had ben seling Islamic religious literature to Israeli Palestinians. He 162 Acording to my field notes, there was a case of ’political engagement’ in Ramala in 204. The future grom was imprisoned by the Israelis. The engagement was caried out through a mobile phone and shown live on the Arabic news chanel Al Jazira. The engagement was moreover held on ‘Prisoner’s Day’. 132 desperately neded money both to provide for himself and to finish his house. Since so many Dheisheans had spent time in prison and people were constantly being arested in the camp, Taysir’s problem was shared by many (se also chapter 4). Many of those arested are, like him, young men who are trying to make a life for themselves. Shiren was a young woman with several close relatives who had experienced imprisonment (her father, uncles, male cousins and an aunt). She told me that former prisoners often had their lives interupted at a crucial point in life, namely betwen youth and adulthod: [I]t is very dificult for [the ex-prisoners], because when they are released from the prison they have to start from zero. […] I pity them because their lives have ben wasted and someone who is now thinking of geting maried, now when he is 30, he could have ben maried at the age of 20, for example. And my uncle was a tawjîhi [i.e. high schol] student and each time he wanted to take the exam [the Israelis] would come and arest him. Thre times this hapened to him. Each year when he was suposed to sit for the exam, they arested him. During the first intifada, many youngsters had also ben unable to finish schol because the schols were frequently closed due to strikes or unrest. Politics had acordingly prevented or delayed Palestinians from continuing their education. Mustafa, when he was talking to his friend Abu Wisam about al the arests going on, said that yet another generation was being destroyed by imprisonment; he was aluding to the problems the young prisoners face when they are released. Palestinians often stres the importance of education and they take pride in high levels of education. As Rosenfeld (204) has shown, educating some family members has also provided a way to escape poverty and ease the economic situation for a whole extended family. In my fieldwork I noted that having education was helpful for geting maried and providing for a family since beter educated camp inhabitants often had much beter chances than manual workers of geting a job in the West Bank. However, the political merit earned from imprisonment may sometimes make a man a more desirable suitor, as Um Ayman explained: [In Palestinian society] everyone welcomes [an honourable prisoner] especialy if he proposes to someone’s sister or daughter, they wil be very proud and hapy that he himself comes to propose and they wil be so eager for him to propose to one of their daughters or cousins. And that wil be a very god suport for [the ex- prisoners], they wil fel acepted in society and fel that they are valuable to the comunity. In Um Ayman’s words, one may detect a wish to resist the idea that imprisonment breaks the path to adulthod and an atempt to reframe it as an experience that makes a man more 133 mariageable. This kind of politicization of mariages may make it easier for former prisoners to build a family. Interupting the Path to Manhod The curent political circumstances, in particular prison experiences, indirectly prevent Palestinian men from ataining ideal adulthod or ‘a normal life’ by geting maried, having children and providing for a family 163 . The gravenes of this should not be underestimated; Dabagh’s (205) study of suicide in the West Bank 164 shows that failure to achieve the requisites for adulthod may lead some individuals to try to kil themselves. This is especialy true of men who fail to live up to their role as provider and protector. Dabagh convincingly conects the suicide atempts made by men with changes in Palestinian society related to the political situation at the time of her study in the late nineties. With diminishing aces to the Israeli labour market, the men in her study found themselves unable to provide for their families or get maried and start new families. The shame of unemployment was also evident among some of my male informants in Dheishe, who sometimes exagerated the number of days that they had worked in recent months because they did not want to admit that they could not provide for their families. One of these men was suported by his wife, who had become the household breadwiner by comuting to a job in Israel. Dabagh also argues that men who had established a god reputation for their political activism in the first intifada often failed to find ways to maintain their reputation and honour after the uprising ended. Johnson has described the situation in the ocupied teritories during the intifada al-aqṣa as agravating this ‘masculinity in crisis’ (203: 16) as men fel disempowered both politicaly and economicaly due to overwhelming Israeli control (se chapter 9). Suicide atempts may also be related to the political activism of Dabagh’s informants in other ways than those she mentions. Experience of imprisonment not only delays the progres of a life trajectory but torture and maltreatment may also cause emotional disturbance in Palestinian ex-prisoners (cf. B’Tselem & HaMoked 207; Khamis 200; Punamäki 198; Bornstein 201). In Dheishe, former prisoners were sometimes unable to provide for their families because their unsetled experiences prevented them from being able to study or work; they had problems remembering, concentrating, sleping or dealing with the authorities 165 . Bornstein (ibid.: 560) 163 As has ben discused by Swedenburg (207), an extension of the period of youth with delayed mariages is widespread in the Midle East due to socio-economic realities in an era of late modernity and capitalist expansion. Apart from being related to the Israeli ocupation, Palestinian delayed mariages are thus also linked to such more general paterns. 164 Compared to other countries, suicide rates are estimated to be very low in Palestinian society, but suicide is not a new or ‘foreign’ phenomenon as has sometimes ben argued (Dabagh 205: 132f). 165 It should be noted that I am not trained in psychology or psychiatry; my own observations must thus be viewed in the light of other researchers’ work. Except from the shame that mental health problems bring, 134 describes the conditions for ex-prisoners that visited a rehabilitation centre in Gaza during the Oslo period in the folowing way: ‘Most of the time, it was only a job they wanted, but their palpable anxiety and the descriptions of their distres including sleplesnes, emotional unpredictability, fear, and anger, revealed that the problems had become more than economic.’ 166 Some former prisoners had moreover become sterile due to torture and this meant they could not perpetuate their patrilineage. Adding to their problems is the fact that mental ilnes remains a sensitive isue in Palestinian society (Dabagh 205). Petet (194) writes that in the first intifada beatings and detention were reformulated as means of ataining and enacting manhod among young Palestinian men (śebâb), who claimed that they had become ‘real men’ by experiencing political violence, and their interpretation was confirmed by their social environment. In this way, the śebâb inverted their subordination. The violence used by the Israeli state to subordinate them was understod by Palestinians to be part of a rite of pasage into manhod. This ‘trick’ reversed the social order and gave Palestinians political agency despite the limitations of their circumstances. However, this strategy was undermined by the fact that interogation procedures often included sexual abuse 167 . As Petet (ibid.: 45) notes ‘[o]ne canot return from prison and describe forms of torture that violate the most intimate realm of gendered selfhod’. Questioned Virginity Young women may also find it dificult to get maried after being arested. Imprisonment puts a woman’s reputation at risk in other ways than it does a man’s. Palestinian female prisoners face many problems related to their gender, both while they are in prison and after their release (Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners 193). Many of these problems concern sexual harasment and sometimes rape or fear of rape while in Israeli custody (Kevorkian 193). In cases of rape and harasment more generaly, Palestinian women are often held responsible for inciting such asaults (Dabagh ibid.: 73). When it comes to imprisonment, women and girls tend to be blamed for geting involved in politics, which is suposed to be a male arena. Shiren, cited above, told me of the experiences of one of her girlfriends: Palestinian society is lacking the kind of psychologizing discourses that tend to prevail in Western societies (cf. Sumerfield 204). 166 Bornstein (201: 567) also notes: ‘The rehabilitation program revealed how traumatized many were but also made me suspicious of the victimology that disempowered their vanguardism by framing social service providers and doctors as bestowers of gifts. And then, tens of thousands of former prisoners became victimizers when they enlisted as ’security’ forces for a represive military regime.’ 167 Acording to Punamäki (198: 86), diferent forms of sexual abuse are comonly experienced by Palestinian prisoners, especialy during interogation. For an updated acount, se B’Tselem & HaMoked (207: 58f). 135 People talk so much, especialy if [the female prisoner] is a girl [i.e. a virgin as oposed to a maried woman]. I’m certain that there is not one single female prisoner who has ben released whom nobody has talked about. Everybody talks about her. My friend that I talked about [who] caried the knife [and] went to the checkpoint 168 , she threw [the knife] away and was arested. And after she was released, everybody was talking about her - even her best friends were talking about her. The families of her closest friends were talking about her. There were friends who left her. And now she is forbidden [by her family] to leave the house. […] Why? Because this is an Arab society. Shiren was obviously woried about her friend and was afraid the girl’s family would force her to mary the first man who proposed to her. The asumption is that a female ex-prisoner may no longer be a virgin and it wil therefore be dificult to find her a husband. During the first intifada, many young girls maried earlier than they would have otherwise 169 . Um Mustafa, a former cleaning lady, explained to me that the family considered her daughter to young to get maried and would have prefered her to continue her high schol education, but because of śaraf al ‘eile, i.e. the honour of the family, the girl maried another camp inhabitant when she was 17 in the late 1980s. At that time, the girl had already ben arested for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Um Mustafa said that the situation had ben very bad and there had ben soldiers in the camp al the time and this had made it stil harder for the camp inhabitants to provide for their children and it made them fearful of rape and imprisonment of their daughters. For these girls, entry into adulthod was not delayed but, on the contrary, brought forward. The Importance of Having Children A Palestinian maried couple’s homemaking project means ‘filing the house with life’ by having children. As has ben noted by Hazboun (199), both motherhod and fatherhod are strongly emphasized as esential to ful adulthod in Palestinian society. Moreover, as is the case elsewhere in the Arab world, a woman becomes ‘Im Muhamed’ and a man ‘Abu Muhamed’ acording to the name of their first son (a so-caled teknonym or kunya in Arabic, se Schimel 197). This changed form of addres implies reproductive and sexual normalcy, socio-economic security and fulfiled personhod. In a society that lacks a social security system, ageing individuals without children, especialy women, also face severe problems in providing for themselves. Having no children therefore implies vulnerability. In the Palestinian context, 168 Those kinds of atacks are often refered to as jihâd fardi (Victor 204). 169 For Palestinian women, the transition from unmaried girl (bint i.e. a girl, daughter, intimating virginity) to wife (mara i.e. an adult woman, a wife) is precarious. As Dabagh (205) shows, female suicide atempts were often conected to this specific transition or to more general protests against harsh treatment by male relatives. 136 children are said ‘to tie a husband to his wife’ and they are thought to create love in a mariage (Hazboun ibid.). Furthermore, in the face of regular, lethal violence and the los of family members, having children is a response to the loses and to the patriotic quest to reproduce the nation. Preference for Sons There is a traditional preference for sons in Palestinian society. Hanan and Ahmed, who had thre children, were therefore delighted that after two daughters they had a son. This meant that they could stop having children without feling the persistent concern of their families and society in general. Ahmed’s mother, who had given birth to 13 children, nevertheles stil ocasionaly said that her grandson neded a brother. The cultural concern with having sons and children in general must be understod in the light of the Palestinian kinship system (se below); having many family members is a source of security for the patrilineage in times of conflict, especialy among the lower clases. As Aburish (191: 2) writes of his own family history: ‘A man’s tribal status is often judged by the number of men behind him, his azwa’. Kananeh (202: 72) argues that this clan concept, which means strength, has ben transfered to the nation 170 ; Palestinian boys are hence neded in the national strugle. Practices tend to show much more fluidity than ideals when it comes to family and relatednes. Although my informants felt that it was important to have sons, failure to produce a daughter was also a motivation to continue having children. In everyday life, daughters and sons had complementary roles and this made women and girls more important to the family than the ideal may sugest. However, women have an ambiguous status after mariage, since they are neither completely absorbed into their husband’s family nor do they cease to be members of their natal families. A Dual Nationalistic Discourse on Reproduction Apart from the cultural and economic emphasis on the importance of having children, the political discourse also presurizes Palestinians to reproduce. In recent years, nationalistic cals to reproduce have ben heard in a context of growing Israeli fear of being demographicaly outnumbered by the Palestinians 171 . Acording to Kananeh (202: 50f), several Israeli leaders have expresed concern about the high Palestinian birth rate both inside Israel and in the 170 As Kananeh notes clanishnes has ben judged unaceptable within nationalism. In the local context of Dheishe, it was however not an insignificant isue, but something that informants pointed out as important. 171 Se also Fischbach 204, about Israeli concerns about demography since early Zionism. 137 ocupied teritories. Israeli concern with the ‘Arab time bomb’ that is threatening the Jewish-nes of the Israeli state is to some extent mirored, although asymetricaly when it comes to means of implementation, by Palestinian political organizations 172 . The benefits of increasing the size of the Palestinian population are reflected in political speches as wel as in the Palestinian pres. Kananeh (202: 63) refers to the front page of a Palestinian newspaper that shows a picture of Palestinian boys making victory signs and with a headline reading ‘Every Month, Four Thousand Newborns in Gaza’. Many Palestinian women would also claim that their most important duty as Palestinians is that of motherhod and the raising of their children to become ‘god Palestinians’ (Gren 201). As in many other nationalistic strugles and movements, women have become the markers of national boundaries and their bodies and reproductive capacity have ben the focus of intense contest (cf. Yuval-Davis 197). As Carsten (204: 162) notes the kinship metaphors of nationalism easily become a living reality under extreme conditions. The politicization of reproduction by Israelis and Palestinians is definitely not unique and was sometimes reflected in individual women’s presentation of themselves. For instance, Um Ayman was evidently proud when she told me that she was the mother of eight. Although there has ben a decline in birth rates in the last 30 years 173 , the total birth rate for the ocupied teritories is stil high in comparison to rates in neighbouring countries and countries with a similar level of economic development (Giacaman 197: 15). I did not have the ocasion to talk with men about this isue, however, younger women in Dheishe expresed in informal conversations that they wanted maybe four or five children, which was considerably fewer than in the past 174 . For instance, Layla, a maried housewife, said that both she and her husband were content with their two girls and that it was quite enough to have a smal family since her husband already had sons with his first wife. Nevertheles, she was hesitant about using the contraceptive pil 175 and shortly after I had completed my fieldwork, Layla was pregnant again, this time with a son. There is a dual nationalist discourse among Palestinians; the cultural and political preference for a large family coexists with the preference for a smal family; ‘[i]ndeed, most Palestinians agre with both perspectives to some extent: that it is a national and even human 172 As Kananeh (202: 58) rightly points out ’Palestine’ is not able to miror Israel, since without a state Palestinians do not have the same power and means to implement their national imaginings. 173 For instance in 195 the total fertility rate was 6.24 children, i.e. 5.61 in the West Bank and 7.4 in Gaza (Giacaman 197: 15) as compared to 206 when it was 4.6 children for al the Palestinian teritories, 4.2 in the West Bank and 5.4 in Gaza (PCBS 207b figure 29). 174 Giacaman’s (197: 21) report indicates that 63 per cent of the Palestinian women in the ocupied teritories prefered to have betwen 4 and 6 children. It should be noted that contraceptive methods are rather wel-known and easily acesible. 175 Palestinian women in Israel often wory about side-efects of hormones acording to Kananeh (202). It is posible that Layla also had such concerns. 138 duty to reproduce, and that it is important to ensure a god life for one’s children’ (Kananeh 202: 68). The patriotic argument for the second position claims that a few highly educated, profesional Palestinians would be a greater threat to Israeli domination than large numbers of por and uneducated Palestinians. This position is, however, best understod as part of a modernization discourse; Palestinians are modern, not backward, therefore they have few children. It can also be related to consumerism. Children today ned things, be it university fes or computers; they do not only provide their parents with socio-economic security, they also cost money. The policies of the PA also reflect these competing views, signaling what Giacaman (197: 23) caled ‘the absence of an integrated national level population policy’. As Roben and Suarez (200: 25) note about Holocaust survivors, having children may in some contexts and among social groups that have sufered much violence, become a symbolic victory over perpetrators. A child may become a response to refuge-nes and violence as wel as a link both to the future and the past, recreating broken extended families and vanished comunities. This finds expresion in the fact that Palestinians like to name their children after a martyr in their family. During the intifada al-aqṣa, which resulted in numerous Palestinian casualties, organizations promoting birth control also delayed visits to areas where many had recently ben kiled. Acording to Kananeh (202: 74), the staf reasoned as folows; ‘How can we tel them not to have children when their children are being kiled? It’s not apropriate.’ This way of thinking also fits into Palestinians’ sense of existential threat. The violence and disruptions of everyday life during the second uprising were understod as puting the very existence of both Palestinian individuals and their comunity at risk (cf. Fastén 203). There are acordingly cultural, economic, political as wel as acute existential reasons for having children in ‘Palestine’. These partly conflicting reasons often create dilemas and ambiguities for couples and families. As patriotic Palestinians and emblematic camp refuges, people in Dheishe had ben urged to resist the ocupation by having children. But should one have many children in response to nationalistic desires to outnumber Israelis and produce men who may fight for the family and the nation or should one have few so that one is able to suport and educate them and thereby present another kind of threat to Israel 176 ? Having children also means risking losing them. Contested Childbirth Reproduction was contested in yet another way during the intifada al-aqṣa. Israeli soldiers had many times refused to let Palestinian women in labour pas checkpoints on their way to hospital. 176 In the case of childbearing, personal aspirations, kin obligations and national goals are actualy interwoven although presenting two diferent alternatives. 139 Women had ben forced to give birth outside or in a waiting car or ambulance. On several ocasions this had led to the death of their babies or other tragedy (Amnesty International 205; Save the Children 203: 21). Since Dheishe is situated close to the hospitals in Bethlehem there had ben no such cases in the camp, but anxiety about not being able to reach a hospital had nevertheles become a major part of the experience of giving birth in the ocupied teritories. Um Ayman’s adult daughter, who lived with her husband in a remote area, therefore temporarily moved back to the camp towards the end of her second pregnancy. Another woman in Dheishe told me she had ben afraid of having to give birth to her youngest child under curfew. Although she had managed to get to the hospital in Bethlehem, her sister and mother could not be with her to provide the normal suport. She said the child had also become ‘scared of the soldiers’ and did not want to be born so the delivery had ben complicated. As the camp residents understod it, history was coming ful circle; once again Palestinian children were under threat and Palestinian society was in a deep existential crisis. The stories of children dying during birth at checkpoints recaled some of the events of al-nakba. Elderly refuge women told me stories about children dying at the time of flight (se also chapter 4). Old Um Hasan for instance recounted: ‘[After the flight from our vilage] we found two caves; one for us and one for a family from Tel Asafi. I gave birth to a boy in the cave and he died after seven days because of the bad conditions. My litle girl died when she was 1 year and 2 months old [due to a children’s disease].’ During the flight, children’s lives had ben threatened by hunger and ilneses and some of the elderly women also told me that male relatives had asked mothers to abandon their children. In those stories, children had also ben lost or forgoten during the chaos of flight. As wil be further discused in chapter 9, the recent intifada was understod, like al- nakba, to be a fundamental disruption of social order. Home as a Political Stage Homes in the camp were also stages for explicit political conflict where Dheisheans’ atempts to focus on runing their ordinary lives were at risk. Demolitions and Invasions of Homes A clear obstacle to camp residents’ homemaking was the Israeli army’s policy of demolishing houses (al kasafor jeeś). Acording to a report by Amnesty International (204), more than 3,00 homes have ben destroyed by the Israeli army and security forces since the begining of the second uprising. Most of those homes are in the ocupied teritories, while some belong to Israeli Palestinians living inside Israel. In the sumer of 204, about one house per wek was blown up 140 by the army in the Dheishe camp. Palestinian eforts to establish normality and continuity by building new homes were thus literaly destroyed for some. The house demolitions were also a display of the absolute Israeli power to destroy. The fact that houses are contested in the Israeli-Palestinian context is nothing new; vilage houses were razed after the refuges fled in 1948 and houses have regularly ben destroyed since the begining of the ocupation in 1968 as a way to punish Palestinians for their political activities. The British authorities also blew up houses as a form of reprimand during the peasant revolt in the 1930s (Benvenisti 200: 90; Swedenburg 203). Palestinian houses have therefore ben politicized for more than half a century. In addition, the Israeli prime minister at the time of my fieldwork, Ariel Sharon, who has a long carer in both the Israeli military and in politics 177 , is quoted to have said: ‘I know the Arabs … For them, there is nothing more important than their house. So, under me you wil not se a child shot next to his father. It is beter to level an entire vilage with buldozers, row after row’ (Curtis 203 178 ). Not only do Israeli policies politicize Palestinian houses, but so to does Palestinian resistance. For instance, the houses lost in the vilages are often evoked in Palestinian nationalistic poetry and the vilage house continues to exemplify Palestinian identity, steadfastnes and strugle (Slyomovics 198: 176). There semed to be a patern of how the houses in Dheishe were destroyed. The house demolitions were caried out at night, the army would normaly arive at midnight or one o’clock in the morning without warning and the family of the house would be given ten to fiften minutes to leave their home. Some hours later, when the army had evacuated the neighbouring houses and filed the house with explosives, it was ‘neatly’ blown up. The Israeli army claims to have two main reasons for destroying Palestinian houses; the first is if the house has ben built without permision (which is the usual reason for demolishing houses built inside Israel) and the second is the wide category ‘military/security neds’, including destroying the homes of Palestinians who are suspected of carying out atacks against Israelis (Amnesty International 204). In Dheishe in 204, my impresion was that the majority of the houses that were destroyed belonged to a family that had an arested or wanted member; the demolitions were colective punishments for the acts of individuals. Acording to the camp residents, it was evident that the Israeli forces used threats to blow up an arested Palestinian’s home to try to make him confes or when the person was wanted to make him turn himself in. For everyone staying in the camp, it was very stresful to be woken up in the middle of the night at the sound of explosions. 177 Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in 203 and had a long history in the Israeli army, being involved both in the war in 1948 and held responsible for the masacre in the Palestinian refuge camps Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon 1982. Until the pres of this study, he remains in coma. 178 htp:/ww.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=3893&d=20&m=10&y=203 13.05.209 10.38. 141 As Zaynab explained to her woried parents during a visit to Jerusalem that I joined, it was not so dificult to handle the presence of soldiers; it was the nightly explosions that realy shok us. The house demolitions terified not just the afected family but the entire local population. In one of the families that had their house razed because of the political activities of the sons, the younger brother was about to get maried and had prepared a flat for himself and his future wife, but this was also destroyed. When my field asistant and I visited the family, the young man tok us on a tour through the ruble and the few remaining wals. He regreted having spent so much money and time finishing his flat. He added stoicaly that if the Israelis had problems with bricks then they could destroy his house but he and his fiancée would cary on with their plans to get maried within the wek regardles. The young man’s interupted homemaking was of course a deeply felt dilema even though he used a kind of ‘stoic rhetorical resistance’, which is comon among the camp inhabitants. His father, however, was very woried that this son, who was the only son not imprisoned, would now be provoked into engaging in the military strugle. The father told me how upset his sons had ben by the violence used by the Israelis. Like many other camp residents, he asociated the wilingnes to strugle for one’s country and engage in violence with a deeply felt sense of los and grief. He continued: ‘I didn’t send my son to study so that he could go and blow himself up.’ This coment reflects the dilemas the refuges found themselves in, trying to met both personal and familial neds as wel as national goals. With limited posibilities to act, Dheisheans were not always able to chose betwen alternatives (for instance imprisonment or geting maried). The young man whose house was blown up because of the political activism of his brothers is iluminating. Despite the fact that he had chosen not to get involved in politics like his brothers, his homemaking was stil interupted by the Israeli authorities when they colectively punished his family. What alternatives did this young man have other than refusing to postpone the wedding in spite? Since he was the only son not in jail he had obligations to his parents and siblings that none of his brothers could fulfil. When someone’s house was demolished neighbours, relatives and friends came to grieve with the family as they would at a funeral in the camp. Silent men would sit outside on plastic stols and chairs under a white sun shelter, while the women expresed their suport indors. When felow camp residents came to ofer their condolences, this was a way of showing solidarity and sharing in each others’ misfortunes. More comon than house demolitions were other kinds of intrusions into refuges’ homes, such as house searches and arests of family members. During the intifada al-aqṣa, there was an increasing number of arests caried out in the camp, often at night. Virtualy every house 142 had ben searched by the Israeli army. Such trespasing of boundaries and encounters with representatives of the ocupation in people’s homes mean that home ofers no real security for people in Dheishe, at least not in any unambiguous way. A 15-year-old scholboy, Ziad, recaled a house search in 202 with the folowing words: [The soldiers] didn’t leave any house in the camp during the 40 days invasion [i.e. Operation Defensive Shield]. I woke up from the noise. First, they put us in another rom. They tok my father and tied him up - he showed them al the roms and told them what we used each of them for. They got to the cupboard; he said that this is where we put the trousers. They found trousers in there with camouflage paterns. I had ben at a sumer camp and the trousers were from the sumer camp. They tok me to one rom and started to question me. I didn’t answer. They tok the trousers and left. They only tok the trousers and the jacket that went with it. They started at 6 o’clock in the morning and left at 10 in the morning. […] We were al woken up. My youngest brother, they woke him up with a machine gun. Sometimes house searches had ben experienced mainly as humiliation. Hanan and Ahmed had a newly decorated living rom; their salôn was not a separate rom but open to the kitchen and dining rom. Ahmed proudly showed it to me. The unusual stylishnes of the flat had aparently also ben noted by some Israeli soldiers who had searched the couple’s home during one of the army invasions in 202. Acording to Ahmed, the young Israeli soldiers had taken a picture of themselves in their living rom while Ahmed and Hanan with their children had ben forced to stand outside in the rain, waiting to be alowed back into their home. ‘This was the first time the soldiers came to my house without aresting me’ said Ahmed. Like many other Palestinian men in their late twenties or early thirties, Ahmed belongs to what is sometimes caled ‘the lost generation’. Men of this age were in their tens during the first intifada and many of them had ben arested, imprisoned and even tortured. Having one’s house searched is an experience that residents have ben sharing for years and that forms part of the social memory of the camp, but violations of homes sometimes had consequences that the Israeli army could hardly have intended. Abu Amir, for instance, explained how the brutality Israeli soldiers used during house searches in 1967 was what made him decide to become politicaly active and to engage in armed resistance. A Stage for Empowerment Home may not only provide a stage for fear and humiliation but may also be a place for the development of felings of empowerment, especialy during the previous uprising (cf. Gren 201). Um Mustafa regularly came back to events that she had experienced during the first uprising. Her husband had then ben working abroad and she had ben living alone with her children. On 143 a number of ocasions she had fought soldiers in or nearby her home to save one of her children from being arested or harmed. Just before I was due to leave the camp after my first six months there, she came to talk to me about the first uprising. It was a story for my study, she insisted. She then told me about a day on which the soldiers had ben chasing her oldest son, who was only 14 years old at the time. The boy had run into his house, to the bedrom, to hide. The women of the extended family, including the boy’s sisters who were also in their tens, had protected the boy from the soldiers with their own bodies. Her son had already told me this story, so I knew its sad ending; the soldiers had managed to arest the boy and they had beaten him badly while he was in custody. Um Mustafa also recounted how she at another ocasion had managed to rescue her tenage daughter from sufocation by draging her out from under a group of soldiers who had thrown themselves on top of her. The girl, who is now a maried mother of five, had remained blue for a wek after this event. One of Um Mustafa’s sons joked with me about these stories, ‘Do you understand now that being in prison was sometimes a rest for me! This is how it was at home!’ Despite the sufering that Um Mustafa refered to in these stories, she also told them in a tone that sugested nostalgia for ‘the god old days’. She laughed with her son as she talked and it reminded of how other people in other contexts tel les violent family stories. Her resistance of the soldiers, however futile, gave Um Mustafa a sense of empowerment in the face of their invasion of her home. In her narative, she reframed her limited ability to stop the invasion of her home as wel as her family’s sufering into acts of resistance and means of coping. As Bowman (201) notes, los and victimization have often ben interpreted and rendered meaningful as elements of a prestige economy. ‘In this potlatch-like counter-economy, status acrued to those who ‘gave frely’ (and agresively) to the enemy’ (ibid.: 51). House searches in Dheishe engendered fear and humiliation but they could also become ocasions to resist the ocupation and to gain resistance capital. Geting By Through Sociality and Reciprocity While Taysir was building, the family’s chickens and quails wandered frely through the kitchen-to-be. This rom also contained a hatcher that made sure there were always new birds hatching. His mother Um Mustafa fed the birds every day: vegetables, leftovers or some of the unapetizing rice the UNRWA was distributing for fre. Once in a while the family would eat some of the birds for diner. Taysir tok care of the slaughtering and then brought the birds to the kitchen where his mother and sisters waited with boiling water to pluck them. The chickens were 144 then distributed among the households of the extended family. Taysir’s household-to-be was thus already contributing a litle to the livelihod of his extended family 179 . * Like other Dheisheans, Taysir was conected to a wide web of social relations, especialy kin, and these relations implied mutual obligations. The urgent ned of suport in dificult times interact with cultural imperatives of sociality, reciprocity and comunity. For decades of hardship, Palestinian kin relations have constituted a crucial ingredient in counteracting social disintegration and economic deprivation in exile (Rosenfeld 204; Ghabra 1987). Kinship has ben given special prominence because relatives are considered to be those one can rely on (cf. Petet 195: 169). However, with the dificulties of maintaining contact with relatives outside of the local area, family ties and obligations are often put in jeopardy and the norms of kin solidarity are not always upheld. The House as a Kinship Unit Observation of the everyday lives lived in a household ofers a window onto the local significance of kinship. In procesual understandings of kin relations, the ‘house’ has often ben taken as point of departure when investigating everyday understandings and practices of kinship (Carsten 204: 36). In Dheishe, ‘the house’ or dâr in Arabic 180 , had multiple meanings and the word for house was also used to denote a family, a corespondence that is comon in many other contexts (ibid.: 46). Taysir lived with his parents and unmaried siblings in his father Muhamed’s household, dâr Muhamed. The polite way to addres his father was as Abu Mustafa; thus people outside the closest circle of kin and friends refered to the household as dâr Abu Mustafa. A household typicaly consists of a maried couple and their children, but an elderly parent may also live with them. Households may also comonly be composed of a widow or widower with unmaried or divorced children. In everyday interactions I observed in Dheishe, the word dâr could also be 179 Many people in the camp had similar strategies; they had birds, most often chickens, or maybe a goat. Depending on the size of land a family could use in the camp, some inhabitants had a smal garden for subsistence cultivation or for flowers. Some families, especialy in the more spacious part of the camp uphil, had quite big gardens, while others did not have any garden at al. Subsistence cultivation used to be more important in the camp in the past when the population growth had not forced people to build on al the land they held. As we wil discus further ahead cultivating also caried symbolic meaning for these former peasants. 180 There is another word for house and family, bayt, which was les comon in everyday language in Dheishe. Acording to one of my informants, camp refuges in general prefered the word dâr instead of bayt. Sayigh (205: 2) who works among Palestinians in Lebanon claims there is litle diference betwen dâr and bayt, although dâr implies social importance and is a more polite way to refer to others. A Fafo report (194: 51) describes the historical diference betwen the two Arabic words for home as folows: ‘The peasant house, the bet [bayt], had one rom. When the sons maried more roms were aded, each with separate dors. The house turned into a compound household, a dar.’ There is another les frequent word for house, manzil, which literaly means ‘where I steped down’. 145 used more inclusively to refer to an extended family. Dâr Muhamed belonged to an extended family, which was frequently refered to as dâr Abdl Rahmin (i.e. their family name) 181 . Such patrilineal extended family idealy consists of a parental household and their sons’ households, although there is great flexibility in living arangements in reality. The boundaries betwen households in the extended family are not always clear-cut. Generaly speaking, a household wil have its own entrance and kitchen, but close relatives from diferent households often cok together or share meals. In times of economic hardship in particular, the budgets of the households of an extended family may no longer be kept separate. In my experience, members of an extended family, especialy children, wil sometimes slep in another member’s household and people, especialy men, wil hapily help themselves to fod in the fridge of a relative’s kitchen. This kind of sharing of acomodation and fod establishes relatednes and organizes the relationships betwen diferent households of an extended family. Today in Dheishe, as elsewhere in the Palestinian teritories, an extended family often shares one building in ‘a kin-based living arangement’ (Johnson 206), although each household unit wil have its own flat, kitchen and entrance 182 . Extended families with many members tend to ocupy several buildings in the same neighbourhod and this makes them both kin and neighbours. Normaly, a woman moves into her husband’s family home but other solutions are comon for practical reasons and because of the political situation, such as restricted mobility 183 . As elsewhere, the establishment of new households in the West Bank requires flexibility. There is a trend in the ocupied teritories towards increasing independence of each nuclear household; about thre-quarters of Palestinian households have ben estimated to be nuclear (Johnson 206: 92). However, the vulnerability of many households may be aresting this trend. A newly maried couple may not be able to establish their own household due to unemployment and imprisonment. In Palestinian society, there is both a concern to kep close relations with kin by living nearby and a trend towards greater household autonomy, strengthening of the nuclear family (Mors 195a). Palestinian extended families also belong to patrilineal descent groups, ḥamâyel (plural) or ḥamûla (singular), which are descended from ythical ancestors from several hundred years ago 181 An extended family is also often caled ‘eile. 182 The patrilocal household structure has slightly changed in Palestinian society which is probably due to political developments as wel as a more general proces of modernization; back in the vilages before 1948, and for many years after, maried sons with their wives used to stay in a separate rom in the house of the husband’s parents. The diferent nuclear units used to share kitchen and other facilities (Fafo 194). 183 The living arangement of one of the families I interviewed was for instance an exception from the virilocal norm. They had bought their house from the wife’s father when he moved out from the camp to the vilage Doha. In this house, they also had a smal busines. However, the husband’s extended family was living nearby in the same neighbourhod. Another informant from the camp was planing to establish a new household in Ramala where he was employed, since comuting through checkpoints and roadblocks was such a hazle. 146 (Tuastad 197). These have sometimes ben refered to as clans in English. The members of the ḥamûla that Taysir belonged to were spread out in the ocupied teritories and some of them lived in Jordan and others inside Israel. Tuastad (197: 13) sugests that among Palestinian refuges the ḥamûla has ben fragmented and is no longer the operative category that it used to be in the vilages prior to 1948. As a consequence of flight and dispersal, Taysir’s family had lost contact with many relatives who had remained inside Israel. At the same time, various factors work to counteract fragmentation. The dispersed members of Taysir’s ḥamûla, who had ended up in the West Bank, stil constituted a functioning kin group; for instance if a relative living in another nearby refuge camp pased away, the West Bank part of the ḥamûla colected money to suport his family 184 . Other relatives, in Jordan or in European countries for instance, would sometimes visit Dheishe and might also contribute something to the mutual suport systems. Ideals and Reality of Kin Unity The oficial ideology of the Palestinian extended family envisions the relationships within the patrilineal group as those of cohesion, solidarity and mutual comitment (Sa’ar 201: 723) 185 . Individuals and households form part of networks of relatives and neighbours and within these networks they are dependent on reciprocal exchanges that give economic and social advantages. Without close relatives, Palestinians become extremely vulnerable. This is also related to the lack of a developed state-funded social security system. As was discused earlier, Taysir’s unemployment implied a heavy dependence on his relatives to finish his house, but also for daily subsistence. To his siblings’ anoyance, Taysir kept asking them for money to buy cigaretes and for other smal daily expenses. Usualy, though, his family nevertheles obliged. Palestinian families are in general highly structured acording to age and gender. A person’s moral obligations as wel as what kind of suport one can expect depend on how old a person is and on being a male or a female. Baxter (207), who caried out fieldwork among Palestinians in Jerusalem and vilages in the West Bank, notes that brothers in particular had many obligations towards their sisters that became observable in everyday life. ‘Colectively, the brothers were expected to be actively engaged with their sisters’ lives. They were to guide, care for, suport, and materialy provide for them’ (ibid.: 762). Such understandings of male obligations and care were 184 This kind of patrilineal descent group has a tendency to fision with time; it is posible that this division would have ocured even without al-nakba. As Carsten (204) notes kinship is also more often a procesual mater than a static. 185 This Palestinian understanding of beneficial outcomes of strong family ties contrasts with blanket characterizations such as ‘patriarchy’ prevail when describing social life in the Midle East (cf. Baxter 207). As Singerman (197: 16), who caried out ethnographic fieldwork among the popular clases in Cairo, has noted local everyday life among Arabs in general contains much more negotiations, bargaining and flexibility concerning family ideals and values than prejudices indicate. 147 also present in Dheishe. As wil become clear later in this study, Palestinian men met increasing dificulties in living up to the social expectations as providers and protectors asociated with their male gender role. Female-headed households might also find themselves dependent positions, lacking social as wel as material resources (cf. Hasiba 204; PCBS 207a: 16; Sa’ar 201). One case was a woman with several young children who was widowed during my fieldwork. Idealy, a widow is suported by her husband’s brothers, but this woman’s late husband did not have any brothers living in the West Bank. The widow herself had health problems, which made it dificult for her to work. Neither could her youngest children have managed alone at home if she had ben employed. Luckily her natal family, her brothers and sisters who were refuges living in Bethlehem, could help her and her children with daily expenses though she remained por. This culturaly ascribed ideal is, however, not always practised. Although Dheisheans have strong kinship bonds, relationships in camp families are not always as harmonious as the case described above of the widow hose siblings helped her. Problems betwen close relatives are comon and the reciprocal benefits these relations are suposed to give are sometimes absent. One may punish or ignore some family members by refusing to help them with household tasks, fod, loans, suport or visits. Some relatives refuse to speak to one another altogether. A woman who was maried to a man with serious health problems was, for instance, refused financial help by reasonably wel-of brothers. During my fieldwork, I was aware that male family members ocasionaly fought violently. Secret romances also caused tension; young women and men could find themselves in serious trouble with their families if it was discovered that they had a boyfriend or girlfriend. Ruptured relations within the family may, though, be repaired if a conflict erupts betwen two families 186 . The Ned of Proximity to Uphold Obligations It is important to acknowledge the socialy constructed nature of kinship ties even in a society such as the Palestinian, where blod relations are often discursively underlined. As Rothenberg (204: 86) writes, proximity is central to the practices of afirming kinship and for enforcing familial ties and obligations. With continuous dispersal of Palestinian families and restricted mobility, which hinder the maintenance of relations with kin outside the local area, these ties and obligations are often weakened. When Um Hasan’s brother died in Jordan her grief was mixed 186 To fuly grasp the dynamics of suport and conflicts in Palestinian families a much more lengthy discusion is neded than I can provide here. For more detailed studies about Palestinian family dynamics, se Mors (195a), Sa’ar (201, 206) and Baxter (207). Joseph (199) has also writen extensively about such isues in the context of Lebanon. 148 with frustration at not being able to travel to Aman for the funeral because the Israelis would demand a travel permit and it would take weks to try and obtain one. The economic situation also made it dificult for people to suport one another the way they would have liked to. In the camp, neighbours tend to become almost as important as relatives. Neighbours who are on god terms help each other in various ways, show solidarity at funerals, celebrate weddings and the release of prisoners, lend money to one another, share fod and information and help resolve conflicts. The social cohesion of the camp is acordingly created by proximity, choice and sentiments (cf. Rothenberg 204). Chosing who to interact with is not always an individual mater though; women and younger men may be instructed by their male relatives to avoid contact with particular families if the men have ben in conflict over influence and authority in the camp. Sometimes people obey and sometimes they do not. One is seldom alone in a house in the camp. This is partly a question of crowding but partly also of sociability. Many families I met had numerous members and there were often visitors. Most of these guests would be members of the extended family. For instance, two of Hanan’s sisters were living with their children and husbands near her house and the sisters visited each other almost daily. This geographical proximity made everyday visits easy. Sisters in particular also helped each other with household duties (se also Rothenberg 204). For instance, some months into Hanan’s third pregnancy, the doctor ordered her to rest and her youngest unmaried sister, who lived in their father’s house at the other end of the camp, came by every day after work to help Hanan with the housework. At other times, Hanan and her maried sisters would lok after each other’s children. In the camp, relatives may be both neighbours and friends. An individual’s parents and siblings or in-laws may live in the same building and uncles or other close family members may live acros the stret. As many people also tend to mary someone from the camp, other relatives often live nearby. Sayigh (205: 10) also notes that the boundaries of homes in Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon, as is also the case in the West Bank, are strikingly diferent from those of homes in northern Europe. Palestinian homes are not characterized, in Sayigh’s words, by the ‘unbreachable boundaries of individual privacy and exclusion’ of the members of a household but, on the contrary, are open to members of the extended family and to close friends and neighbours. For instance, on a number of ocasions I was woken up in the morning by some visitor siting on my bed, wanting to talk with either my host-sister or me, or by some children from the extended family playing in the rom 187 . 187 There are although limits to this openes. It is not anyone who can walk into the bedrom in another household, but it is a question of kinship and gender as wel as relatednes. 149 In Dheishe, kin relations and other social relations were relatively dynamic and it was evident that closenes and samenes neded to be recreated and maintained on a regular everyday basis. Also, at the time of my fieldwork, mutual suport had become more restricted to relatives who lived close to one another because of limited mobility. Feding Relationships and Morality Social networks do not only have economic advantages that are important in times of crisis but they are also infused with cultural values. Demonstrating one’s sociality by being a god host is also a way of displaying Palestinian-nes as it is understod in the camp and in other lower clas areas. Hospitality is closely related to morality and being a ‘god’ Palestinian. It is also used as a social marker in contradistinction to middle and uper-clas Palestinians as wel as Christians in the area. Mustafa, for instance, jokingly described a ‘Bayt Jala diner’, refering to the predominantly Christian town nearby, as a meal at which you were not served fod. An adult Palestinian neds a home in which to receive guests and show hospitality. People’s memories of vilage life before al-nakba also stres how hospitality infused daily life. In the lost vilages there were for instance public spaces or houses where guests used to be received 188 . Today, in the camp no such comunal guesthouses exist any more but camp residents find other ways to receive guests. Depending on its economic situation, each household or extended family has a reception rom with some sofas and armchairs and cofe tables where guests are entertained. Some families canot aford any furniture but just put matreses or simple plastic chairs in this rom. The folowing ethnographic description shows how kin relations are re-established and maintained by visiting, showing hospitality and eating together. When I came back to the camp after a visit to Bethlehem early one afternon in late July 203, I found the kitchen ful of women from the extended family of my host’s household. They were busy preparing lunch. The sofas in the TV rom were ocupied by women and children I did not know. The fact that they were siting in the TV rom and not in the reception rom indicated that they were close to their hosts. I later learned that these women were relatives of my host family and that they came from the same vilage but were now living in another refuge camp in the West Bank. They had come to visit unanounced. There was an elderly lady, her thre daughters in their thirties, a tenage grandaughter and a number of young children. As they waited for lunch, the adults and the tenage girl were served swet tea with mint leaves. Some of the men from my host family entertained the guests, 188 Those guesthouses were caled diwan, madafah, diwaniye or sahah. They were meting places for related kin groups that existed and stil exist in many Arab societies (Slyomovics 198: 137). 150 sharing news about relatives. Both the women and the children were dresed up in smart new clothes and none of them made any efort to help the women in the kitchen. Their visit Dheishe was clearly a special ocasion. Although they lived not to far from each other, these relatives had not sen each other for a long time because of the ‘situation’. ‘Not since Ramadan in November’, explained my host-brother, which made it eight months. The curfews and checkpoints on the road and general disorder made the short trip risky and bothersome 189 . When the fod was ready al the women and children went to eat in the rom inside. There, lunch was served on a big plate that was placed on an oilcloth spread out on the flor betwen some matreses where they guests could sit. This is where the members of this household eat on special ocasions, for example at Ramadan. The guests ate sparingly of the makloba (a dish of chicken, rice and fried vegetables), while their hosts urged them to take more and placed the choices pieces of chicken in front of them. When we had al finished, the women of the house began to colect the plates and spons, but this time the adult women from the other camp, with the exception of the elderly lady, decided to help. One of them tok care of al the dishes. * Eating together afirms relationships and comunity; the Palestinian anthropologist Kanana (personal comunication) explained that ‘otherwise something is mising’ at a Palestinian family reunion. Even though relatednes is normaly expresed through blod ties in Palestinian society, these ties must be reafirmed through practices such as comensality. Several Arabic proverbs also alude to the links betwen fod and relatednes. ‘Sharing bread and salt’ is used to comunicate closenes. In the case above, Palestinian norms of hospitality, which include the serving of fod, served to maintain the relatednes of kin who came from the same vilage but lived apart. The fact that the guests also helped in the kitchen after finishing their meal also expreses closenes and women who were not related would probably not have ben alowed to help. The women of my host-family here confirmed their ability to show hospitality and they acted out their femalenes. Coking and serving fod are ways to display female virtues (cf. Malmström 209). These women thus proved themselves to be moraly god women (se also chapter 9). Domestic practices such as fod production have also played a role in politicized resistance strategies in Palestinian society. During the first uprising homemade or localy produced fods replaced blacklisted Israeli products (Jean-Klein 201). For instance, women 189 By the end of July 203 the political situation had temporarily become a litle calmer in the south of the West Bank, the arests and unpredictable kilings were les frequent and the Israeli soldiers were not so rough and strict in the checkpoints as they had ben some months earlier. On the news we could folow the negotiations about the road map. Even if no one in the camp semed to like or acept the road map which was said to dismis the refuges’ right of return, the mere apearance of some sort of peace plan opened up posibilities for ordinary people to move more easily betwen the towns of the West Bank and gave them al some much neded time to breath and fel a relative calm. 151 started to bake al the bread their families consumed. The fact that many women I met repeatedly pointed out that their bread was homemade may be understod in the light of this political and moral discourse. Fod therefore caries multiple conotations to both politics and family life. The women’s eforts in the kitchen also ‘spiled over’ to the male members of the family, displaying the hospitality of the whole extended family. This was clear when my host-family coked for the house of a mourning family – the men of my host-family negotiated the right to cok for visitors to the mourning household on a specific day folowing the death while the women did the coking. Many people in Dheishe found it dificult to live up to ideals of hospitality with their strained economies. It was also dificult to met one’s relatives in other local areas since movement in the West Bank was restricted. Visiting family in Gaza was unthinkable. There was consequently a strong desire for comunity, solidarity and reciprocity that would give people a sense of security and trust in one another. This desire was thwarted by displacement, imobility, economic deprivation and the violence asociated with the political situation. To sum up this chapter, it may be said that everyday life in Dheishe informs us about the profound efects of the Israeli ocupation. Many of the refuges’ eforts to establish homes are hindered by or delayed because of Israeli policies. The resilience that camp inhabitants can cultivate by drawing upon social networks of kin and establishing a ‘normal life’ by becoming a maried parent is limited, though people continue to try. Many camp residents are also frustrated by the fact that they canot be as generous as cultural ideals prescribe. In addition, their atempts to make homes also create dilemas; the neds of the nation are not necesarily the same as the neds of a family or an individual. As they try to make their homes, people try to find a balance betwen pragmatism and nationalistic demands made of them as Palestinians and as emblematic camp refuges. Perhaps most significantly, Dheisheans showed steadfastnes, a concept that wil be discused in the coming chapters, by (re-)building houses in spite of threats of house demolitions and by having children in spite of their fear of losing them. The next chapter discuses the dilema people face when they establish new homes outside the camp while stil imagining a return to their vilages inside Israel. 152 153 7. Return and the Desire for Rots Siting on the stairs one evening outside Taysir’s unfinished apartment, he, my field asistant and I hapened to overhear a young woman’s private phone cal to her husband in prison. Taysir comented that if posible he would leave the camp. I asked where he wanted to go. He said ‘Anywhere. It’s always like this; that the neighbours hear what you say among yourselves.’ I said ‘But there are people in the camp who claim that you must stay in the camp to get back your vilages, to get back Ajour [i.e. his vilage]?’ He answered: ‘Ajour is a dream, shut your eyes. I want something in my hand.’ * This chapter wil focus on the tensions brought about by the interminable temporarines of camp life and the increasingly distant hope of return to original vilages. It develops a theme from the previous chapter concerning the conflicting demands on Dheisheans as members of families and kin groups, on the one hand, and as politicaly charged members of the Palestinian nation on the other. The dilema, especialy for the younger generation, is about whether (and how) to remain true to ideals of return and roted-nes or to sek out other options by making new lives outside the camp and thus relinquishing one’s identity as ‘camp refuge’. The notion of steadfastnes (ṣumud), demonstrated by staying on the land, is central to this dilema. This chapter examines ‘return’ as part of a multifaceted discourse among Palestinian refuges. It wil examine this discourse and delineate the diferent and sometimes ambivalent positions that Dheisheans take on return in its complex political, material, moral and existential dimensions. Naratives that promote return are interpreted in thre ways. Some naratives uphold return as a means of political resistance and protest against Israeli policies of expulsion; return makes a claim to moral redres and justice. Others argue for return as an existential remedy to Dheisheans’ temporary condition as camp refuges. For these, returning home would be an end to the refuge cycle and a ‘normal’ order would finaly be re-established. Yet other naratives sek to comand or renegotiate the future. This stance may be understod by reference to Bourdieu’s (200) concept illusio, the infusion of hope for people in desperate circumstances and with limited scope for action. These naratives are al coloured with the tension that permeates the lives of al the Dheisheans in this study – the tension betwen life in transition and life as a strugle to achieve normality and permanence. The Refuge Isue and the Right of Return One day in Jerusalem, the English edition of an Israeli wekend suplement caught my atention. The front page of the Jerusalem Post caried a photo of a young Palestinian boy with a sign in his hand that was shaped like a huge 154 key. The text underneath the image said ‘Key to Destruction’ (Jerusalem Post, Upfront, June 18 204). The key has become a symbol of the Palestinian right of return and many refuges claim to have saved the key to their abandoned houses. Metaphoricaly, the right of return may be interpreted as the key to both the refuge isue and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The word destruction under the photo in the Israeli newspaper refered to Israeli fears about returning Palestinian refuges. * The future of the Palestinian refuges is one of the most dificult isues to be resolved in Israeli- Palestinian negotiations 190 . Various eforts to addres this isue have ben made since the onset of the peace proces in the early 190s, but years of violence and the breakdown of the proces have probably hardened atitudes and damaged confidence and trust (se e.g. Brynen 208). A solution to the refuge predicament therefore sems remote. The UN General Asembly Resolution 194 (II), 1 December 1948, which is most frequently refered to when discusing the refuges’ right of return (ḥaq al-‘awda in Arabic), states as folows: Resolves that the refuges wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours should be permited to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those chosing not to return and for los of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made god by the Governments or authorities responsible. Apart from repatriation and compensation, peace and responsibility are key words in this resolution. The quest of Palestinian refuges to return to their homes prior to al-nakba is not only a demand for the implementation of a legal and moral right but it has also become a significant part of Palestinian national identity and it symbolizes Palestinian history. Return, ‘awda in Arabic, plays an important role in colective and individual imaginings of the homeland and of Palestinian-nes. Much Palestinian poetry and fiction link political aspirations to individual concerns in the longing to return to the homeland (se e.g. Slyomovics 198). Among Palestinians, the name ’awda has ben adopted for a range of phenomena in daily life such as a newspaper, a fotbal team, a dance group as wel as several mosques (Isotalo 205: 51). Although it forms the basis of patriotic mobilization, the refuge isue has ben repeatedly postponed in peace negotiations and was excluded from the Oslo agrements, and this created resentment and biternes among Palestinian refuges (Lindholm 203a). In 191for instance the refuge isue was treated separately from other isues and was refered to a ‘Refuge Working 190 Other core isues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are beyond the scope of this study are setlements, control over borders and water resources as wel as the status of Jerusalem. 155 Group’, which argued for an improvement of living conditions for those displaced, in particular for those outside the ocupied teritories, and for increased aces to family reunification 191 (Shiblak 209: 6f; Masad 206: 16; Hamer 205: 8-93). The Palestinian leadership has rhetoricaly maintained the undisputable right of return of the refuges, with reference to UN resolutions, but, in practice, demands have ben modified over the years. For instance, Masad (206: 15) argues that when a two-state solution (i.e. with a Palestinian state solely in the West Bank and Gaza along side Israel) became more aceptable to part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970s, it also became dificult to se this as compatible with the implementation of the right of return (se also Pape 204: 151). It is, however, unlikely that a Palestinian leader would sign any document that oficialy surendered this right (Shiblak 209: 8). More recently, the Palestinian negotiators as wel as individual politicians and intelectuals have proposed a colective homecoming to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip instead of an individual right of return to a person’s particular place of origin (Lindholm 203a: 14f). This proposition excludes repatriation to vilages and towns inside Israel and it has provoked the Palestinian public (Hanafi 206; Isotalo 205: 58f). On the other hand, a solution built on a single, bi-national state that is shared by Israelis and Palestinians and would manage refuges returning to its teritory has ben discused mainly in Israeli and Palestinian Leftist circles in the past and sems to have re-emerged recently 192 . Despite claims that a colective political identity and shared experiences of ocupation had become more significant building blocks in Palestinian national identity than the right of return (Bisharat 197), Palestinian refuges began to mobilize for return in 195 and 196 193 . This self- mobilization ocured after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in parts of the ocupied areas and as a reaction to the neglect of the refuge isue by the leaders. The refuge isue has, moreover, resurfaced at the heart of the debate since the failure of the Oslo proces (Sayigh 206). Today, there is a worldwide network promoting the right of return of Palestinian refuges through research centres, NGOs, conferences, campaigns as wel as e-mail lists and internet sites (ibid.). 191 Family reunification in most cases implies that Israeli authorities alow a Palestinian to reside legaly in Israel after mariage to an Israeli-Palestinian citizen. 192 A wel-known person who argues for a joint Israeli-Palestinian state today is Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian academic and writer who is based in Great Britain. 193 Several popular refuge conferences were organized by the refuge camps’ Union of Youth Center. One of these was held in Dheishe. Masad (206: 126) writes that ‘due to the diversity of opinions among refuges regarding relations to the PA [i.e. the Palestinian Authority] and the PLO, the conference program and recomendations were not implemented; as a result refuges have not ben able to elect their own leadership.’ 156 It is imposible to predict how many Palestinian refuges would actualy return to their families’ former homes and under what conditions (se e.g. Sayigh 206) 194 . Some scholars, notably Abu Sita (201), claim that it is practicaly fuly posible to return Palestinian refuges to areas inside Israel 195 and that this would, indeed, be necesary for achieving long-term peace. Sucesful repatriation however depends on many factors, such as employment, housing, family conections, social networks, security and standing before the law (Hanafi 208 in Shiblak 209: 9). It is also clear that Palestinian refuges themselves have ben left out of discusions of how to compensate and repatriate them. As in other unresolved political disputes, the refuges have become pawns rather than actors in the peace negotiations, reconstruction and power strugles that folow conflict (cf. Eastmond & Öjendal 197). Hanafi (206) sugests that it may be useful to distinguish betwen the material and the symbolic dimensions of the Palestinian right of return. While the first is about actual return to physical places and compensation for lost property, the later is more concerned with a proces of recognition as victims and with forgivenes and reconciliation. The right to chose betwen options may be crucial for the initiation of such a proces (ibid.). In addition to repatriation, these options, Shiblak (209) proposes, might include return to a Palestinian state, the right to enjoy equality and ful citizenship in host countries as wel as compensation for los of property. The right of return also caries moral conotations in Palestinian society and it is often discused in a highly rhetorical maner as a holy right. Return is usualy related to what is discused below as ‘an ideology of roted-nes’. Israeli Concerns Israeli political leaders argue that implementation of an actual repatriation of Palestinian refuges is out of the question since it would threaten the Jewish character of the Israeli state; the non- Jewish citizens would then be ‘to many’ 196 . Some Israelis question the legality of Palestinian refuges’ claims for return (e.g. Benvenisti 208) and it has ben argued in public debate in Israel that because Palestinians were the ones who started the war in 1948, Israel canot be expected to take responsibility for its costs (Gal 208). It has also ben claimed that since Jews have ben 194 Since return is an extremely sensitive isue in the Israeli-Palestinian context, I would like to underline that I personaly think that it was a serious mistake to not find a solution to the right of return within the Oslo agrements. I am also convinced that the ones concerned, namely the refuges themselves, have to be involved in these discusions. 195 Abu Sita (201) argues that the areas in and around former Palestinian vilages are largely uninhabited and unused and could therefore absorb returning refuges. 196 The UNRWA claims to have registered some 4.6 milion Palestinian refuges (UNRWA 208 in Shiblak 209: 3). Many other displaced Palestinians are not registered with the Agency. These refuges, many of whom are living under harsh conditions in camps in the Midle East, are considered a threat to Israel. Apart from Israeli Palestinians, there are also many non-Jewish labour migrants already living in Israel. 157 expeled from Arab countries 197 , there has ben a just ‘population exchange’ betwen Arabs and Jews and that Israel therefore has no moral obligation to acept the return of refuges (Pape 204: 146). The Israeli aproach in negotiations has this far ben to treat the right of return as ‘a symbolic political isue rather than an operational one’; claimed rights are thus asumed to cary no real geo-political meaning or constitute any threat to the Jewish-nes of the Israeli state (Gal 208: 5). Curently, Israel sems unlikely to acept the repatriation of more than a smal number of Palestinians to its teritory (ibid.). However, despite being excluded from the Oslo proces, the refuge isue has regained its position at centre stage, although the Israeli leadership sems overwhelmed by its complexity, by the number of actors involved and by uncertainty about the consequences of an agrement (ibid.). The Palestinian right of return also contrasts sharply with the Israeli Law of Return, acording to which only those of Jewish ancestry, born anywhere in the world, hold the right to setle in the Jewish state and to claim Israeli citizenship (Shafir & Peled 202: 145f). Continuous Jewish imigration is hence encouraged by Israel while Palestinian imigration and return is resisted. Dheishean Voices on Return Palestinians comemorate al-nakba on the 15th of May; this is also a day when they mobilize for the right of return. After my field asistant and I had ben to the anual demonstration in the camp in 204, I went to visit Um Mounsir and her adult but unmaried daughter Dalal. The two women were siting on the flor in front of the TV, preparing rols of vine leaves. I asked them why they had not joined the demonstration and Dalal said half-jokingly: ‘It’s over! Give us the money and we wil forget about it [i.e. our vilages/right of return]!’ Her mother also laughed. Dalal continued by saying that she did not want to live in the vilage anyway. She had earlier told me that she would prefer to live in Bethlehem because the camp was to crowded. Um Mounsir became serious and said ‘But I am from my vilage [baladi] and there, there are my father’s fields [‘ard]. His land is biger than the entire camp.’ As if to make sure that I had fuly understod, Um Mounsir repeated this last sentence twice. * This example shows how individuals of diferent ages may hold diferent views on the right of return. The elderly often wish to return, while the young are often ambivalent. Many younger camp residents, however, did not agre with Dalal but claimed to share older people’s desire to return; their statements were part of a wel-established rhetorical discourse in the Palestinian comunity. A person might hold an animated spech about the importance of the right of 197 Just as the expulsion of Palestinians has ben questioned, it has ben debated whether Jews who left Arab countries were expeled or left frely (e.g. Pape 204: 176f; Beinin 205). 158 return, but later admit to me in privacy that he could not imagine going back to live in a vilage although nobody should deny him his right to do so 198 . This kind of ambivalence did not stop children from becoming sentimental about ‘their vilage’; Samar’s 12-year-old daughter Yara, for instance, dreamily described how beautiful her vilage was after she had visited it with her paternal grandmother. In my experience, Dheishean families handled the transmision of memories of flight and vilage life in very diferent maners; some families consciously talked about their vilages and brought younger relatives on visits when the political situation alowed, others avoided reminding themselves of such sad isues (cf. Sayigh 1979). Vilage visits were used as pedagogic tols for learning about one’s origins and they were caried out also by the youth organization Ibdaa 199 . These temporary returns were ways of re-establishing links to vilage land. Imagining Return During my fieldwork, a Palestinian research institute published a pol about Palestinian refuges’ opinions on return 200 The sample was taken from Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The pol sparked violent reactions in the Palestinian comunity, especialy as the Israeli news media anounced the results as the ‘death of the right of return’. A US-based Palestinian website comented as folows: The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) dismised Monday, July 14, reports claiming that just one in 10 of the Palestinians expeled from their homes when Israel was created in 1948 want to return there, and atributing the findings to the Center, sparking angry and even blody reactions among Palestinians. Acording to the aleged findings of the survey, only 10 percent of Palestinian refuges in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan would consider seting up home in Israel and obtaining Israeli citizenship. Just 5.6 percent of those living in Jordan alegedly said they wanted to return to their pre-1948 homes, aparently because of favorable living conditions in the Hashemite kingdom. By contrast 23.2 percent of those living in Lebanon said they would favor that option and 12.6 percent in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Upon publishing the claimed results, angry protests from Palestinians were sparked Sunday. The furious protestors atacked the center at its base in the West Bank town of Ramalah. (ww.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20307141954989) A year later, when I was conducting group interviews, I decided to use this event as a starting point for discusions about the right of return. Mention of the pol sparked heated disagrement, 198 I never heard anyone argue against the right of return more generaly. Some said that they personaly did not want to live in a rural vilage, others that they did not think return would be posible. 199 One such trip was captured on film by Mai Masri in Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (201). 200 Se ww.pcpsr.org/survey/pols/203/refugesjune03.html 13.05.209 10.3. 159 particularly among some men betwen 30 and 45 years of age. Sharif, who had ben living abroad for many years but had come back to Dheishe some years earlier, upset his friends, including my field asistant, by sugesting that even les than 10 per cent of the refuges would return. Khaled: [T]his report is lying, it’s just lies. Abdalla: I want to tel you one sentence, just to ad to this. When we were kids my father brought us to [our vilage] Bayt Natif and he showed us the land, this is for this person, this land for this person, and I don’t know what. This is our land even if we lived in the camp. You se man, me or you, we never forget; it’s our homeland. To go back, we wil go back. Most of the Palestinians wil go back. Sharif: If al of you go back, where wil the Jews go, where wil the Israelis go? This one wil go to Bayt Natif, this one to Zakariya. Where wil the Israelis go? Khaled: They have to arrange it themselves. Abdalla: They wil go back also to France, to Holand, to Poland, to Germany. They should go back [to the countries they came from]. Sharif: If acording to Shikaki, 10 per cent want to go back, my feling, and I’ve ben living with the Palestinians for four years, tels me that there is only 2 per cent who wil go back to the vilages. Maybe 2 per cent wil go back. My father and your father. The old people. Anyone else? No, they won’t go back. Hasan: It’s not like this, the report. Listen! It’s not like this, Sharif. The one who has built a huge stone building, he won’t go back [He probably means A.] It’s not like this, the report! Abdalla: I’ve built a stone building. Sharif: The one who owns land here, he wil not go back [H and K own land]. Because when you [i.e. the vilagers] left Bayt Natif you were 30 families and now you are 70, so you won’t get two square centimetres there. Abdalla: I want to go back! I’l live on these two square centimetres. Sharif: Nobody wants to go back. And if they ofer you 70 00 dolars for each UN [refuge] card, the first ones who wil give up their cards are me and you and him. […] This is my opinion and what I have realized here is that people talk about the right of return only in the media. The right of return has failed since you left there. Khaled and Field asistant [both angrily]: It’s not true. […] Sharif: Abdala, we are holding a straw, like someone who is drowning in the sea and catches a straw – wil it save him? Abdalla: You’re [stil] holding! Why do you think that Israel is a powerful state? Go away, man! Israel won’t be for long! [The Israelis] are living in an ocean [of Arab states] and this ocean wil revolt. This animated quarel highlighted a number of isues related to the right of return, to steadfastnes and ideas about rots: pragmatic considerations (such as where the Israelis would 160 go; that housing and investment strategies had weakened interest in returning; and the generational diferences concerning return) were oposed to a rhetorical insistence on return to the vilages. Sharif, however, felt that this insistence was a ‘false’ promotion of Palestinian determination to media representatives 201 . The discusion also contained undercurents of blame and questioning of each other’s ideas about where to setle. Abdala was in fact living outside the camp, in a multi-storey building in Doha, and Hasan argued that a person who had built such house in the West Bank would never return. As far as I know, Khaled and Hasan also owned land outside the camp and Sharif argued that people with land would not go back. Khaled had also bought an apartment in town and had told me that he was thinking of moving to this place permanently. The discusion thus fluctuated betwen blaming, rhetoric, pragmatism and hope of future change. Layla, who was moving out of Dheishe, questioned whether leaving the camps was realy an isue when it came to the implementation of the right of return. In her opinion, refuge-nes was verified by UN registration, not by where one resided: ‘Even if you don’t live in the camp, you wil stil have the [UN] card. […] This proves that we are refuges whether we live in camps, in Bayt Jala or Doha - the card proves we are refuges’. Samar added that even ‘if you live in Sweden but you have a UN card, this means that you are stil a refuge and you wil return’. My informants had not actualy read the report refered to above, they had just heard about it on TV or read about it in newspapers. In the report it is clear that the 10 per cent who would go back refer to a return to an Israeli state in which they would either become Israeli citizens or not. This was probably considered to be a choice betwen two evils: to forego return or to return to an Israeli state and jump into ‘the bely of the beast’. 25 year-old University student Walid doubted the statistics and suspected that the survey had ben caried out incorectly, though he added that the results could also reflect the political situation. He sugested that another political development would have yielded diferent results: I want to return to my country or my vilage, but I don’t want Sharon to rule me or the Israeli government to rule me. […] If we go back we have to get al of our rights, not only to go back to live there. […] [The Palestinians] think it’s so dificult to go back to our vilages since Israel is stil present. If there was one government, [a joint] Israeli-Palestinian, just one government, maybe. But [with] a Palestinian government and an Israeli government, there is no peace and there is no return. Maryam, Taysir’s sister, also said that she prefered living in the West Bank to returning to a vilage that was under Israeli control. 201 Foreign researchers have probably falen into the category of media representatives in people’s minds. It is posible that my informants’ insistence on return was encouraged by my presence. 161 Playing ‘devil’s advocate’, my field asistant and I gave a group of women, al maried housewives betwen 30 and 40 years of age, examples of how the circumstances in the vilage might be if they could go back; no services, no work, Israeli authority, relinquishing Palestinian pasports and posibly having a military camp outside the vilage. This scenario was taken from the reality of some Palestinian vilages inside Israel that remain unrecognized and denied services today 202 . Israeli Palestinians fal under Israeli authority, they do not have Palestinian pasports and until the late 1960s they were under military rule inside Israel. When Layla insisted that refuges would return even under these conditions, Samar exclaimed: ‘You say that but when you think about it, if you have children, would you stay in a vilage that you were forbidden to leave, forbidden to work, forbidden to eat or drink? How could we live? Would I go back to die? If this is the case, some people wil refuse to go back’. Their discusion also turned to the isue of hopelesnes: Zaynab: Is it true that there is a right of return? Layla: Of course there is. Zaynab: Yes, there is, but do we hope for this? This is the problem. Layla: We are dreaming of return. Zaynab: There’s a dream, and there are wishes, but is it realy going to hapen? That is the question. Layla: I just want to say, the statistics say that only 10 per cent want to return, but there’s no one who doesn’t dream of return, not even children; only those who are not patriots think of not returning. I think 90 per cent or 95 per cent of the people are patriots and want to return, and only 10 per cent are not patriots and don’t want to return and think that money [i.e. compensation] wil be beter. Even a child wants to return. Samar: But I think even colaborators want to return. Layla: No. Samar: Even those who are not patriots want to return, there’s no one who doesn’t want to return. The person who doesn’t want to return it is not because he wants money [as compensation]; he doesn’t want to return because there is no hope with return. The dream of returning to places of origin often constitutes an important element in diasporic identity formation, but it seldom leads to actual repatriation (e.g. Brubaker 205; Safran 191; Hamer 205). Dreaming therefore does not necesarily mean acting out one’s wishes but may be an unrealistic or self-deluding fantasy. Of the thre women, it was only Layla who kept on 202 Since these vilages are considered to have ben ilegaly established, the Israeli authorities do not provide services to the Israeli Palestinians who live there, despite the fact that they hold Israeli citizenship. 162 expresing hopes of return. The others agred that Palestinians wanted to return or to claim their rights to the land but said that people doubted whether there would be a chance to do so. In the report mentioned above, the majority of the respondents did not believe that Israel would acept the sugested solution, which was based on the stranded negotiations in Taba 200. Moreover, the refuges had more acute concerns about sustaining everyday life. Dheisheans were also woried that they would be expeled from their homes by force once again or that they would have to migrate in order to be able to provide for their families. I asked some informants to describe what they thought life would be like and what they would do if they went back to their vilages. Their descriptions mainly concerned whether or not it would be posible to live of farming. Khaled said that there was something inside him that drove him to farm the land. ‘If I returned to my vilage, I would start farming the land and I would live of this.’ Another young refuge man said that he dreamed of geting maried to his girlfriend and of building a smal house in his vilage where they could have chickens and some cultivated plots. Abu Wisam cited the example of a vilage close to the camp that had, against al odds, managed to reclaim some of the land that the Israeli authorities had taken in 1967. A limited number of vilagers had returned there and this made it posible to envisage repatriation for others. Many Dheisheans had also visited their home vilages; they knew that most vilage houses had ben destroyed and they knew hether there were Israelis living in their vilage or not. As West Bankers, they had also experienced Israeli society (its administration, military force and individual members) and they knew how Palestinians with Israeli citizenship lived. My informants therefore probably held more realistic views of repatriation than did most diaspora Palestinians. Palestinians who returned to the Palestinian teritories during the 190s from the US and the Gulf States had often ben disapointed because they had fostered unrealistic hopes about their homeland (Hamer 205). Repatriation is often complex and it may create new conflicts and disruptions (e.g. Long & Oxfeld eds. 204; Stefanson 203). Hamer (205) notes, for instance, the many tensions betwen Palestinian returnes and local residents that emerged in the West Bank after the Oslo acords. Conflicts erupted over isues as diverse as modesty, dres codes, language skils and benefits ofered by the PA to returning Palestinians. The returning Palestinians were also a heterogeneous group; their diferent places of exile had influenced them and women and men had diferent ways of explaining their reasons for returning and of relating to the national project (Isotalo 205). Many Palestinians who came back to the PA-controled areas also maintained a transnational lifestyle, held several citizenships and kept a number of homes. 163 Suming up, the isue of return condenses politico-ideological, material, moral and existential concerns for Dheisheans. It draws particular force from and in turn reinforces a Palestinian ideology of roted-nes. Understanding Return within an Ideology of Rotednes Rotednes is a recurent cultural theme in Palestinian naratives. Although scholars question the notion that humans actualy have ‘rots’ and that refuges are therefore uproted (Malki 192), ‘rots’ remain important for displaced groups and for nationalist ideologies. Sedentary agricultural peoples often have a sense of being roted in the soil (ibid.: 31) – this is the case for Palestinian camp refuges with their peasant backgrounds. It is often posible to trace a Palestinian’s origin centuries back through family legend and naming systems that consist of long strings of names (se e.g. Ashrawi 195: 132f; Schimel 197). Although the refuges in Dheishe have established new homes there, most would argue that the camp is neither their true home nor their ‘natural’ or ‘authentic’ place. Despite the pragmatics of emplacement and new belonging, a sense of ‘being out of place’ persists as one dimension of a multi-layered refuge identity. This perception of refuges as anomalies and strangers is also one reason for Palestinian stigmatization of refuges, particularly of those living in camps. Acording to Slyomovics (198: 174f), Palestinian poets often depict rural life and features of the landscape to emphasize the conection betwen Palestinians and the land. This poetic imagery feds into the political argument that denies any afinity betwen the Jews and the land. Comparing themselves to Israelis, Palestinians claim to have a more personal and material relationship to the land. A metaphor comonly used in Palestinian poetry is that Palestine is a beloved woman or a mother. This feminization of the land was evident even in early Palestinian and Zionist nationalism (Katz 196). The portrayal of the land as the object of men’s love and sacrifice transformed Palestinians into ‘real men’ (ibid.: 89f). Descriptions of Palestine as a conquered and colonized space may also be given gender conotations; Palestine has ben described as penetrated, raped, conquered and controled by foreign invaders (Slyomovics 198: 208). A more empowering metaphor is that of the land as a pregnant woman who gives birth to revolutionaries who wil fre the land (Kananeh 202). Many camp inhabitants expresed their love of the land in poetic, metaphorical terms. A 14-year-old girl who had visited her family’s vilage and whom I interviewed in 200 said: I visited my land twice. The first time I cried, I couldn’t stop myself. I thought: why don’t we come back, the land neds us. Why are we living in the camp? I saw old 164 tres from 1948 in the vilage. I wanted to bring them, to put them in the camp. But I don’t think they could survive in the camp, you’ve sen the situation in the camp. Return as Political Resistance As in Palestinian nationalism, Abu Wisam argued that the right of return is conected to the isue of statehod, to acknowledgement of refuges as victims and thereby to reconciliation: When they alow me to go back to my vilage they admit in front of the whole world that they have expeled me and that this vilage is my home, my land. [He sounds upset for the first time during the interview.] […] If the Israelis agre to my right as a refuge, in what they say is their state, these teritories they already say are Palestinian, so they must agre.. If they agre that I am from Deiraban, they cal it Bayt Shemish now, they wil agre that it is not Bayt Shemish, this is Deiraban and you can go back to Deiraban. They have to say it is Palestine, not Israel. […] We don’t want to talk about their right to be here; the Israelis have a right to be here, but not to rule this country. If they wil agre that we have a right to go back they wil [by extension] agre that they have no right to rule this country. For many Dheisheans, return was conected to a sucesful peace proces and an independent Palestinian state, whether this was established in the ocupied teritories or on Israeli teritory. Abu Wisam’s way of linking his own repatriation to macro-politics would apear to be a conscious atempt to resist Israeli control and historical naratives (cf. Sayigh 1979). Walid was aware of the debate in the international comunity about reconstruction in war- torn societies and he used it to argue for Palestinian return: ‘There are many countries that have refuges. They don’t ask them if they want to return or not. There is a political decision after [the conflict is] over – for them to go back. [This is m]y right that is given by international law’. The land and its people would idealy be restored with the refuges’ homecoming and they would be treated like ‘any other refuge population’. Moreover, Walid claimed that the right of return, which is often described as a holy right in Palestinian discourse, is not an individual right, but a colective obligation: ‘The right of return is not just a personal right. The right of return is everybody’s right, not acording to my mod. […] I should and I must return to my land.’ Such colective obligation was not easily evaded for individual refuges and also points at the right of return’s significance within Palestinian national identity; you wil not be considered a proper Palestinian refuge if you do not argue for the right of return. Countering Dishonour: A Symbolic Healing There is a tendency to se displaced people as problematic in moral terms (Malki 192). These views were also expresed by some Dheisheans; something was fundamentaly wrong with them 165 because they were not in the place where they had rots. They were, in Mary Douglas’ terminology (202) ‘mater out of place’, which implies impurity (cf. Malki 195a). In their own words, Dheisheans had lost something more than just land, livelihod, vilages and social relations – they had lost the moral qualities of dignity and honour. One of my informants, Khaled, cited the Palestinian proverb, ‘the honour of the one who leaves his home wil never be the same again’. Khaled explained that for him this meant that a person who leaves his home, his relatives and his friends wil lose some of the respect he would have enjoyed back home - in his ‘proper’ place. The dishonour of displacement and the importance of protecting one’s land figure in several Palestinian proverbs (cf. Warnock 190: 2). As Benevenisti (200: 247) explains, today al-nakba is sen as having forced people to chose betwen protecting their land and protecting their family honour (cf. chapter 4). ‘Reclaiming one’s land’ may therefore be understod partly as a means of recovering one’s honour. ‘I can’t believe I’m a refuge in my own land’ said Abu Wisam. In the curent situation in the West Bank, the humiliations the camp residents experienced, for instance at Israeli checkpoints, was felt to be a continuation of the disgrace that began with al-nakba. The restrictions upon their movements were related to ideas about rots (juzûr) and origins; not only did people risk encountering violence at checkpoints but Palestinians were in humiliating ways stoped in their own land, the land they belong to and which they argued to belong to more than the Israelis. Dheisheans saw themselves as the true owners of the country, while Israelis were sen as invaders or outsiders. Acording to this ‘ideology of rotednes’, the wounds of uproting may only be healed by returning to one’s rightful place. By returning ‘home’, the whel of displacement would turn ful circle; a normal order would be re-established. Elderly refuges would often say: ‘I want to be buried on my land’. Since it was imposible to bury refuges in their home vilage, the norm was to bury them among their own people, in an area of the local graveyard designated for the members of their vilage 203 . A young man in a neighbouring refuge camp told me how his uncle had brought earth back from his vilage because he wanted at least to have some soil from Bayt Jibrin with him in his grave. A sense of security would also suposedly be re-established in the home-vilage after return (cf. Petet 195: 171). Um Khaled, who told us about al-nakba in chapter 4, stated that she would return under any conditions. To her, return to the vilage meant security and peace and this contrasted sharply with the situation in the West Bank: 203 This is more complicated for maried women because they may be buried at the gravesite of their husband, who may not be from the same vilage. 166 I wil eat the sand and the leaves in my vilage (baladi). Eating the sand from our land is beter than eating muton here. First of al, the Jews kil the children here. They kil us again. Shut up! Return me to my vilage. I wil live in a cave, I don’t want anything else, I don’t even want a house, in the sumer I wil build a smal hut and in the winter I wil live in a cave. The most important thing for me is to slep al my nights in peace, to not have to wory about my children or anything else. […] I don’t want anything [else]. Acording to the ideology of rotednes, the refuges must return to their original places. In the meantime, patriotism for the refuges means staying in the camps, waiting for repatriation. The Ilusio of Return The strong nostalgia expresed by many people who are on the move is not necesarily best understod as a concrete desire to return (Jansen & Löfving 207). Home is made and remade on a daily basis to preserve continuity and comunity. Above, I have discused two ways of understanding Dheisheans desire for return – as a resistance strategy to counter Israeli superiority and as a way to end the liminality of refuge-nes. For some Dheisheans, return may be imagined as being brought about by divine intervention. This resembles what Bourdieu (200) refers to as ilusio. As Bourdieu (ibid.: 207) notes the stakes of the game, ilusio, are what give meaning and direction to existence, especialy in situations where agency is severely restricted. Ilusio is people’s way of acting strategicaly and consciously acording to a calculation of their chances of suces. This gambling is set in a social field, which Bourdieu cals the ‘field of a game’, which is structured by power positions within a certain space. A field is established through the practical strategies adopted by agents with diferent habitus, diferent amounts of capital and, consequently, unequal control over the forces of production (ibid.: 151). The relationships betwen Israelis and Palestinians may be sen as such a social field. When Palestinian refuges insist on the right of return this is an investment in the game with Israel. To risk making such a move, there must be at least a chance of suces (cf. Lindquist 206: 9f). Thus, the unconscious mode of ‘habitus may be acompanied by a strategic calculation tending to perform in a conscious mode’ (Bourdieu 190: 53). As long as the right of return has not ben finaly rejected in negotiations betwen the Israelis and the Palestinians, there remains hope that it wil be enforced. Many of my informants admited that actual return was a remote posibility. Trust in the political project was diminishing as both resistance and negotiations had esentialy failed and people were increasingly turning to religion for hope. Those Dheisheans who held onto a belief in a homecoming to their vilages also managed to kep a kind of virtual agency by projecting 167 their hopes onto the distant future. Layla, for instance, stated that the refuges would return through divine intervention (cf. Farah 199): The Koran says we wil return, there is prof of that. […] Even if you lose hope, Palestine shal return. This is what the Koran says, and it also says “Israel wil grow and reach great heights, but [its] fate wil be to crumble”. There is prof in the Koran that Palestine wil return. Besides, what was taken by force wil be reclaimed by force. 204 Abu Akram, Ahmed’s father, said that he did not mind living with the Israelis as long as he could go back to live in the place where he was born. When I asked him if he thought this would hapen, he answered ‘There is nothing strange in this life. God can turn the mountains upside down. He made kings fal, so it may be.’ These two people provide examples of how people with limited choices may move beyond resignation, by rhetoricaly and with reference to heavenly forces invest in a game of uncertainty that, for others, sems to ofer litle chance of suces (cf. Lindquist 206). Claiming the right of return was perhaps as much emotional as it was political risk-taking, even though it semed existentialy reasuring. When Dheisheans invested in activities such as reading Koranic verses that predicted their homecoming to their vilages they were concerned with investing in hopes about the future, in ilusio. When nothing is posible, everything becomes posible, writes Lindquist ‘as if al types of phantasmic discourses about the future – prophesies, divinations, predictions, milenarian anunciations – have a purpose in filing up the void in what is to come, creating the non- existent future – ofering the ilusory hope where the realistic one does not exist’ (206:10). Threats of social disintegration and misery tend to generate obsesion with chance and with violence, for instance through milenarian movements or dreams of wining the lotery. As wil be discused in chapter 10, investment in extreme politico-religious acts, such as suicide- bombings, may also be sen as strategic investment on behalf of the Palestinian colectivity. Staying in Camps and Remaining on the Land Palestinian refuges have argued that leaving the miserable conditions in the camps could be interpreted as an aceptance of their permanent expulsion and as giving up the right of return (Warnock 190: 140). The camp is the ultimate symbol of being diferent, of not belonging in the new place and it also symbolizes the rights of the Palestinians and their conections to Palestine (Lindholm 203a: 14f). It is posible to voice political claims because one lives in a camp (cf. al- Mawad 199 in Lindholm 203a: 15). 204 My informants could not tel me exactly where in the Koran you could read this. 168 Refuges’ atitudes to camp life and ocupation were frequently coloured by the notion of ṣumud, steadfastnes, which I discus further in the next chapter. Palestinians have long oposed Israeli dominance and represion through this strategy of endurance. In an environment in which the Palestinian presence is highly contested, staying rather than leaving represented one expresion of ṣumud. The fallâḥ or Palestinian peasant has ben fashioned as a symbol for this atachment to the land (Swedenburg 190: 21f). The houses in the camps have also ben refered to rhetoricaly as shelters (malja’) instead of houses, to acentuate their temporarines (Bisharat 197). Over time, however, the conection betwen improvement of living conditions (either in camps or outside of them) and political rights has weakened, although permanent resetlement remains a sensitive isue (Lindholm 203a: 16f). The insistence on refuges remaining in camps should also be viewed in the light of UNRWA’s work and Israel’s sugestions to resetle and rehabilitate Palestinian refuges 205 rather than repatriating and compensating them in acordance with UN resolutions (se e.g. Schif 195:214f; Hazboun 196). For instance, Moshe Dayan (then Israeli Defence Minister) stated in 1973: ‘As long as the refuges remain in their camps… their children saying that they are from Jafa or Haifa; if they move out of the camps, [our] hope is they wil fel atached to their new land’ (The Jerusalem Post June 13 1973 in Hazboun 196). Atempts to resetle Palestinian refuges more systematicaly have nevertheles failed. Abdala, a middle-aged businesman living in Doha, recaled an earlier Israeli atempt to resetle refuges in the Jordan valey (cf. Schif 195: 217; Hazboun 196) that had ben turned down by Palestinian leaders. ‘[T]he project was caled Ben Porat [i.e. an Israeli politician], if you’ve heard of it. They ofered to give us land [in the Jordan valey] and to build vilages that lok like the [Israeli] setlements and we would go to live there, but they kicked the Israelis out and they refused.’ On the other hand, Israeli asumptions that resetlement projects for camp refuges on the Gaza Strip would automaticaly dampen their wil to return are highly questionable (Hazboun 194). Palestinian refuge camps were established as temporary solutions to fed and shelter the displaced. They were not intended to function as permanent setlements (se e.g. Petet 205a). Linking this asumed temporarines to violence, Petet (195: 17) describes an oscilation betwen a sense of permanence and impermanence in Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon and the ocupied teritories: For a [Palestinian] child who grows up in a [Lebanese] camp, there is an air of permanency because it is the only home and way of life known, until it is rocketed by an asault by hostile forces that precipitates another uproting. For the parent or the 205 Some political parties in Israel have also argued for a transfer of refuges in the ocupied teritories as a ‘solution’ to their predicament (Hazboun 196). 169 young adult displaced two or thre times, refugehod is reafirmed. Any semblance of permanency is quickly and violently revealed to be ilusionary. Impermanence is also a daily reality for the refuges […] in camps in the ocupied teritories […] [who] fear they wil be the first ones to be “transfered” to Jordan if the Israeli Right is able to execute its plan to transfer Palestinians out of Palestine. During the intifada al-aqṣa rockets fel on camps in the ocupied teritories and many of my informants expresed fears of another exile. As explained in chapter 3 and building on Ron (203), I would say that the status of the West Bank and Gaza became more frontier-like, as is the case in Lebanon. The more Israel distanced itself from the teritories the more extensive the violence that was used. Impermanence became more pronounced. Petet (195) reasoned that in such a continuing proces of becoming a refuge, ‘not-belonging yet rebuilding shatered lives and homes, atempting trust and permanency on a day-to-day basis yet always asuming the eventuality of a Palestinian entity where one is no longer marginal, insecure’, positions the person betwen transition and permanency. In the ambiguous and insecure life of the refuge camp dreams of return are hardly surprising. It is nonetheles comon for Palestinian refuges to move out of camps in search of beter lives (cf. Fafo 194; Farah 199: 308f; Hazboun 194). This has met with disaproval; the PLO leadership oposed not only resetlement of camp refuges but also the improvement of living conditions in camps, at least until the Oslo period (Klein 198: 1). Also the League of Arab States advised its member states to give Palestinians social and economic rights (e.g. secure residency), although without giving them citizenship because they should maintain their refuge identity (Shiblak 209: 5). People in the ocupied teritories have also ben urged to stay in the homeland by the Palestinian leadership. For instance, PLO leader Yaser Arafat was quoted as having said: ‘If you only fight – that is a tragedy. If you fight and emigrate – that is a tragedy. The basis is that you hold on [to the land] and fight’ (Mishal & Aharoni 194:13 in Lindholm 199: 5). This kind of ṣumud or steadfastnes was also reflected in my informants’ acounts; Mounsir said: ‘To be on the land – that’s ṣumud!’ Staying, as oposed to leave, was an important especialy under political and economical dificulties as during the intifada al-aqṣa when many West Bankers, including Dheisheans, migrated or dreamt of new lives in other countries. Migration also has a long history in the camp, as it does elsewhere in the Palestinian areas (se also Hilal 206; Rothenberg 204). The search for livelihod and education had often led to relocations abroad; migration may be temporary or permanent. Staying has practical relevance in people’s lives. Samar, whose brother was studying abroad, reasoned: 170 If I run away because I’m bored here, bored with the fight, the soldiers, or even if I can’t find fod to eat or water to drink, and al I think of is having another nationality than Palestinian that is one thing. But when I go to study and bring back something that helps me and helps develop my country that is something else. It’s nice when I know that Palestine is mising something and I can bring it here through education and that’s harmles. There’s a diference betwen those who emigrate and never come back and those who go for education. Some camp inhabitants also claimed that many Israelis were migrating to other countries, despite the fact that the violence was not afecting them as much as it was Palestinians, and they said this was because Israelis lack ṣumud. Urgent Material Conditions However, there were presing material conditions in the camp. Dheisheans’ main reasons for moving out were lack of space and this sometimes created outright conflicts. One sumer evening, we al rushed out at the growing sound of a murmur in the neighbourhod where I was staying. In a few minutes, crowds of people, mostly men, had gathered in the stret to se what was going on. A family that was extending their house had got into a fight with the neighbours, who had oposed the builders’ plans to put in a particular window. Members of one of the families were droping cement blocks from their rof, aiming at their adversaries down on the stret. My host brother screamed at me to get inside since this was not ‘women’s busines’. I disobeyed and lingered on with another woman from the family, but when one of the people in the stret started firing a gun in the air I was scared enough to go inside. Within an hour the Palestinian police had arived and the fight was calmed down. Some days later the conflict was setled through so-caled traditional law 206 . * Population growth, overcrowding and beter economic conditions for some had coincided in Dheishe with the Oslo acords of the 190s. Since the negotiations left the refuge isue unresolved, it is no coincidence that many camp residents moved out at this time. Conflicts concerning housing created problems not only betwen neighbours but also within households and extended families. For instance, Hisham’s move to the vilage Doha, which we wil son come back to, was acelerated by an argument in his extended family. When they were building their new house, Hisham and his wife and children temporarily ocupied a flat that had ben prepared for his oldest nephew and his future bride. The nephew’s mother wanted to se her son 206 Many conflicts betwen Palestinians are setled by so-caled traditional or tribal law and not by the oficial legal system (se also Lang 205). In the West Bank, a heritage of several legal systems co-exists (Otoman law, British law, Jordanian law, Israeli military orders, traditional law and Palestinian laws). This legal pluralism together with the paralysis of the Palestinian Legislative Council by ocupation and violence create legal confusion (Wagner 200). 171 maried son so she asked Hisham to move out but the rest of the family thought she was being unreasonable. The lack of space also meant people got on each other’s nerves, particularly with the stres of the intifada al-aqṣa, and children had dificulty finding a quiet place to study. To Dheisheans, being short of space also meant lack of privacy. Zaynab recounted that since there was no space betwen her house and the neighbour’s it was even dificult to get changed: ‘I don’t open my bedrom window al sumer, I don’t dare. Why? Because there are people right in front of us! [I]f I want to change my clothes, before I take [them] of I have to lok 50 or 60 times and close the window and the curtains wel so I can change.’ Camp inhabitants were concerned about their living conditions. As Hanan, who longed to leave the camp, put it: In the sumer, there is water once a month. In the winter, the electricity is cut of al the time. Some houses are not built wel. The water pours in during the winter, […] [por people] don’t have money to fix it. They don’t like their houses in the winter, because they have bad houses. […] [One man] told us that when it is snowing he has to remove the snow from the rof quickly so it won’t cave in [on his family] inside. There were indeed many problems with electricity and water as wel as with the sewage system in Dheishe. And there was litle beauty or grenery in the camp. As Sawsan said: ‘There is nothing nice in the camp, nothing that brings hapines to the heart. I don’t talk in general but about myself. I like nature; I like the mountains, the tres and the forest. I mis them. I realy like them. But where can I get this?’ Dheisheans tried diferent strategies to met housing problems in the camp. People were always building or extending their houses; Abu Wisam added a rom for his children and this left only a tiny space betwen his extension and neighbours’ wal. Even families who had a low income would buy paint to freshen up the interior of their homes. Money and efort were spent on making oneself at home in the camp. Many houses loked shaby on the outside while the interior was normaly in a much beter shape. It is understandable that people wanted to improve their housing but in the Palestinian context this is a controversial isue for camp refuges. Moving Out of the Camp It was a hot afternon in August 204. My field asistant and I got into Hisham’s old car. Hisham slowly drove us out of the camp through its narow aleys, carefuly zigzaging betwen the pedestrians and children who were on their way home from schol. We turned left on the main road leading to Hebron. Some minutes later we turned right into the vilage of Doha, which is on the oposite side of the road from the camp. After a short drive uphil on 172 a gravel road the car stoped and we got out to have a lok at the construction site of Hisham’s new home. As some men from Dheishe worked on the house, Hisham showed us around and pointed to the boundary of his land. He and his wife had both ben working hard to save money for their new home: ‘We didn’t eat wel’ Hisham joked. Two years earlier they had finaly managed to buy this piece of land. They had not taken any loans. All the money was from their savings. Half of the land and the house belonged to Hisham’s sister Layla and her husband. Hisham and his wife stil lacked some of the money they neded to finish the house. The two couples had previously ben renting apartments in Doha, but when they got into a fight with their landlord they had decided to move back to the camp while finishing the house. Apart from the two apartments for the siblings’ families, the building would include two more apartments for rent. Hisham said that he did not mind leaving the camp; he felt it would be great to live in Doha, without having people around him al the time like he did in the camp and that he would enjoy not having to deal with his neighbours. My field asistant laughed and said that other people figured that the los of social relations was a reason for not moving out from the camp. Hisham had in fact already established contact with his new neighbours, a scholteacher and his family, who were refuges from one of the other camps in Bethlehem. * Doha lies betwen the Christian town of Bayt Jala and the vilage of Al Khader. It has its own municipality, its own mosque, a newly built schol as wel as a number of shops and other facilities. The construction of Doha was begun in the 1970s, when people started buying land from families in Bayt Jala. House building sems to have escalated in the late 1980s and early 190s. It is mostly refuges from nearby camps who live there. Sometimes a group of people, often relatives or neighbours, move out together, sometimes just a household. The camp residents I knew of who moved out from the camp were often younger people, unmaried or just embarking on maried life. Older people seldom discused moving out, although I know of one exception, a man who wanted to leave the camp once he had retired. Everyone in Dheishe semed to have relatives and friends in Doha and camp inhabitants sometimes tok me on visits there. In general, the houses in the vilage were spacious, wel built and nicely decorated. The people living there usualy had gardens and big verandas. Physicaly, Doha did not resemble any of the neighbouring refuge camps, but it was clear that it did socialy, although its residents had economic resources that many camp residents lacked 207 . Among some people in Bethlehem, Doha had ben branded refuge and lower clas, 207 The economic diferentials betwen camp residents and those who had moved out was reflected in the student enrolment at Bethlehem University. When I was loking for a female field asistant a friend at the University voluntered to help me and asked the students with a refuge background for help. It turned out that most of them lived in Doha, even though they were ‘originaly’ from Dheishe. Many camp residents were studying at the Open University, which demanded much lower fes. 173 even though the houses there did not sugest poverty and did not difer in apearance from newly built houses in other areas. Families who moved out of the camp clearly did not automaticaly shake of their refuge label. Hanan and Ahmed opted for something else than a beter house in Doha. Their flat in the camp was comparatively wel built and was spacious enough for their family, but their concern was also with upward social mobility and distancing themselves from the camp and its lifestyle, which they considered to traditional. Ahmed was the only one of his brothers who stil lived in Dheishe and he had bought land together with some friends in an area of Bethlehem that Hanan described as ‘nice’. They and their friends planed to construct a building with several apartments; the owners would live in some and the rest would be rented out. She and Ahmed opted for the penthouse and Hanan spoke dreamily of the huge windows she wanted for the sake of the view. Unfortunately, the project was son halted since they could not find the money to continue the construction. Unlike this couple and Hisham, some people who had moved out longed to move back to Dheishe because they mised the atmosphere and the strong social ties the camp conoted to them. This was the case for Maryam, Taysir’s newly maried sister, who complained about the residents in the neighbourhod in Bethlehem that she had moved to. She mised the sociability of her relatives and friends. Although this home-sicknes might have ben related to the fact that she was trying to adapt to maried life and to her husband’s family, it was also easy for an outsider like myself to se that the social bonds in Dheishe in general semed stronger than in other areas in Bethlehem. Hospitality also distinguished the camp residents. Dheishe was thought of as a ‘comunity of fate’, a place where people shared experiences of exile and of opresion and resistance, which ofered social suport in times of hardships. It is posible, though, that some Dheisheans wanted to escape living in such an exposed place that was so frequently intruded upon by the Israeli military. However, moving out remained a mater of contention for many camp residents. Samar argued that: When I live in a camp and fel a bit stresed that makes me want to leave the camp. This makes me more determined to go back [to my original vilage]. Maybe my vilage is big and I would live there in beter conditions. After al, it’s my vilage. At least there I have land that I can cultivate and live of, but here we can’t do this. 174 The words of Samar echo the Palestinian national discourse and Israeli asumptions that refuges who stay in camps are more determined to repatriate 208 . The quotation also reframes poverty and the hardships of camp life as politicaly valuable. Many former camp residents did not change their place of residence on their UN registration cards (personal comunication with Husein Shahin, UNRWA director in Dheishe), but prefered to remain Dheisheans oficialy. Acording to the director of UNRWA in the camp, ‘they are afraid the future wil change’ and they might then lose rights to fod rations and other asistance they may ned if things deteriorate. The refuges always sem to expect new disasters. Losing Land, Recovering Land In a context of cultural and political ideals of roted-nes and the persistent threat of Israeli land confiscations, many Dheisheans bought plots of land in the West Bank without necesarily living there. This may be sen as another response to their ‘uproted’ condition as refuges. Furthermore, although they may not be an explicit resistance strategy, practices concerning land were, I sugest, also atempts to counter Israeli land control 209 . At the time of my fieldwork, the Israeli state was confiscating dunums 210 of land in the Bethlehem area. The Craze for Land Since the early 1920s, land has ben a ‘key interest, almost an obsesion’ for the Zionists and later on for the Israeli state, writes Pape (204: 94). As with demolitions of Palestinian homes, Israeli land confiscations have ben caried out since the war of 1948 when Israel rapidly extended its control over the Palestinian refuges’ land and destroyed or tok over their agricultural production. From the onset of the ocupation, there was continuous Israeli land-grabing which was intended to extend Israeli setlement and infrastructure 211 . Later, this tok the form of building setler roads and the Separation Barier or the Wal (al-jidâr, as Palestinians cal it) (UN OCHA 207). A ‘complex legal-bureaucratic mechanism’ (B’Tselem 202), of which a central element is the declaration of state land 212 , is used by Israel to take control over teritory. Israel 208 Samar partly contradicted herself in another interview (quoted above) by claiming that UN registration rather than place of residence wil determine the right of return. 209 As far as I know, the Palestinian national leadership has never urged Palestinians to buy land in the ocupied teritories as a way of resisting Israel. 210 Dunum is a local unit of land area, equaling one quarter of an acre (Othman & Neu 202) or about 1,00 square metres. 211 Israeli setlement construction has taken place under every government since the begining of the ocupation, despite the fact that setling ocupied teritories is ilegal acording to international law. 212 In the early 1980s, Israel reinterpreted the Otoman Land Code to alow the military comander of the West Bank to declare uncultivated miri land that had not ben registered during British or Jordanian rule as ‘State Land’. Aproximately 80,00 hectares were then declared state land (UN OCHA 207: 56). 175 also uses other methods to seize land: declaring it as a military area 213 or making nature reserves/gren areas 214 . The state also helps its Jewish citizens to purchase land on the open market. The UN has estimated that by 207 these administrative and military measures had efectively placed 38.3 per cent of the West Bank beyond the reach of Palestinians (UN OCHA 207: 52). Although Palestinian protests have ben internationaly acknowledged 215 , there is a continuous increase in Israeli setlement, which alters the demographic patern: almost half a milion Jewish Israelis live in the West Bank today (UN OCHA 207: 12). Segal & Weizman (203: 80) concludes that the West Bank setlement project ‘atempted to resolve the paradox embedded in early twentieth-century Zionist spatiality; one that, while seking the return to the “promised land”, mainly inhabited the plains instead of the historical Judean hils, thus reversing the setlement geography of Biblical times.’ In addition to the remaking and hebrecizing of the landscape as part of the Israeli state-building project (se chapter 3), taking control of the teritories was also a military and demographic isue. Acording to a report by a Palestinian NGO (ww.arij.org 204), the maps of the planed wal provided by the Israeli authorities in August 204 showed that Israel was planing to confiscate more than 3,00 dunums of Bethlehem’s agricultural lands. Most of these confiscations were related to the building of the Separation Barier. Israeli setlements are located in ‘setlement blocs’, and those south of Jerusalem and close to Bethlehem belong to the Gush ‘Etzion bloc. The encirclement of this bloc by the Barier ensures that setlements remain conected to Israel but it also cuts of six Palestinian vilages from urban Bethlehem. In ‘Aida camp, another refuge camp nearby, this ‘waling proces’ was more aparent than it was in Dheishe since part of the Wal was built next to that camp. However, enclosure by the Barier, checkpoints and road blocs influenced the lives of almost everyone in the area. Dheisheans were also afected by the on- going land confiscations. One of my neighbours, for instance, had ben baned by the Israeli state from visiting his fields; he recounted how some soldiers had threatened him and made him sign a paper that he was no longer alowed to visit his plots. With the help of another Palestinian NGO this man tried to claim his right to his land. 213 The IDF operates 48 military bases in the West Bank. In adition more than one-fifth of the West Bank is designated as closed military areas, including an area fenced along the border to Jordan (UN OCHA 207: 42). 214 When land is declared a nature reserve to enhance ecological diversity, this severely restricts use and development. Palestinian shepherds and farmers caught crosing through Israeli-controled reserves risk being fined for trespasing (UN OCHA 207: 4). 215 The Barier has ben declared ilegal by the International Court of Justice and in 206 the UN established a special organ UNROD, the UN Register of Damage, to compile damage claims for Palestinians afected by the Barier (UN OCHA 207: 46). 176 Land and Betrayal While buying land is not understod localy as an explicitly political act, seling land definitely is. Land sales to Israelis are sen as a form of betrayal in terms of Palestinian nationalistic discourse. By comparison with the treachery of land-dealers and those who have sold their land, land purchasers are sen to be exercising a degre of political agency. Wel before the creation of the state of Israel and al-nakba, land sales to the Zionist movement in the 1930s were already controversial in nationalist circles of Palestinian society (se Swedenburg 203: 24). Gosip about which families sold their land to Jews during the British Mandate stil prevail among Palestinians and they are asumed to have ben the large landowners who were based abroad in countries like Lebanon and Syria. As Swedenburg (ibid.: 98f) observes, popular memory and more oficial versions of Palestinian history tend to edit out the role of Palestinian landowners and smaler farmers, at least in front of foreign researchers. ‘Such mnemonic condensations, usualy presented as encapsulating the story of land sales, alowed the involvement of Palestinian landowners and smal farmers in such transactions to be ignored’, writes Swedenburg (ibid.: 98). During the Palestinian peasant revolt (1936-1939) those involved in land sales were treated as traitors, they were punished and sometimes executed. A related event during fieldwork sheds further light on how this isue continues to provoke strong reactions. A man was murdered in a vilage close to Dheishe. Rumours son flourished about the man being a land-dealer or simsâr al-’arḍ, which is often understod as the worst form of colaboration. Acording to the rumours, guests who mourned with the dead man’s family stoped coming to their house, which is a clear sign of social condemnation and nothing short of a social catastrophe in the Palestinian comunity. Another example ocured during an interview ith a man who did not usualy lose his temper. He described his uneasines about colaborators and especialy about land-dealers, whom he encountered in his work as a policeman. He said he knew it was not right to hit them but there was some kind of rage in him that made him want to beat them up. As far as I understod, some of the Palestinian landowners, faced with land confiscations by the Israeli state, ‘chose’ to sel their land, while others had refused and their land was taken without any financial compensation. Palestinians can go to the Israeli court system (either to apeal comites or the High Court) to opose specific land confiscations, although the court system does not interfere in government action and policy in the ocupied teritories more generaly (Kretzmer 202; B’Tselem 202). To apeal one neds knowledge, money and prof of land use or ownership. It was usualy futile to start legal procedings against the Israeli state since the chances of a ruling being made against the Israeli authorities were extremely low (B’Tselem 202: 5) – even if a Palestinian won it was unlikely that the ruling would be implemented. Seling 177 land claimed by Israel may, in this context, sem to be the only economicaly viable alternative but this is politicaly and moraly risky. People did not discus this with me very much, posibly because it is considered shameful for Palestinians to sel land to the Israeli state. This dilema was evident in a discusion I witnesed betwen a Christian woman in her sixties, who I only met briefly, and her friend’s brother. The woman was very upset when she told us that she owned some plots of land that had ben confiscated by the Israeli authorities since they were on the other side of the newly constructed Wal. When she had tried to reach her land, the Israeli soldiers had threatened her at gunpoint. When she told me her story, she kept repeating that she wanted her land back. Her lawyer had strongly advised her not to try and go to her fields again because of the risk of being shot. Her friend’s brother calmly said to her that it would have ben beter for her to acept compensation from the Israeli state, but she replied, ‘No, it’s my land!’ When she woman had left us, the man told me that in her situation he would have sold the land so as to at least get some money for it. The question of seling to the Israelis or not captured the conflict betwen individual economic concerns and the colective agenda of the Palestinian national project. However, judging from this woman’s emotional outburst, not seling her land was far from a strictly economic isue. The continuing land confiscations were emotionaly charged even though many camp inhabitants did not sem to have the energy to become upset anymore. While some friends and I were watching the horifying uproting of old olive tres in Bayt Jala to make space for the Separation Barier, one of the landowners, an old man, semed to become enraged and ran of into the remaining part of his olive grove. To Compensate for Lost Land A pol caried out in 204 claim that 17 per cent of the refuges in the West Bank and Gaza Strip own land outside the camps (PCPSR 203), and I would estimate that more than 17 per cent of Dheisheans owned land. They used land to move out to, to cultivate usualy with olive tres or they might leave it untended. Land was regarded as an investment. As Mors argues ‘[l]and is stil sen as a form of security, a provision for old age, and a source of suplementary income for wage labourers’(195a: 47) in the ocupied teritories. Purchasing land was thus an economic strategy for individuals and households. It was, however, not only important for the camp refuges to recover land for economic reasons. The olive tres some landowners in Dheishe had planted do not require much atention (which is practical if one lives far from the plot) and they are considered symbols of the Palestinian nation. Buying land could be read as a way of contesting Israeli land quests, even 178 though purchasing land ofers no guarante that it wil not be confiscated since Israel seizes both privately owned as wel as municipal Palestinian land. Investment in land semed to have a symbolic and historical dimension; namely, to compensate for lost vilage land, in the sense of fields (i.e. ‘ard). Elderly refuges in particular were often concerned with literaly compensating for agricultural land by cultivating their gardens or on their roftops. Refering to the tiny but wel- tended garden behind his family’s house and to the huge pots and boxes of plants on the roftop, Khaled said that cultivation was a way of expresing a yearning for the lost land: Everything we cultivate, everything; al kinds of tres and al kinds of flowers. It’s for a reason; my family, especialy my father and mother, is stil conected to cultivating and farming. I have said before about my mother and father that since they don’t have land they try to find an alternative. […] They plant many diferent things, sage, peper, mint and spinach. Everything. In a rather symbolic way, camp residents like Um Mounsir, who was quoted earlier, often spoke of the huge land areas that basicaly everyone’s father or grandfather was said to own in their original vilages. Other refuges described their lost land as colectively owned. Acording to Benvenisti (200: 92f) such statements hide a more multifaceted reality; the system of land tenure and of landownership in Palestinian vilages was ful of legal complexities (cf. B’Tselem 202: 51f). Vilage land was divided into diferent categories. Some land was permanently under private posesion, while other land was clasified as muś’a 216 , which was transfered temporarily to vilagers or worked comunaly. The agrement of an entire vilage was neded to sel such property. Some of the rural population was also landles. Buying plots of land may be understod as a way of making up for imoral land sales and lost vilage fields. Temporary Return and Symbolic Links to the Land Another way of compensating for lost land was to create symbolic conections to the land and the past by consuming herbs and fruits grown on vilage land. During our visit to her former vilage, Um Hasan, an elderly woman, franticaly picked maramiya (i.e. sage, often used dried in tea during winter) despite the blazing sun. She explained that she had promised her children and grandchildren to bring them herbs from their vilage that the others could not reach at the time of fieldwork. Her grandson later smeled the maramiya the old lady had colected and claimed that he could recognize the herb as having ben grown in their vilage because it was ‘strong’ thanks to the hot climate in that area. The experiences of the anthropologist Sharif Kanana 216 Acording to Benevenisti (200), the British tried to abolish the muś’a system and they managed to dramaticaly reduce the land that was considered muś’a (cf. Kananeh 202: 30; Pape 204: 24). 179 (personal comunication) from his research project at Birzeit University echo mine. Kanana went on numerous visits to vilages with former inhabitants, who gathered and ate wild plants. Many brought a picnic along just as Um Hasan did. By consuming herbs grown on one’s land, one semed to become part of that land. Palestinian refuges often claimed that their vilage had a speciality, that the apricots or almonds grown in their vilage were the best in al Palestine. Even the gathering of herbs were contested since it was forbidden by Israeli law (cf. Swedenburg 203: 59). Swedenburg (ibid.: 56f) has noted that Israeli care for the land is frequently expresed through ecological activism. Ecological arguments and claims that Palestinians are ignorant of environmental isues have provided a pretext for proscribing Palestinian practices such as colecting herbs. It is dificult to se eating herbs as a conscious form of resistance to land confiscations or as economic investment in land but it may be sen as a way of reinforcing a sense of belonging to the land and providing existential reasurance of who one is and of fostering hopes of return. A related example is from the wek in May when Palestinians comemorate al-nakba. Fateh was serving fre fod at a youth centre with the help of a women’s organization in the camp. For several days, people were coming and going, greting acquaintances and friends, eating meals together (although in sex-segregated groups) that the women had prepared. The strained economies of many Dheisheans made a fre meal atractive but there was more to it. The fod that was served, for instance jirîśa, maqlouba and maftôl 217 , was understod to be homely fare and part of the traditional Palestinian kitchen. It made sense to eat this kind of fod when comemorating lost vilages and flight. Fod is one of several key symbols of traditional Palestinian rural life. In contrast to the other activities, such as demonstrations and lectures, during the ‘nakba-wek’ the sharing of fod semed to be a meaningful way to re-establish and reafirm comunity in the camp. It was also a way to remember the vilages and maintain bonds with the way of life before 1948 (cf. Ben Ze’ev 204). The constant strugle over land in Israel/Palestine hence touched upon economic security, a sense of belonging and the political strugle betwen Palestinians and Israelis. Buying land caried multiple meanings and was emotionaly charged since it was also conected to honour and the deeply felt humiliation Palestinians experienced during al-nakba. Land purchases may also be understod as part of an ongoing emplacement in the West Bank. 217 Maqloba is frequently eaten in the camp; it is a dish of fried vegetables, meat (or often chicken) and rice boiled together and then turned onto a huge plate. It is not realy a dish for parties or holidays, but is stil understod as a traditional dish. However, jirîśa as wel as maftôl are served on special ocasions, such as wedings and funerals, if the family can aford it. Acording to one informant, maftôl, a kind of couscous with chick-peas, is often provided to guests thre days after a funeral. Jirîśa is grain that is harvested in late autumn and comonly eaten as a kind of poridge during the winter. 180 In sum, this chapter ilustrates the ongoing dilema posed by comitment to the Palestinian national project on the one hand and the ned for a decent life for oneself and one’s family on the other. Emplacement outside the camp coexisted with concerns about rots and symbolic healing as wel as hopes of return. Holding on to return and staying in the camps or moving out, buying land and trying to make new lives elsewhere may be sen as diferent ways to resolve the same predicament that individual Dheisheans face: that betwen the temporary and highly uncertain existence of camp life and a desire for a more setled situation, a desire for roted-nes. 181 8. Beyond Resistance This chapter is about the ways in which Dheisheans’ try to remain political subjects even when direct resistance against Israel is not posible. It focuses on local notions of what constitutes proper responses to opresion and on people’s atempts to come to terms with the uncertain situation by enduring in rather mundane ways. Compared to the proceses of normalization described earlier as acute responses to violence and insecurity, the practices dealt with here are more concerned with an experienced political vacum and with the future. As wil become clear, ṣumud or steadfastnes implies a certain political agency as wel as tactics of resilience, notably black humour and enjoying oneself. In particular, afirmation of life has become increasingly important in the camp as a means to recover from hardships. Sumud – Being Steadfast In Palestinian national discourse many everyday practices are refered to as ṣumud or steadfastnes. Ṣumud is a complex emic concept that holds several interlaced meanings, both localy and in nationalist rhetoric. Linguisticaly, it derives from the verb ṣamada and caries conotations of defying and withstanding, standing up to, resisting and oposing as wel as holding out (A Dictionary of Modern Writen Arabic 1980). Showing steadfastnes has long ben a political strategy for Palestinians and it is closely related to the land and agriculture as wel as to indigenousnes. It complements the armed strugle (Lindholm 199: 54) 218 . In the last chapter, ṣumud was refered to in relation to refusing to relinquish one’s land, for instance by staying in refuge camps and inside the Palestinian homeland. Construed in this maner, steadfastnes is conected to the Palestinian ideology of roted-nes and implies that a person and a group of people belong to a specific place. By staying in the West Bank, Dheisheans were ṣâmdin (i.e. steadfast, comited) in remaining close to their original vilages inside Israel. The focus in this chapter is on another sense of ṣumud, as endurance and patience in dificult and dangerous circumstances, when other kinds of oposition are imposible. When I was conducting fieldwork I noted that such an interpretation of ṣumud had become stresed in Dheishe. This resembles the shift noted by Petet (205a: 148f), building on decades of anthropological research on Palestinian refuges foremost in Lebanon: 218 In the ocupied teritories, ṣumud was employed as a concrete political policy since 1967 that also related to specific educational and welfare programs as wel as funds from neighbouring Arab countries (Sayigh 197: 465f; Lindholm 199: 54f). It sems to have caried a pejorative conotation asociated with nepotism and elitism because of an uneven distribution of benefits as wel as with a fatalistic pasive resistance to military ocupation especialy during the 1980s (Tamari 191 in Khalili 207). My informants, however, understod ṣumud to be something positive that made people cary on despite bad conditions. 182 Steadfastnes as a category for interpreting one’s own actions and those of others underwrote a cultural and political recoding of semingly ordinary action as resistance. […] [During the Lebanese civil war, s]teadfastnes tok on conotations of survival and registered a refusal to acquiesce, a refusal to be dislocated. As an act of resistance, sumud is only meaningful in the context of an excedingly powerful, wel-equiped other, wiling to unleash horific violence. In this sense, ṣumud implies a survival tactic and a pasive, defensive stance that is often understod by Palestinians as complementary to military resistance and to activities that are more obviously political such as participation in political gatherings. It is a kind of ‘emergency measure’; in Khalili’s words, it is the only strategy left ‘when al other avenues are closed, when organizational infrastructures are destroyed, and when complete anihilation –not only of political institutions, but of every person –is a real posibility’ (207: 9). As in Lebanon, where Palestinian refuges have experienced multiple waves of hostilities and civil war in addition to several dispersals and masacres (ibid.: 9f; Sayigh 194: 231-319), many practices in the ocupied teritories to sustain daily routine during crisis were thus considered part of ṣumud 219 . It is posible, even likely, that West Bankers and Gazans had ben inspired by the ṣumud of Palestinian refuges in Lebanon, since there was awarenes of the terible conditions in Lebanese camps (Khalili ibid.: 102). The contemporary interpretation of ṣumud in the ocupied teritories was, in Layla’s view, something that Palestinians had learnt over the years: [Palestinians who fled in 1948 and 1967] didn’t sufer as much as we are sufering. These days, soldiers come into houses and shot children in front of their mothers, while they are siting in their homes. [Earlier generations of Palestinians] didn’t witnes what we have witnesed. There is torture that only God knows about, there is rape in prison, [the prisoners’] are deprived of their rights, there is hunger and torture - al this is caled ṣumud. Nevertheles, we are stil enduring and resisting and we refuse to surender. And we are not hapy with any of the peace agrements, the PA or anything they say that might come through peace, because what was taken by force wil only be regained by force, not with peace or anything else. Al we have to do is to be patient and endure this. In this quote, taken from an interview ith Layla, not only does the endurance of misery figure, but there is also a more directly opositional sense of ṣumud; namely, its relation to the Palestinian cause and being steadfast to one’s political principles. Walid, for instance, explained that; ‘There is a mental ṣumud as wel, maybe, to have principles, to have an idea [of returning to our vilages] and to kep it. […] In 56 years, we haven’t changed our opinions, not me and nor anyone else. This is ṣumud!’ Firmnes of principles, for refuges often to hold on to the right of 219 Women’s eforts to hold the family together and to provide protection and sustenance are acknowledged as endurance (Petet 191: 153). 183 return, is intimately conected to an ability to cary on. In this sense, ṣumud is obviously conected to the Palestinian political project. Khalili (207), investigating Palestinian nationalistic naratives, notes that ṣumud includes an explicit hopefulnes, which recals Lindquist’s (206) aplication of the term ilusio (Bourdieu 200) as a means of sustaining hope of a diferent future. Later in this chapter, we wil se how Dheisheans frequently pined their hopes on that which was yet to come, either in life or in heaven. Furthermore, ‘[a] narative of sumud recognizes and valorizes the teler’s (and by extension the nation’s) agency, ability and capacity in dire circumstances’ (Khalili ibid.: 101), thus drawing our atention to practices that positioned my informants as social agents rather than as victims. Ṣumud was bosting their self-estem as Palestinians and alowing Dheisheans to stay politicaly engaged even when outright oposition was more or les imposible. An Ambivalent Afirmation of Life Maryam, who worked as a journalist in Bethlehem, was stil unmaried even though she was over 30 years old. Since she had no children of her own, she enjoyed spending time with the children of her extended family. After months with lingering winter weather as wel as curfews and nightly arests in the camp, she decided to bring these children on a picnic one suny Friday in early April. Some of the neighbours’ children also came along, as wel as Maryam’s brother, two of her aunts and me. Two service taxis came to pick us al up and drive us away from the camp, through Bethlehem and Bayt Jala, to the Cremesan monastery. On the monastery’s teraced land, which was planted with olive tres and vine, there was space for children to play and for the adults to prepare for a barbeque. We had brought vegetables, bread, meat and soft drinks to make a picnic. The children ran around, playing, laughing and picking spring flowers. Some of the adults prepared a fire while Maryam and I colected herbs and almonds. As we ate our barbeque we could spot the outskirts of Gilo, an Israeli setlement that has become part of Jerusalem, on the other side of the valey. It turned out to be a beautiful and peaceful day. In the late afternon, we al returned hapy and relieved to Dheishe. Later, I told Maryam how much I had apreciated the outing, how much I had neded it and she noded in agrement. * To enjoy oneself, or ‘making mery despite the wolf at the dor’ in Scheper-Hughes’ words (208), is in many contexts where living conditions are extremely dificult something that alows individuals and comunities to survive or come to terms with painful events. Providing examples from her fieldwork in Brazil, Scheper-Hughes (ibid.: 50) quotes a female informant as saying: ‘No, Nancí, I won’t cry. […] What god would it do me to lie awake at night crying about my fate? […] But if I don’t enjoy myself, if I can’t amuse myself a litle bit, wel then I would rather be dead.’ 184 Many people in Dheishe tried to enjoy themselves by geting away on picnics or other outings whenever posible, despite the political situation and the dificulties of making ends met. This was a shift in meaning of political agency towards an afirmation of life. Just as Zaynab managed to maintain her daily routines in a kind of extended normality (se chapter 6), many people in Dheishe found ways to have fun and do things that were considered part of a proper life. They thus tried to counteract their experiences of not ‘having a life’. During the sumer vacations, camp inhabitants organized many sumer camps for children, something that was considered necesary and part of a ‘normal childhod’. Excursions were, of course, not always posible but depended on the political situation on the particular day and they were sometimes interupted by sudden army activities 220 . Sawsan nevertheles often brought me to her friends, who were within walking distance in Bethlehem and Doha ‘to give us some change’. Those camp residents who could aford entrance fes would go to swiming pols in the area with their children or to a park in the camp caled Il Feneiq that opened in 204 221 . Another popular place for picnics that could be acesed for fre was an area some kilometres away caled Solomon’s pols that had ancient remains. Weddings were popular events at which Dheisheans felt that they could enjoy themselves and get a break from their everyday routine. Many women saw eddings, which were often sex- segregated, as ocasions to relax and socialize by dancing and chating with female friends and neighbours. They were also oportunities for people to dres up and show of their new clothes. These atempts to show resilience were, however, not uncontested and they revealed diferences betwen the first and the second uprising. A Reorientation Since the First Intifada These examples from Dheishe atest to a change from the first intifada in the ways ordinary people respond to violence and which activities they consider to be proper Palestinian resistance or political behaviour during an uprising. For many, it has become aceptable or even imperative to enjoy oneself. As Junka (206: 35) writes about picnics and camping at Gaza Beach during the intifada al-aqṣa; […]the cherful atmosphere that curently prevails on the Palestinian parts of the beach, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, is surprising and hard to locate within dominant representations of the conflict. Produced as a site far removed from the 220 I wil never forget an outing I joined with a youth organization from the camp when the suden apearance of an Israeli army jep terified the children. 221 In the sumer of 204, Il Feneiq, which son became a popular alternative for Dheishean families, closed at eleven o’clock in the evening since the Israeli army regularly showed up before midnight. 185 conflict yet conditioned by it, the beach displays forms of Palestinian subjectivity and agency that are as far removed from representations of militancy and suicide as they are from those of pasive victimhod. As with Palestinian weddings (se chapter 6), this ‘afirmation of life and joy’ in Gaza as wel as through picnics and outings in the Bethlehem area sems to difer strikingly from the suspension of everyday life that marked the first uprising (Jean-Klein 201). In the ethos of self- restraint that was requested by the local national leadership, Palestinians sacrificed leisure activities and thus claimed political agency. Junka (ibid.: 357) sugests that the concept of hope and its relation to political agency may shed light on why there was a suspension of certain elements of daily life in the first intifada but an afirmation of everyday life during the second. She argues that this reorientation of proper Palestinian agency is conected to what Palestinians expect of the future. Disenchanted with past naratives of national liberation, countles Palestinians have abandoned the strict discipline of the first intifada and have returned to the beach, chosing to focus on the afirmation of life and joy in the imanent present rather than a future that, for many Palestinians, apears indefinitely delayed. (Junka 206: 357f) Although these remarks are valuable, my own data (colected over a longer period and in the West Bank) sugest that my informants experienced a greater ambivalence concerning this reorientation than Junka proposes. I often heard camp inhabitants blaming themselves or other Palestinians; they would for instance say ‘if only we could clean up our society’, ‘if only we could be united, like in the first intifada’ or ‘if only we had beter leadership’. These coments pointed at a nostalgic longing for the time when the cancelation of daily life was a meaningful element of the strugle. Moreover, to some people, like Huda, it was dificult to fel joy at weddings even if they were celebrated: When you go to a wedding party, they play very nice songs that are intended to make people dance - even a sily person who has never danced would dance to such songs. But you fel that people are exhausted and they don’t want to dance. Psychologicaly, they don’t want to dance or sing. Huda’s negation of the posibility of dancing and being hapy captures a sense of meaningles felt by some Dheisheans and a deep existential crisis in Palestinian society. Having fun as a way of being resilient does not work for everyone. Even though practices of puting ‘normality on hold’ (that included comercial strikes, refusal to pay taxes to Israel, sacrifice of leisure activities and weddings, cf. chapter 6) were never 186 recognised as resistance by Israelis, they had ben a way of strengthening the unity and morals of Palestinians. I interpret the abandonment of the discipline of the first uprising as also related to disapointment with the Palestinian leadership. Why maintain discipline when the elite in the Palestinian Authority (PA) is said to have enriched themselves from foreign aid money and to be living in luxury? During the first uprising, the national leadership also ordered people to refrain from activities far more than the leaders have during the intifada al-aqṣa 222 . Moreover, since the proper way to strugle had increasingly become envisaged as being through military operations, the non-violent methods of the first uprising had come to sem insignificant. Realizing the gravity of the situation, camp inhabitants also semed to acknowledge their ned to be resilient. They displayed ṣumud as a daily strategy of survival. To enjoy oneself was no longer a failure to resist but, on the contrary, was a way to be resilient and this could be crucial for Palestinian society, especialy if the alternative is sen to be social and personal colapse. With a Sense of Humour Another way of handling and sharing dificulties was to laugh at them. Stories that sem sad and ugly to me now, as I sit writing far from Dheishe, made me laugh at the time. Below is an example of such a story, which Huda told. Everyone present laughed, both because of the absurdity of the events Huda described but also because of her storyteling skils - acting out fear and imitating how her brother had backed away and tried to calm down the Israeli soldier: I wil tel you another story. It’s funy, but it’s not funy. […] It’s a story about my brother. He works on a cement truck. He went to Bayt Fajar to a house that is under construction. And he wanted to [go back] to Bethlehem. If he had gone at the “turn about roads” [that are alowed for Palestinians], it would have taken him a very long time. He would ned the whole night to come back. And it’s also very risky. He thought of going through the checkpoint. [But] the soldiers stoped him. The soldier told him “No, go back, to the other roads that people use.” My brother didn’t want to go al this way, so he said, “You can search me, I have nothing and then you can let me through.” The soldier said “No”. And the soldier didn’t bother, he sat down like this. He drank and ate. My brother stayed at the checkpoint. He stayed for about half an hour. He said to himself, “Maybe, they wil fel sympathy for me and let me through.” […] [M]y brother got down from the truck and he said “It’s enough. Why don’t you let me through?” The soldier said: “Turn around and go back or do you want to become headline news on Al Jazira?” And he pointed his gun at my brother. “Go or you wil be breaking news on Al Jazira!” My brother said: “No, no, I’m leaving, I’m leaving!” 222 When Hamas tok power in Gaza after the fieldwork for this study was completed they also ordered felow Palestinians to refrain from celebrating wedings (personal comunication with social anthropologist Gudrun Kroner). 187 How e laughed! ‘Breaking news on Al Jazira…’ In societies under severe stres, laughter and macabre humour are often part of resilience. Bowen (a.k.a. ethnographer Laura Bohanan) described in a novel one of the responses to a fatal smalpox epidemic among the Tiv in Nigeria as ‘the laugh under the mask of tragedy’ (1964: 297). Similarly, Macek (200: 60f) notes that one of the major ways in which Sarajevans under siege expresed and shared their war experiences was through jokes that were extremely context-dependent. The humour in Sarajevo, as in Dheishe, was dificult to grasp for those who did not share the experiences. In the Palestinian context, Kanana (205) has described the humour of several crises. Palestinian humour is quick to respond to political events. Jokes from the first intifada dealt with isues directly related to the uprising, such as demonstrations, rock throwing, arests, strikes and forbidden flag raising. They normaly included an element of competition; unlike jokes from earlier and later periods, jokes at this time portrayed Palestinians as superior to or at least equal to Israelis because of their clevernes, wit or simplicity (ibid.: 21). Palestinian jokes contain alternative realities, political criticism, incongruities, play and agresion. I heard several jokes about Arafat that portrayed him as a pitiful creature - powerles, old and sick. One memorable sketch shown on local TV showed a man in the ocupied teritories pretending to cal President Bush on a shoe that doubled as a cel-phone. He was trying to explain at length the dificult situation of the Palestinian people but eventualy the cal was interupted. The man shok ‘the shoe/phone’ he had ben talking in to make it work again but then he gave up, mutering the word ‘the batery’. Here, humour was being used to reflect on one’s predicament. Palestinians fel it is imposible for them to comunicate their distres to the mighty men who are believed to be able to ease their situation. The sketch also portrayed Palestinian misery – Palestinians have fake phones with useles bateries. Except from the absurdity of using a shoe as a phone, Kanana (205: 34) has also noted that as the lowest part of the body any asociation with the fot or fot wear is insulting and degrading for Palestinians. The man who caled President Bush could thus be sen to be lowering himself in desperation or he could be sen to be using an insulting act to cal a ‘dog’ like Bush. The story about Huda’s brother above is also a god example of the limits of an extended normality. To her brother, it had become normal to stop at checkpoints and wait for the aproval of Israeli soldiers; it was ‘normal’ because it was comon. But when the soldier threatened him at gunpoint, he panicked, the event became ‘abnormal’ and was transformed into a story to tel and laugh at; the event was ‘worth mentioning’. Drawing on Goldstein (203), Scheper-Hughes (208) argues that instead of seing the black humour of Brazilian favelas (and I would add war-torn societies) as a site of resistance it is 188 rather ‘a site where existence itself is made posible. Humour not only alows one to live but it contains within itself a refusal of the demand to sufer. Humour, then, is a way of bearing witnes to tragic realities without sucumbing to them’ (ibid.: 48f). In the Palestinian context, ironic and absurd humour is also related to ṣumud in its sense of daily survival. With a Distant or Divine Hope A number of authors have identified hope as a building block of Palestinian identity (e.g. Petet 195; Habibi 191; Lindholm 203). As noted earlier in this chapter, ṣumud also includes an element of hope (Khalili 207). When discusing the right of return, Lindholm (203: 207) writes that hope ‘is another strategy to counter proceses of victimization and “felings of powerlesnes”’. Hope or amal is also a comon Palestinian girl’s name. Even though most of my informants would often expres their lack of hope, there were some exceptions. Mahmoud, Khaled’s younger brother, for instance, said: [The Israelis] control everything, except hope, they can’t control that. They can’t break us down. Our parents lived on les than this [economicaly] but they continued. [People] get hope from God. If you want to lok at it from another [angle], there is nothing, everything is destroyed, everything is broken down. Nobody is working, you know that. For 10 years I have not worked with concrete [i.e. with construction work] and now I have for two days, and I’m broken, I’m realy tired from it. You have to get used to the situation. What can we do? ‘What can we do’, śo bidna nsawwi in coloquial Arabic, was a phrase I often heard. This may be interpreted as a sign of resignation and powerlesnes but also of resilience and aceptance of a situation that the refuges had very limited influence over. To ‘get used to the situation’ also shows the capacities of the camp inhabitants. Hope has also often ben a long-term strategy in the Palestinian case, a patient waiting for the situation to change for the beter. In Dheishe, this enduring while waiting for change was for many conected to a divine and predicted intervention by God. A change would come, it had to come, and it semed that the more pesimistic the present apeared the more remotely into the future a beter life was projected. Hope may even be projected beyond death, in paradise. Along with the afirmation of life and the wories about expulsion and disasters, there was a focus on a distant future when Israel would vanish. This view is exemplified by an extract from an interview ith Samar, whose thre year-old son was playing in the rom during the interview: I didn’t talk about al-nakba with anyone, not with my mum, not with my grandma. Only with my mother-in-law. She told me how they fled. [But] I want to know their felings, how they experienced it. To know hat to do it if we had to fle once more. 189 [Nina: You think you might fle again?] – For sure. There are nakbat [i.e. disasters] every day. In Rafah for example, Jenin, Nablus. It’s from God. He wants to se if people have patience. I think he tests people who are believers [i.e. Muslims]. […] Everyone who reads the Koran can se that Israel wil disapear. It’s not clear [when], but it is there [in the Koran], maybe in my time, maybe in [my son’s] time or in his children’s time. In this quote Samar positioned her hope of a diferent future in the generations to come and she had found justification in the Koranic verses. In this hopeles situation, with the felt threat of another expulsion and with daily catastrophes, many people in Dheishe read the Koran to sek prophecies. Layla explained; Even in the Koran they talk about the Lake of Tiberias, that it wil dry up, and this is one of the signs of Israel’s breakdown, and if you have noticed the level of water is decreasing each year. This means that the breakdown of Israel is near. It also says: “they wil fight you from behind the wals” [implying the Wal built by Israel].’ More examples could be added 223 . Mustafa and several others for instance claimed that 9/11 atacks as wel as a destruction of Gaza could be read about in religious texts. Israel’s war on Gaza and its devastating efects in late 208 and early 209 was thus more or les predicted by the camp residents. In fact, I only heard one person who rejected this kind of interpretation; this was a middle-aged, religious man who said that a specific Koranic verse should not be read so literaly but instead as spiritual guidance. Such predictions, I sugest, were atempts to show endurance and buoyancy that reinforced the meagre hope that people stil held. As ‘pasionate players’ in Bourdieu’s (200: 213) terms, Dheisheans ‘invested in the game’ by interpreting religious texts in a specific and largely optimistic way. These interpretations were, like the magical practices in post-Comunist Rusia (Lindquist 206), ‘methods of existential reasurance and control that rational and technical means canot ofer’ (ibid.: 2). In addition to this hope of heavenly intervention, I noted a growing number of people who regularly prayed at the mosques in the camp. This reflected both the global Islamic revival and increasing suport for Hamas. However, the routine of praying five times a day (either at home or in mosque) also helped structure quotidian life; through prayer people maintained normality and tranquility (se also Save the Children 203: 13). In a focus group discusion with men in their early twenties the participants claimed that the growing number of pious Dheisheans, many of whom are unemployed men, is also related to hope and hopelesnes. 223 Khalili (207: 105) also quotes an interview ith a Palestinian refuge woman in Lebanon 202 who said that one could read about what was hapening betwen Israelis and Palestinians in the Koran. She did not interpret her reading optimisticaly as a prediction of Palestinian victory. 190 Nina: But as Mounsir said there are also people who trust in God. Do you think that people become more religious when the situation is more dificult? Mounsir: Yes, of course. Nina: How? How do you se it? How does it show? Mounsir: Wel… Someone who is at home, he doesn’t have any work or anything. He asks to what? He goes to pray; “maybe God wil help me” - this is how people think. Ali: People think about it in this way. Walid: And there is another thing, in our condition life is bad so we don’t want to have a bad time even in the end [i.e. in after-life]. Existence is bad so we want to make one of them god. […] Mounsir: There is no future. The future is that they wil step on your neck and kep you down al the time. Anyone who raises his head up he wil get it cut of. Field asistant: Walid? Walid: We are religious believers - don’t think I’m a believer [i.e. very religious], I’m not a śeiḫ [i.e. a religious leader] - but we believe that we wil win. This is writen in the Koran and in the Hadith. Even the people who don’t pray believe in that. The next year and the year after it wil hapen [i.e. something wil change]. We also believe in something else, the solution wil not come from us 224 . Without reducing religion to a mere response to violence and despair, it has ben noted that religious practice is often used to handle the existential dilema posed by violence (cf. Waren 193). Kent’s writings (206, 207) about Cambodia also provide examples of religious revival being an atempt to achieve resilience and the re-construction of society. In the Palestinian case, that dilema sems to be about survival, both at an individual and a colective level. How can I survive, how can I go on living? And if I do not survive, how can I work on my relation to God? How can we survive as a nation and as a moral comunity when we are threatened with exterminated? In Dheishe, the practice of Islam ofered an answer for many. This sense of threat is not a new phenomenon in Palestinian society. For instance, Bowman (201: 50) writes about a kiling caried out by the Israeli army during the first uprising; ‘[…] Beit Sahouris could se the event as yet more evidence of the presence of a systematic programe of extermination mobilized against them […]’. However, it is likely that the amount of violence used during the intifada al-aqṣa and the political situation more generaly had made those fears of extinction even more pronounced. In these circumstances, when hope and change 224 Several camp residents claimed that the solution to their plights would come from the East. This belief was also refered to the Koran. 191 for the beter are frequently conected to the after-life, it may not be strange that death has become normalized or that suicide bombing has become an option. Continuing to Resist Palestinians sem to have tried ‘everything’ to change their predicament. They have ben engaged in guerila warfare, in hijackings and popular uprisings. Over the years, they have protested and continue to protest against Israeli policies to international organizations such as the UN. The Palestinian leadership has constructed state-like institutions in exile as wel as in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus, they have used multiple strategies, both violent and non-violent, but so far with litle suces since their two main political goals, to establish a Palestinian state and to find a solution to the refuge isue, have not ben fulfiled. In the local context of Dheishe, these political failures were deeply felt. As described in chapter 2, Dheisheans had also ben involved in many kinds of political activities. After the first uprising, in which many camp residents had ben actively involved, they had waited for the implementations of the Oslo acords and for the benefits of a Palestinian authority. They waited fruitlesly for final status agrements that many had hoped would finaly end the conflict and give Palestinians an independent state. When I was in Dheishe, many people were living from hand to mouth. The intifada al-aqṣa had furthered neither their political project nor their general situation, but rather the oposite. Felow Palestinians had ben sacrificing their lives as martyrs for decades and the death tol had acelerated in recent years. People in the camp indeed experienced that Palestinians were strugling and sufering in acordance with national discourse, but despite this, nothing semed to have changed for the beter. Zaynab for instance said to her friends: ‘I agre with you, we acept hunger and endure al this, but until when?’ Stil, many of them sought ways to lok forward and to at least partly hold onto the national project, in spite of a political void in which they found it dificult to participate as political subjects. Alternatives to Military Resistance Mounsir: Listen, instead of throwing stones, which I know won’t help, I stay at the entrance of the camp and I have a big sign like this [showing with his hands]. I can stand in front of TV cameras and say; “We are against the Separation Wal!” I won’t get hurt and I won’t hurt the people who are with me. Walid: Is it enough? Mounsir: It’s not enough, but they are at least doing something. […] If there was a state and they had weapons, I would be the first one to join you [in the armed strugle]. 192 On ocasion, when ‘extended normality’ broke down and the abnormality of the situation became evident, many camp residents felt an urge ‘to do something’, to engage themselves in politics, as yet another response to violence and deprivation. During the militarized intifada al- aqṣa the posibilities of participating in political activities were les than they were during the first uprising, because of the danger. Although Dheisheans had a flexible understanding of resistance, many were disatisfied that they were unable to opose the ocupation as they would have wanted. Walid and Mounsir were both unmaried young men who thereby belonged to the social category in Palestinian society that is most often expected to take action against the ocupation. Had the interview above taken place during the first intifada, they would probably have ben among those who threw stones or engaged in more militarized atacks. But how could they participate politicaly or resist in a highly dangerous situation without risking their own or other people’s lives? If there were no weapons 225 to fight back with, what other means remained? Moreover, in this phase of the conflict, Palestinians trusted neither the political proces nor the Palestinian leadership. What kind of political agency was left? As Mounsir explained, non-violent demonstrations that atracted media atention were part of one solution to this dilema. In 203/204, a few demonstrations were held inside the camp or on the main road just outside, but they were usualy interupted wel before they reached Bethlehem. This was a strategy used in order to avoid provoking violent responses by the Israeli army, which was constantly present at a military base at Rachel’s tomb near a checkpoint to Jerusalem. This adaptation made it fel safer to demonstrate and to stil fel engaged in politics, and that ‘you were at least doing something’. For some individuals, however, there were other ‘low-profile ways’ to act that made sense politicaly. ‘Wakening the Outside World’ Many Dheisheans invested time and energy in trying to protest against the Israeli ocupation in a non-violent, ‘low-profile’ maner by comunicating with foreigners. This political technique is often overloked and it is somewhat outside more organized forms of political activism (se also Jean-Klein 201: 94f). As a foreign researcher, I was often the object of such eforts. Mahmoud expresed hope that my research would ‘change people outside, to change their opinion about us, to move them. I somehow don’t think so but I hope that’. Like many other camp residents, he 225 This frequently expresed wory about lack of weapons in Dheishe coresponds with a romanticizing discourse about heroic fighters and militarism that has ben nurtured by the Palestinian revolutionary political culture. Nonetheles, people like Layla, realized that: ‘The world has more compasion for the Jews than for us because we have used weapons’. Because Palestinians had used weapons (and suicide bombings) Palestinian victimhod had become more dificult to promote to an international public (cf. Khalili 207: 204f). 193 had a mesage for me to transmit to the outside world 226 . Dheisheans also frequently engaged in discusions with me to try and find out why nobody helped them, why the international comunity did not intervene on their behalf. Other refuges, primarily men, privately or through NGOs, participated in documentary films 227 or welcomed foreigners to the camp, taking them on ‘political tours’ or inviting them to diner at home. Some managed to get invitations by foreign solidarity groups and thus travel permits and visas to travel abroad to inform about the Palestinian isue. Before the new uprising, the children and tenagers who participated in the cultural centre Ibdaa’s dabke group also traveled round the world teling the story of flight, violence and camp life to outsiders in their dance performances. Half of the folkdance troupe consisted of girls, partly balancing the gender bias in this otherwise mainly male storyteling. The felt ned to comunicate with the outside world was also manifest at a solidarity event for prisoners in Bethlehem that I atended. The relatives of the prisoners caried huge photos of their imprisoned loved ones and desperately held them out towards me and other foreigners, hoping that we would photograph or film them and in this way make the prisoners’ sufering visible and render them ore human and les anonymous to people in the ‘West’. There were also baners with lists of names of prisoners atached to a wal. It was victimhod and sufering rather than heroism and strugle that were most important when comunicating with an international audience. This has ben discused by Khalili (207: 204f) as being related to NGOs’ ned for foreign funding; it is easier to persuade countries to donate if you portray Palestinians as victims of Israeli asaults. This contrasts with the heroism usualy asociated with prisoners within Palestinian society. Other strategies for promoting the Palestinian cause were to publish lists of names of injured, kiled or imprisoned Palestinians on national TV or in news magazines 228 and to document house demolitions, destroyed vilages prior to 1948 and other acts caried out by the Israeli state. These strategies also acknowledged the importance of archives of loses and hardship when establishing a social memory (cf. Nora 1989). Listing and documenting may be interpreted as future-oriented acts; Palestinians wanted acknowledgment of their hardships and hoped that one day Israel might be held acountable for its acts. If Palestinians remained 226 I had the impresion that some Dheisheans felt it was easier to interact with pro-Palestinian journalists than with a researcher who lived in the camp. It semed easier to convey a rather one-sided mesage to someone who only came by ocasionaly. 227 To a Western audience, two award wining documentary films have partly ben shot in Dheishe: Mai Masri’s Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (201) and Justine Shapiro’s and B.Z. Goldberg’s Promises (201). 228 Se, for instance, Al Majdal, a quarterly newsleter of BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refuge Rights based in Bethlehem. This paper is published both in Arabic and English and thus directed towards several groups of readers. 194 steadfast long enough, justice would eventualy come. Similarly, some refuge families kept papers that proved their land ownership in their original vilages inside present Israel or refered to Otoman archives that held records of landowners before 1948. Listing and documentation had acordingly ben used for a long time in the efort to opose Israel. Petet’s acounts of foreign visitors to Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon also resonates with my observations in Dheishe; ‘Teling stories about expulsion, uproting, and life as a refuge was an atempt to lesen the distance betwen the Palestinian and the other, to create knowledge and thus empathy. It was in such an atmosphere that trust could be established with others’ (195: 178). By showing foreigners their camp and their homes, Dheisheans could tel their stories 229 and try to gain a voice in world politics so as to afect the so-caled international comunity. Khalili (207: 206) cals such visits, which are organized by camp-based NGOs, ‘witnesing tours’ because they underline Palestinian sufering and ned of suport and aid money. Some of the people who guided foreigners around the camp however consciously avoided focusing on misery because they did not want people to fel sory for them. ‘I don’t want them to think that we are maskîn (i.e. to be pitied, por)’, said a man who organized such tours for an NGO in the camp. The Internet was also used to diseminate stories about the plight of people in the ocupied teritories. For instance, Abu Amir, planed to make a diference by establishing a website: The media everywhere knows the Palestinians as terorists and the Palestinian strugle as terorism and the Israelis as victims. It changes everything. And I want to do something to show the truth […]. I hope to have an internet page, a website, with the history of Palestine. The fact that Abu Amir wanted to write about the history of Palestine was no coincidence given the constant batle betwen Israelis and Palestinians over historical truth (e.g. Abu El-Haj 201; Benvenisti 200; Swedenburg 191; Slyomovics 198). Rami, on the other hand, wrote poems in English about the sufering of Palestinian children and he sent them out on his e-mail lists to foreigners. In a more organized way, some Dheishean youth had ben involved since 199 in the Acros Border Project, which was launched by Bir Zeit University in the West Bank to established contact betwen diferent refuge camps in the ocupied teritories and in Lebanon (Khalili 205: 141f; Lindholm 203: 181f). Websites carying alternative news to that broadcasted 229 It became clear to me during my time in the camp that ‘everything’ was not told on these tours or in these metings with outsiders. Parts of the Palestinian strugle that were considered shameful were often played down, or even excluded. On the other hand, Palestinian sufering and morality were underlined (se also Swedenburg 191; Bowman 201: 52). 195 by the mistrusted international media are another example of this low-profile oposition 230 . Many former stone-throwers in Dheishe and elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza were now designing websites to get their mesage out to the outside world. There has ben a great increase in Palestinian-related websites that are not only managed from the ocupied teritories but also by the Palestinian diaspora. Stamatopoulou-Robins (205) claims that these websites have diferent aims depending on who hosts them and who the audience is and she notes that they also reconect with the past and with other Palestinians in other places. This is mainly noticeable among the younger, diasporic, English-speaking profesional elite (ibid.: 34). Khalili (205) investigates how Palestinian refuges in Lebanon use the Internet and internet cafés to display and enact Palestinian identity. ‘The Electronic Intifada’ 231 is in fact the name of a US-based pro-Palestinian website but it could also be more broadly aplied to Palestinian atempts to both make their voices heard and to atack the media representation of one’s enemy. Lindholm (203: 182) reports about the events at the begining of the intifada al-aqṣa: ‘A few days after the first Israeli atack against the public Palestinian broadcasting company, Israel was exposed to a floding on the Internet which wiped the Israeli Foreign Department and Kneset of the web’. At the time of the first intifada, camp residents lacked Internet and satelite chanels and even required permision from the Israeli civil administration to get a phone line (Mustafa recaled that when he was young there had only ben thre phones in the whole camp). Now, however, this cyberization of the new intifada ofers new potential. Landzelius (206) provide interesting paralels about the diverse ways that marginalized or isolated groups such as indigenous peoples and diasporas al over the globe are using the Internet. They do so in a highly politicized maner to create comunity within the group but also to earn sympathy and suport from a wider society. This results in a kind of cyber-activism. As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became militarized, it also became ‘cyberized’. During my fieldwork, new Internet cafés were poping up here and there in Dheishe and a considerable number of camp inhabitants had computers and Internet conections at home. Trying to comunicate with outsiders to gather political suport was nothing new, but it is likely that, as part of the political project, it had ben reinforced during the intifada al-aqṣa along with a reorientation of everyday life. This endeavour to create trust betwen the refuges and the outside world, as Petet (1995) writes, also implied reciprocity. When the refuges shared their 230 Se, for instance, Philo & Bery (204) and Dor (203, 205) for examinations of the media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khalili’s (205) Palestinian informants in Lebanon also underlined that the Internet gave them aces to more acurate news from the ocupied teritories. 231 Se htp:/electronicintifada.net/new.shtml 13.05.209 10.34. 196 fod, their place and their naratives of sufering with outsiders, they expected to receive something in return, mostly empathy but also political and economic suport. Camp residents were also vigilant about checking that outsiders had the right political opinions so that they could be trusted to share at least the basics of ‘Palestinian truth’. This chapter has shown how, within a politicized context characterized by constrained agency, mundane practices of ṣumud provided comfort in the present and a way to lok forward. By being steadfast, Dheisheans maintained a sense of political engagement. However, just as researchers should avoid romanticizing resistance (cf. Ortner 195), we should not lok for political agency and resilience where there is only despair and frustration. This chapter also points out the complexities of endurance and hope among people who are living in extremely dificult conditions; in Dheishe, there were many instances of shifts betwen hope and despair, betwen resignation and great, often fantastical, plans for the future. While conducting my fieldwork, I was struck as much by the despair of my informants as by their ambitions to start a new busines, build a house or aply for higher education in spite of it al. ‘They are at least doing something’ as Mounsir said when refering to demonstrations that were held in front of TV cameras. Maybe he was also refering to something more general. I sugest that there is a deep existential urge in such a statement that reflects a universal human ned to maintain the power to act and to influence the course of events. This felt ned was a motivation to continue to strugle either politicaly or just by carying on with everyday life and refusing to sucumb to tragic reality. As Scheper-Hughes (208: 52) notes, in some contexts, existence itself is more than enough to celebrate. 197 9. Reconstituting a Moral Order This chapter investigates the reconstitution of moral order in the camp. It describes a Dheishean moral comunity as wel as the practices and naratives employed by camp inhabitants to earn and exhibit moral capital and to demarcate themselves from outsiders. As is often the case in wars and conflicts, one tends to position one’s own group as moraly superior to one’s oponent or enemy. The main ‘others’ for Dheisheans were the Israelis, although a proces of othering also afected perceptions and relations to felow Palestinians, other Arabs and Westerners. My informants painted a somewhat esentialized portrait of Palestinian-nes in contrast to the Israeli and Western ways of life and they described the politicaly, economicaly and militarily inferior Palestinians as moraly superior. In this way, the camp inhabitants reframed their predicament and agrandized their sense of self. In this chapter, we wil first se how this sense of moral superiority had its base in historical experiences of injustice, in al-nakba. Curent events were fited into a chain of disasters that demanded moral redres. Coupled to the claim of moral superiority was the maintenance of a moral comunity that was based in gender ideals. However, upholding moral superiority was not unproblematic; individuals, either Israelis or Dheisheans, did not always conform to moral ideals or prejudices. In Dheishe, people were also concerned about the erosion of morality due to contact and intimacy with outsiders. A gendered political morality existed that concerned whether and how men and women were to be politicaly involved. Gender and age determined what political action against Israel was posible for diferent individuals. At the time of fieldwork, these elaborated practices were often imposible to implement and this created a further sense of moral failure and emergency. A Chain of Catastrophic Events To many Dheisheans, history semed to repeat itself. Dificulties and disasters were frequently explained and understod as a chain of interconected events that fited into a patern of opresion and deprivation. This proces is captured by Malki’s (195a) analytical term ythico- history. As was the case among the Hutu refuges in Tanzania described by Malki, in Dheishe, ‘[e]veryday events, proceses, and relations in the camp were spontaneously and consistently interpreted and acted upon by evoking this colective past as a charter and a blueprint’ (ibid.: 53). In Malki’s terminology, ‘mythic’ does not denote something false or made up, but refers to a moral and cosmological order or colective narative that structures events and experiences and makes them understandable (se also Gren 201). The Palestinians’ mythico-history was designed 198 to establish a moral order in which historical and curent injustices were acknowledged and Palestinians were portrayed as victims of Israeli agresion. [The mythico-history] was concerned with the ordering and reordering of social and political categories, with the defining of self in distinction to other, with god and evil. It was most centraly concerned with the reconstitution of a moral order of the world. It seized historical events, proceses, and relationships, and reinterpreted them within a deeply moral scheme of god and evil. Malki (195a: 5f) The starting point of Palestinian sufering was al-nakba. The events of violence and flight in the late 1940s were thus an important theme in the Palestinian mythico-history that was narated in the camp. Many people also conected the curent state of emergency to al-nakba. For instance, when I tried to ask about the flight in 1948 many people would say ‘fî nakbat kul yôm’ i.e. ‘there are disasters everyday’. My informants aimed to redirect my interest in the calamities of the past to those of the present. They were of course right that in the ocupied teritories there is always some Palestinian being kiled or arested, some Palestinian town is under curfew or siege, and the general economic situation is deteriorating. Since al-nakba, certain events had repeatedly struck the Palestinians. Displacement and flight continued; for instance, TV images of the destroyed refuge camp in Jenin in 203, where refuges were again living in tents provided by the UN, evoked memories of the refuge camps when they were set up in the 1950s. Martyrdom was another such theme, introduced in the 1930s and stil an isue, as was political imprisonment. The many stories I heard during fieldwork about women who had lost or almost lost their infants during al-nakba foreshadowed the Palestinian women of today who miscary when they are denied pasage through checkpoints on their way to maternity hospitals. Mythico-history was not only evident in naratives but also in practices. During the days in May when Palestinians comemorate al-nakba, the local branch of Fatah, the leading party in the PA, aranged lectures about the refuges’ right of return. After one of these lectures by an invited politician, there was a sudden burst of noise and activity in the drowsy lecture hal. An old woman was brought out to addres the audience about her sufering. Many of the male spectators left their seats and ran up to the stage to suround the old lady. I had ben filming during the lecture and at this moment my male field asistant grabed the camera and rushed of to take some close-ups. In the company of some other female visitors and some of the men, I watched the spectacle from a distance. The woman told the story of losing her loved ones: two of her brothers and her son had ben kiled by the British, the Jordanians and the Israelis 199 respectively. The old woman also told us that she was sad for the ones she had lost, but proud and not ashamed. The folowing day, there was another lecture. I started filming but son got bored. The invited lecturer was speaking in an Arabic I did not understand, but no one else in the audience of about 60 people semed to be very interested either. My field asistant asured me that I was not mising much and that the man was talking about ‘the same things you always hear concerning the right of return, there is nothing new.’ But al of a sudden something hapened. I had noticed a man among the listeners whose son I knew had ben martyred the previous year. It turned out that many people in the audience were actualy from artyrs’ families. A man was starting to cal out the names of the martyrs and, one by one, someone from the each martyr’s family, a father or a mother it semed, came up in front of the audience to colect a souvenir plate with a relief of Al-aqṣa Mosque and Al Quds (i.e. Jerusalem) writen on it. These plates can be bought in any souvenir shop in Bethlehem. The audience aplauded them and they silently went back to their seats. Only one of the martyrs had no relative to colect a plate. Remembering al-nakba, the begining of sufering, was thus conected to multiple loses. The Dheishean version of mythico-history was quite literaly staged in front of the audience during the ‘Nakba-days’, underlining the conectednes of misery and disaster in a proces of continuous deprivation and opresion. The ongoing uprising was sen as just another stage in the mythico-history, within which Palestinians apeared as victims of Israeli asaults. Most importantly, the chain of disasters evoked claims of injury and moral redres. The Camp as a Moral Comunity One dark evening in Dheishe, Shiren and I were walking home together through the dusky aleys of the camp, leaving behind a loud and lit up ḥenna 232 party where we had just had swet biscuits and cofe. We did not talk much but huried along so as to get back to Shiren’s family house without having our chastity questioned. Women, and especialy unmaried women like us, were not suposed to roam around on their own in the dark. Inside their home, we sat down to have some tea with Shiren’s mother who had ben to il to join us at the party. Shiren tok of her headscarf and coat-like Islamic dres (gilbab) and vividly started teling her mother about the party. Such a scandal! How they dresed! Shiren was angry and upset and almost shouted as she gave her mother a detailed sumary of the bad maners of the hosts. She described how the bride’s sisters and sisters-in- laws were dresed in sexy outfits and how the bride’s brother and his young wife were dancing intimately. Although weding celebrations are ocasions for the close female relatives of the bridal couple to show of in more revealing clothes than usual in sex-segregated groups, or at least in privacy, this party was aparently to much for Shiren. 232 The ḥena night is part of Palestinian weding celebrations and is normaly held the evening before the weding. 200 * This brief acount provides an example of concerns about morality and of diferent moral standards in the camp. Shiren and her family were part of a group (often Fateh-related) that treasured Palestinian traditions, while the bride’s family was related to one of the Leftist parties and they considered themselves more ‘modern’. The value of hospitality, which Palestinians tend to regard as a sign of true ‘Palestinian-nes’, was also evident. The camp was constituted as a moral comunity by proper moral conduct acording to gender. Camp residents argued that moral conduct was guided by both interpretations of religious laws and religiously influenced recomendations as wel as by traditions that were constantly negotiated. As mentioned in chapter 4, the refuges related how the diferent vilage leaders had agred on rules of conduct in the newly established camp in the 1950s. In interview, Khaled, like many other Dheisheans, noted the importance of guidance and norms in society. Significantly, many of the moral precepts were expresed in terms of gender: [T]here are things that rule us in our society, first the religion (al-dîn), second our traditions (‘adâtna). But I take the positive things from our traditions. I’m with the positive and against the negative. The religious things are very clear for the one who has an understanding of the religion; to him they are clear. The mixing of women and men, there is no alowance for that, there are rules for that. If the woman is dresed in a god way and if she takes care of herself, it doesn’t mater to me [if they mix], everything goes back to how you raise the girls. Your boy or your girl wil grow up acordingly. For these things the traditions rule. Rules about proper behaviour were often discused and negotiated in the camp. One example of this kind of negotiation was when my host-sister and I wanted to go for walks in the evenings to get some exercise. My host-brother was not realy hapy about us ‘roaming around’ on our own outside the camp, but when his senior, a paternal uncle, said he had no problem with this, he gave in and let us have our way 233 . Cases of Palestinian conflict resolution also involved much discusion about what was considered aceptable behaviour and what was not. Abu Wisam explained that what was considered ‘eib 234 , i.e. shame or shameful, was in flux: Many things we think are ‘eib are not against the religion. For men [to wear] shorts, if they come down to the knes, is not forbidden. The traditional isues are not stable and they are changing al the time. A long time ago if we saw a woman smoking, we thought it was strange, but now we ofer her a cigarete. The adat [the traditions] 233 As noted, restricted mobility is a gendered isue in the camp and in other parts of the Palestinian teritories. The movements of Palestinian women are often restricted. However, it was often an advantage when I was doing fieldwork to be a woman when trying to pas checkpoints and roadblocks or stay ilegaly inside Israel. 234 ‘Eib (i.e. shame, shameful) is a comon word in Dheishe. It is used to corect or scold children who are doing something inapropriate, but is also used jokingly betwen close friends or more seriously while gosiping about someone’s bad or strange behaviour. 201 develop by using these kinds of things, it becomes normal to us. Maybe everything we consider ‘eib today wil change with time. Only if it touches our religion or won’t fit with it wil it be forbidden. Moral norms also depended on views of modernity and tradition. Of course, individuals’ standpoints also varied and diferent political afiliations could influence what kind of view a person held on specific types of conduct. Shiren’s family, above, was more ‘traditional’ and conected to Fateh than the bride’s ‘modern’ Leftist family (cf. Bornstein 202a: 103f). Some men in the camp boasting about their liberal views on drinking alcohol while other people would not dream of even drinking fruit juice that had ben produced at a vineyard 235 . How social norms were understod to aply also varied betwen the generations in Dheishe; for instance, the elderly Abu Khaled sometimes complained about his ten-year-old granddaughter wearing shorts and a top because he felt that girls of al ages should conform to the rules for modest dres. His children and grandchildren as wel as other camp residents of their age found his point of view dificult to acept. Moral concepts were also often understod to be inter-conected in Dheishe. For instance, someone who was patriotic would also be generous. Samar and her unemployed husband had four children to suport and they were helped out economicaly by her husband’s family. When asked if her husband’s family was anoyed because they had to provide for them, Samar conected diferent virtues by saying: ‘On the contrary, every day they give us money. They are employes and get salaries. In this [dificult] situation there are not many who have problems [geting help from others]. It is nationalistic to help others. […] It was even more so in the first intifada.’ Not everyone agred with Samar that people in the camp stil helped each other - on the contrary, many felt that morality was eroding. Moral sanctions in the camp consisted mostly of gosip and social isolation. More serious breaches of norms were sometimes punished with violence. For instance, an unmaried girl could be beaten if her parents and uncles learned that she had held the hand of a boy in public. Morality in Everyday Practice Numerous everyday practices not only served to acomplish necesary tasks, such as cleaning, coking, going to schol or earning an income, but also confirmed a morality built on a specific gender order. For instance, when Zaynab, whose morning routine was described in chapter 5, repeatedly swept the veranda outside her apartment this was a way for her to confirm her own status as a moraly upright woman (cf. Rothenberg 204). 235 Note that drinking alcohol is ḥarâm, i.e. forbiden religiously, it is not only shameful (‘eib). 202 Such gendered moral boundary making (either betwen men and women within the group or betwen women of one’s own group and others’ women) often forms part of national projects or the proces of distinguishing betwen diferent ethnic groups (cf. Melhus & Stölen 196; Yuval-Davis 197). A Gendered Labour Division and Complementary Roles Men and women were often understod as having complementary roles in the camp (this ideal is localy refered to the writings of the Koran). Men were said to work outside and women inside their homes. Abu Wisam elaborated the diferent roles of men and women: My mision is to cover the expenses and to watch the children and to advise them when I am at home. A wife neds to work in the house. And I give [my wife] al rights to raise the children, because I don’t have the time to be with them al the time. And I ask her about how the children react, who has a problem or whatever. So I can fix it. […] The girls help their mother with the housework. And of course they study so when they have some time they help her. About my son, sometimes he comes to help me in the shop. We are Arabs and Muslims. In an interview Khaled, who at the time of fieldwork was stil unmaried, explained part of this gendered labour division: In the morning, I don’t ask my sister to make cofe for me, but she makes it for me. In society they think about it in this way. The woman has to know about it. The man, it doesn’t mater if he works or not, the woman, it doesn’t mater if she is his sister or his mother or wife, she has to serve him. But in our family we don’t do these kinds of things. Maybe my sister doesn’t like to make cofe. If my sister is not available, if she is at work, I do the work. […] I clean the flor, wash the clothes and put them up on the rof [to dry]. The way in which diferent families managed housework was quite varied in Dheishe. Some younger men like Khaled did many tasks that had previously ben considered women’s work, other men did nothing that they considered to be women’s duties. Doing things for others is a way of showing them that you care for them and love them. This is not only something that women do for men but men also do so for women and same-sex friends do so for each other. Men who were served and fed by the female members of the family were also suposed to return these gestures of love with gifts as wel as in their role as providers (cf. Joseph 199). Baxter (207) and Sa’ar (201, 206) have discused the dynamics of obligations, responsibilities and power of men and women towards each other within Palestinian families, thus complicating prevailing asumptions about female subordination in Palestinian families. 203 Most women in the camp, like Zaynab, spent hour after hour cleaning, coking, washing every day. For women, keping their house clean was not simply a mater of hygiene but it was closely related to their own reputation as moral women. In the quarter where I stayed the women gosiped about other women who did not manage to kep their homes neat and tidy. In my host- family, as wel as in friends’ homes, I was often corected for not using enough elbow grease when washing dishes or sweping the flor and for not hanging the laundry in straight lines up on the rof. Straight laundry lines were visible signs to the neighbours that the females in my host-family were moraly clean. Rothenberg (204: 73), who did her fieldwork in a vilage close to Dheishe, drew similar conclusions: Women young and old speak constantly of their shughl, or daily work. This is a constant source of conversation and complaints. […] Shughl is often used as evidence by women that their lives are hard. […] The importance of doing her shughl properly is key to a woman’s sense of self-estem and acomplishment, and is taken as a prof of symbolic cleanlines and a god way of life. Rothenberg also notes that repeatedly sweping outside their houses was a public demonstration for women that their homes were clean and that they themselves were moraly clean 236 or upright. Many women complained about the amount of household duties, especialy those who were wage earners. Maryam, when stil unmaried, often complained about the heavy workload she had even though she was the only one in the family who had ful-time employment. Sharing tasks with women from the extended family or the neighbours and posibly also complaining about one’s own hard work helped establish this gendered moral order in Dheishe. Women kept clean houses, coked god fod and made cofe with wijh or wiś (i.e. face, the froth on the cofe) 237 ; they educated children and maintained modesty by carefuly watching their sexual reputation. Most women and girls in Dheishe also dresed ‘properly’ and tok care not to move about on their own 238 . For men, it was esential to have a wage and thus be able to provide for their families in order to demonstrate their moral uprightnes. Men in the camp often also competed for social status and recognition. Social status could be earned among other men by such acts as displaying generosity at funerals i.e. by geting the right/honour to pay and cok a meal for the mourning 236 Keping the body clean included practices such as removing hair from female bodies, keping hair on male bodies and ritual washing for both sexes before praying (cf. Malmström 209). 237 Traditionaly, a girl’s ability to make froth on cofe and the way she served a suitor was a way for the girl to present herself as a decent and modest woman. The practice is said to display her mariageability. 238 Female dres codes in Dheishe had changed rather dramaticaly; my informants often showed me photos from the 1980s showing local women in short skirts and without headscarves. Wearing the headscarf was often described as an individual decision although the rise of the Islamic movement as wel as a more general Islamization probably also had had an impact on this (cf. Swedenburg 203: 201; Bornstein 202a: 95f). There were also women in Dheishe who made a point of not wearing modest dres. 204 family and their guests. This status competition was, however, a question of teamwork in the family since men and women depended on each other’s skils and the whole family earned status; men had negotiating skils and women coking skils 239 . For men to be god hosts in their own homes also implied dependence on females since a guest was not only suposed to be entertained, but also to be served drinks, snacks and meals that were usualy prepared by women 240 . Another means for men to gain status was to mediate in conflicts or to acquire suport from others in a dispute. The Palestinian so-caled traditional law (ṣulḥa), which, in the absence of a clear legal system, is often used in the ocupied teritories to solve conflicts, also demands that the mediator has moral authority. Traditionaly, mediators were wel-respected older men. But as several researchers have noted (e.g. Petet 194), the first intifada often altered power relations and authority betwen father and son in Palestinian families. Acording to Petet (ibid.: 38), the kind of moral authority that mediators embody may be acquired not only with age but also by experiencing prison or political engagement, at least since the first uprising. During my fieldwork in Dheishe, there were a number of disagrements that were solved using this informal arbitration system (cf. Lang 205). To be chosen as a mediator or to involve oneself as a mediator even in smaler disputes provided males with social status. The many conflicts and fights among Palestinian men may also have provided compensation for their inability to show bravery and display manhod in front of Israeli soldiers and setlers. Multiple Moral Spaces In Palestine, as elsewhere, what was considered apropriate when it came to social norms and moral conduct difered acording to the circumstances. The locality in which something tok place - the ‘moral space’ one related to - was significant. What was apropriate conduct in private, ‘at home’ difered from that which was apropriate in public, ‘in the stret’. In the ocupied teritories, it is for instance extremely rare to se women smoke in public. Even though it is today more aceptable that women smoke, it is considered respectful not to smoke in front of one’s seniors, sometimes also for men (se also Bornstein 202a: 95). Within a locality where one is known, one’s social geography as Rothenberg (204) has caled it, les strict behaviour is demanded than in other places. As Abu Wisam pointed out, it is aceptable for a man to wear shorts at home and often in his neighbourhod, but not when he is farther away, for instance 239 In practice, it is posible that women also contributed financialy from their savings and incomes. 240 If no woman was around, most men were fuly capable of serving their guests themselves. 205 downtown Bethlehem. Acordingly, it was not only women who were afected by ideas about private and public but everyone, although to diferent degres. The interior of houses in Dheishe was considered to be a private female or family domain, a domain that ‘outsiders’, especialy men, should not enter anyhow. The many army intrusions into houses in the camp over the years and are therefore grave violations acros the thresholds of this ‘interior domesticity’. In Dheishe, women were ‘undresed’ for instance without their mandîl (i.e. local word for headscarf) inside their houses but they also used this in a number of creative ways 241 . My host-sister, for instance, could tel her brothers and uncles that she was not dresed when she was in her bedrom and in this way she could sometimes get out of coking for them. Slyomovics (198: 205) has questioned Palestinian women’s seclusion historicaly. She argues that Palestinian folklore and oral history both confirm and contest it. While vilage women are often symbolicaly asociated with the house, they have not ben secluded there but on the contrary used to work in the fields. Also Granqvist’s study (1935) shows that Palestinian vilage women used to be mobile and would travel alone to places like the East Bank of the river Jordan. Places at which Dheisheans met Israeli soldiers, policemen and guards, such as checkpoints, border crosings and jails were considered places of great danger, both physicaly and moraly 242 . Acording to my observations and to my informants’ acounts, moral behaviour in such places demanded caution. Palestinian ideals of stoicism, politenes and fearlesnes (in the sense of not showing that one is afraid) were stresed. A Palestinian should show restraint and distance at these encounters, thus upholding boundaries betwen ‘us and them’ as much as posible. Failing to do so would bring one under suspicion of colaboration. Palestinian Moral Superiority and the Imoral Other In general, Palestinians consider themselves to be generous, hospitable, empathetic and caring towards other people. They claim to be polite and reserved in public (Petet 194) and to have sexual morals that restrict sex and courtship to wedlock 243 . A model Palestinian is also educated, politicaly conscious and often religious to some extent. Sufering, strugle and steadfastnes are also terms that conote Palestinian identity (Lindholm 199). As Sa’ar (201: 723) notes, the 241 Although it is beyond the scope of this study, one may note that keping the boundaries of this iner female and family space inside houses was a way of performing femininity (Butler 190); one becomes a woman by staying inside, not moving around by oneself after dark, covering one’s hair or at least many parts of one’s body when in public. 242 Rothenberg (204: 19) writing about spirit posesion in a Palestinian vilage says; ‘Prison is an obvious and extreme problematic social space, symbolicaly and inded physicaly aligned with places of dirt, imorality, and the presence of the jin’. 243 Norms for sexual behaviour and ‘dating’ do however vary within the Palestinian comunity acording to locality, clas, religion and gender. An uper-clas male Christian living in an urban seting normaly has more sexual fredom than a Muslim unmaried woman from a refuge camp. 206 oficial ideology of the Palestinian extended family envisions the relationships within the patrilineal group as those of cohesion, solidarity and mutual comitment. A Depraved Western Society A moraly corupt Western society was set against this idealized view of Palestinian-nes. The camp residents frequently emphasized the strong bonds in Palestinian families and semed horified by the bad family relations they insisted exist in the ‘West’. The high divorce rates in Western countries and the fact that elderly family members stay in old people’s homes were taken as prof of the depravity of Western society. Even though many people in Dheishe were comparatively used to meting and interacting with foreigners and seldom condemned Westerners outright (at least not in front of me), many were astonished by this othernes and tended to pity people in the ‘West’ rather than condemn them. They did, however, emphasise the diferences betwen Palestinian traditions and Westerners’ traditions, or even the later’s lack of traditions. These views of the ‘West’ conform with Bornstein’s (202a: 12) reports from the more isolated northern West Bank. Traditions worked as an expresion of dignity: One of the most powerful images generating comunal identity for West Bankers was that of an imoral, promiscuous, and alienated society in the ‘West’. Uncontroled desire, imodesty of dres, pictures of naked women in films and magazines, al ubiquitous in the strets of cities in Israel, as in Europe or America, celebrated the consumption of the thin, vulnerable female body. The absence of proper custom indicated moral depravity and the breakdown of comunity. Palestinians dignified their identity by projecting the ‘wrong’ sexual practices or gender behaviours beyond their comunity (ibid.). The sexual liberalism of the ‘West’ was also frequently condemned or understod as strange and incomprehensible. The loathing of Western society, often exemplified by America, is part of a global trend that extends wel beyond the Palestinian context. When this dislike goes beyond a criticism of colonialism and US policies and it transforms into a dehumanizing image of the West, it has ben refered to as ‘Occidentalism’ (Buruma & Margalit 204) 244 . Dabagh (2005: 42f) puts this view of the ‘West’ into context; Arabs often fel defeated by and inferior to Western countries because of colonialism, the creation of Israel and the technological and democratic advances of the ‘West’. In naratives that are promoted to contest the self-image of a backward, conquered 244 Palestinian Ocidentalism to some extent mirors the Orientalism that Edward Said (1978: 2) described as ‘a style of thought based on an ontological and epistemological distinction betwen ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Ocident’. In this light, the complexities of the human condition disapear and, in contrast to Western societies, ‘the Orient’ is portrayed as unable to change and limited by tradition and backwardnes. Orientalism is unfortunately not a relic from the past, but sems to take on new meanings and is used to explain new dilemas, such as terorism and despotic rule in Arab countries (cf. Abu-Lughod 1989: 287). 207 people, Arabs point out that their societies at least have low crime rates, fewer social problems and flourishing customs and traditions (i.e. âdât wa taqalîd) 245 . When camp inhabitants talked about their place of residence they emphasized that people in the camp felt with each other or that they were like ‘one hand’. Hanan, who would prefer to move out of the camp, stil maintained that there were god sides to Dheishe; ‘if someone dies or someone gets maried [people in the camp] wil be around you and come to share your sadnes or your hapines’. To the camp inhabitants, comunity was intertwined with empathy, while there semed to be a shared understanding in Palestinian society that Westerners lacked comunity were unable to react emotionaly to others’ sufering. The Immorality of the Israelis In the proces of othering, Israelis were often portrayed as the worst kind of Westerners, although some Israelis were considered beter because they expresed suport for the Palestinians or came from the ‘East’. Israelis from the ‘East’ were Arab Jews 246 , which implied cultural similarity and that they were not spoiled ‘Americans’ (i.e. Israelis who had imigrated from the USA) 247 . Among others, Ahmed said that most Israelis would leave the country imediately if only they were paid, implying that the Israelis were not atached to the soil and were not properly roted 248 but mainly cared about money. The Israeli way of life was not widely sought after by camp residents, although some of them liked aspects of it, such as the Israeli welfare system. Also with regard to customs and behaviour Israelis were deemed imoral. Imorality was also a question of language and politenes as Abu Amir explained: ‘[The Israelis] are very rude. It means that [their language] is not like that among the Palestinians or in your country or…[…] I can show you respect in many ways [in Arabic]. We have this in our society. [But Israel] is a new society.’ In general, Israeli behaviour was considered rude and impolite (cf. Petet 194: 42). The boundaries betwen Israelis and Palestinians were also confirmed by Samar who described with amazement a visit to her husband’s Israeli workmate some years earlier. Even though they had 245 The flexibly used notions of traditional versus modern are ambiguous concepts in the Palestinian teritories (Bornstein 202a). Modernity is something that Palestinians both want and refuse. This ambivalence should be understod in relation to Israeli discourses about barbaric ‘traditional’ Palestinians and civilized ‘modern’ Israelis (cf. Rabinowitz 197). 246 Kananeh (202: 157f) argues that the strict separation betwen Arabs and Jews as two diferent groups is a recent phenomenon, initiated by Zionism and continued by Palestinian nationalism. European Zionism was also concerned with esentializing Jewish identity as Western. Israel was to become a modern Western state. Jews, who originated from Arab countries, were perceived as backward, primitive, despotic etc. 247 Because of US foreign policies in the region many people strongly disliked America, even though individual Americans did not sem to be met with more suspicion than other foreigners. 248 For Israeli place-making strategies se for instance Abu El-Haj (201) and Ben Ari & Bilu (197). 208 ben welcomed and invited to have cofe and swets, Samar noted that they had not ben served as is the polite way to receive guests among Palestinians, but were expected to serve themselves from the items that had ben put on the table in front of them. The conclusion semed to be that Israelis were clearly not as hospitable and generous as Palestinians. The imorality of the Israelis was however most evident in relation to more political isues. As Lindholm (199: 145) writes, experiences of Israeli arogance and suspicions of an Israeli master plan to kep the ocupation despite peace negotiations have also afected the outcome of macro-political proceses betwen Israel and the Palestinians. In daily life, the beatings of Palestinian children caried out by Israeli soldiers during the first intifada evoked a sense of Palestinian comunity through the display of empathy by felow Palestinians (Petet 194: 37f). The beatings, public or hidden, were also acts that afirmed the Israelis’ lack of morality and, thereby, Palestinian moral superiority. In my work I found that the violence and deprivation the Israeli ocupation implied, experienced as ongoing since al-nakba, were understod as imoral by definition. Events such as house demolitions that were caried out by the Israeli army while there were stil people inside deply upset people. The women in one group interview mentioned another event in the local area that indicated the imorality of Israeli soldiers: Layla: On TV they talked about someone who was caught at the checkpoint. [The Israeli soldiers] tok him and they ped in his mouth. They forced him to drink their urine! Is there more injustice than this? Zaynab: He was from Bethlehem. Did you se him? They had an interview with him on the local TV station. They [also] threw him out from the third flor. He said that he went to a family and they tok him to hospital. People in the camp sometimes related that they had tried to talk some sense into Israeli soldiers and other Israelis, trying to make them reconsider how they treated Palestinians, specificaly pointing at the lack of morality the Israeli ocupation created 249 . The mere questioning of Israeli behaviour along with an experienced refusal among Israeli individuals to take personal responsibility for the policies of the Israeli authorities confirmed Palestinian moral superiority. Layla recounted a visit to the home of an Israeli couple that her husband knew from his busines. It brought back bad memories and made her question the Israeli man’s work as a border policeman: 249 In general, Israeli society uses notions such as ‘the purity of arms’ and ‘an enlightened ocupation’ to indicate the high moral standards of Israeli soldiers (Mors 195b). 209 The woman told my husband to ask me to go inside, but I didn’t want to go in. I hated them and I couldn’t stand being around them, but she insisted or she wouldn’t give my husband his money. So, I went in. She used to work in Al Basa [i.e. an Israeli military prison], I used to se her when we were arested after a demonstration during the first intifada. She was a secretary there. I recognized her from the minute I saw her, but I didn’t say to her that she had arested me or that she used to insult us, but no, she was god, she was [just] a secretary [i.e. said ironicaly]. So, I sat down and she brought us cofe and cola. Then her husband came, he’s from the border police.. Before he came the woman [warned] me so I wouldn’t get scared. Then I started laughing, and she said why are you laughing? I told her that “if you bring Sharon himself I wouldn’t be afraid”. So he came and we started talking, but my husband didn't like it, because he doesn’t like to talk politics in front of Jews. So I asked the man where he was coming from [that day] and he said Gaza. I asked him if he shots at demonstrations, he said yes. So I asked him “how many children did you kil?” First, he stayed silent, he didn’t respond. I asked him why he didn’t reply. At this point my husband asked me to kep quiet, but the man said that it’s ok, he’s not upset and that I could talk. So I asked him again how many he had kiled. He answered, “we also have to defend ourselves when they shot at me, when there are weapons used”. But I told him, “don’t you know that when a child holds a stone it is stil a child who wants to play”. In Layla’s view this Israeli couple was moraly corupt because of their direct involvement in the ocupation and they (or at least the man) did not acknowledge any personal responsibility of their acts. Camp residents would also argue that al Israelis were to blame for the ocupation since most of them did their military service 250 . The monuments and pictures of Dheishean martyrs on wals in the camp were other means of displaying the Israeli lack of morality. These comemorative sites and images could be read as signs of Israeli imorality and lack of compasion as wel as of Palestinian sufering. A frequently raised isue with a Westerner like me was the undemocratic nature of the Israeli state. The question was how the ‘West’ could consider Israel a democracy. A woman I visited who had recently had her family’s home blown up by the Israeli army held an animated lecture about the Americans, who suposedly thought Israel was the only democracy in the region. ‘Is this a democracy?’ she indignantly said pointing at the site that used to be her house; democracies should not cary out such violations. Earlier there has ben a reported admiration for democracy within Israeli society among Palestinians in the ocupied teritories (Lindholm 199: 150) but I did not hear any Dheishean voice such admiration, although I did not folow up on this question. 250 The argument that Israelis as a group also benefited economicaly from the ocupation was rarely raised. 210 Palestinians themselves often expresed, on the other hand, that they had a sense of how to be democratic 251 . Ahmed underlined that the neighbouring countries in the Middle East were by no means democracies and that being under ocupation had made Palestinians politicaly aware: I think you agre with me, the [Arab] governments want to rule their people [in an undemocratic maner]. And they work [together] with Imperialism. They are very bad. [T]he Israelis gave something god, something in it is god. Sometimes we take the god things and sometimes we take the bad things. Our situation and our life with the Israelis made us develop. [W]e strugle because we are under ocupation. Ahmed’s view captures the ambiguity of closenes to Israel and engagement in the strugle against Israel since these have ben vehicles of political consciousnes. Other camp residents, however, rejected the idea of any positive outcome of the ocupation. Close interaction with Israelis is often considered contaminating. As the quote shows, Palestinians also positioned themselves against other Arab countries 252 that were perceived to be traitors that were governed by self-interest, which prevented them from suporting the Palestinians. As noted by Kananeh (202: 160), this kind of suspicion disrupts any simple Jewish-Arab division. Democracy also implies modernity and westernization to Palestinians. Bornstein (202a: 101) writes that ‘[t]he word [democracy] was used as if it meant fredom from oral constraint, the oposite of [Palestinians’] own customs, which they described as emphasizing generosity, honor, respect, and religion.’ Dalal, for instance, convinced her father to let her acept employment by saying that he was ‘democratic’, by which she meant that he would not mind that women were wage earners. Despite the feminization of Palestinian men through ocupation and colonialism (Katz 196) a response among Palestinians is to view Israeli men as lacking proper manhod. When Israelis pursue and engage Palestinian youths, the cultural interpretation available to Palestinians is to consider the Israelis as lacking in the emotional and moral qualities of manhod. Only men of litle honor and thus dubious masculinity would beat unarmed youths while they themselves are armed with and trained in the use of modern implements of warfare. […] Palestinians construe these agresions as cowardly and imoral, rather than a chalenge. (Petet 194: 41) As ‘men of litle honour’ Israelis were not as brave as Palestinians, but were cowards. In Petet’s words (ibid.: 42), these contrasts serve as rhetorical devices that lend meaning to the ocupier’s 251 It is posible that the reasonably fair elections caried out in the ocupied teritories the last decade have given Palestinians certain self-confidence in relation to Israel. 252 Palestinians in Lebanon also saw themselves as moraly superior to the Lebanese (Petet 195: 182). 211 behaviour. Um Ayman developed the theme of Israeli cowardice in relation to restricted mobility in the ocupied teritories: The first [reason for puting up checkpoints] is that [the Israelis] are wel known for their cowardice and fear. And the second reason is to increase the sufering and exhaustion of the Palestinians. The third reason is to eliminate the conections betwen the Palestinian local party-groups and this is wrong. But it doesn’t limit their conections, it increases them. They can’t limit this kind of conection because the Palestinians are known for their courage. They are not afraid of things like checkpoints, so they aren’t a big obstacle for these political parties. [The Israelis] believe the checkpoints provide boundaries that give them security. Rhetoricaly, Um Ayman also refused to acept that even Israeli dominance through means such as restricted mobility was an obstacle for Palestinians. Defending Israelis As the violence of everyday life had ben partly normalized (se chapter 5), there had also ben a kind of normalization of imorality. Even though the lack of morality and compasion among Israelis were frequent topics of conversation in the camp, the boundaries of normal Israeli behaviour had ben extended just as those of normal life had. Despite the frequent hostile atitudes towards the Israelis, Dheisheans sometimes defended or played down Israeli opresion and the role and responsibility of individual Israelis in the ocupation. As Petet noted (205a: 184) when writing about similar proceses betwen Palestinians and Lebanese, ‘[o]thering was neither consistent nor totalizing’ and these relations were also rapidly shifting. Even Um Ayman, who scathed Israeli cowardice and imorality above, claimed that there were some nice soldiers and the way they treated Palestinians depended on their mod. Another typical example is from an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (ww.haretz.com 9 th May 206). The article recounts the shoting of a Palestinian worker who tried to get into Israel ilegaly. Notwithstanding that the man was seriously wounded, a Palestinian eyewitnes described the Israeli soldier as ‘not negligent, he was realy alright in his behaviour towards Naser [i.e. the wounded man]’ since he gave him first aid after he and his coleagues had shot him. Despite the fact that the soldiers remained largely pasive and the ambulance tok two hours to arive, the Palestinian cited in the article described the event as ‘sort of ok’. Although we canot tel whether this Palestinian eyewitnes was hesitant about revealing in the pres what he realy thought about the Israeli soldiers, many Palestinians aparently expected nothing of the Israelis apart from opresive behaviour or they were simply 212 relieved if the soldiers’ behaviour was not even worse. This was a kind of aceptance of the Palestinians’ own subordination. One might argue that these examples may be understod as a way of acknowledging that Israelis are also ‘ordinary people’ who are not so diferent from Palestinians. Some people in the camp, such as Samar’s husband Suleiman, who had ben working for Israeli employers for many years and had therefore met many Israelis far from checkpoints and house searches, recognized more complex relations betwen Israelis and Palestinians. He diferentiated betwen the Israelis he himself had worked with, who were god people, and many other Israeli employers who refused to pay Palestinian workers as they had agred or did not ask for them if they did not ned them. Others argued that Israelis were les concerned with status hierarchies than Palestinians and that they were usualy quite easy-going. Eroding Morality Due to Contamination A 12-year-old boy entered the shady kitchen of one of my informants. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt with a text in Hebrew on it. I could not help asking if he knew that the writing was in Hebrew and if so what it said. His uncle who was present whispered something in the boy’s ear. The boy loked bewildered and tore his t-shirt of. He left to find something else to wear. * For many Palestinians, the threat of Israel is located not only in the represive aparatus of the state but also in risks of contamination. Douglas (202: 5) writes that: […] ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgresions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. It is only by exagerating the diference betwen within and without, about and below, male and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created. In a society such as the Palestinian, where everyday life is distinguished by uncertainty and dificulties in maintaining continuity, disorder is pronounced and in urgent ned of management. Rothenberg (204: 126f) notes that there was widespread fear among Palestinians of becoming moraly contaminated through contact and intimacy with Israelis (cf. Tamari 1981: 62). The intimacy, and one could add dependence, established betwen Israelis and Palestinian males in prison, at work or in romantic relations with Israeli women jeopardized Palestinian morality, politicaly and sexualy. This ‘lure of foreign ways’ (Rothenberg 2004) was also sen as dangerous in Dheishe. My field asistant for instance claimed that a male acquaintance was more or les moraly destroyed, since he used to live with an Israeli woman on the other side of the Gren Line, working and staying ilegaly in Israel for several years. It was also frequently voiced that drug 213 abuse in the ocupied teritories was the result of drugs being planted by the Israeli state with the help of Palestinian criminals. As mentioned earlier, ‘normalization’ often implied coperation or even colaboration with Israeli NGOs or individuals and for several of my informants this was sen as a form of contamination. It was argued that working with Israeli groups or individuals during the intifada al-aqṣa threatened to destroy the moral reputation of individual Palestinians, to soil their profesion but also to harm the political strugle more generaly. Projects such as the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, established by Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim and consisting of young musicians of Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab origin, has ben controversial in Palestinian society and has met with much suspicion and resistance (Dagens Nyheter 8 th May 208). Moral contamination was perceived to emanate from foreign influences on customs and everyday practices. Below, Khaled explains changes in Palestinian society as a general trend towards Westernization. These changes were not limited to the present impact of Israel and the ‘West’, but Khaled conected them to the profound societal changes after the flight in 1948: The problem is that the people get used to these kinds of things [like Western dres codes], they start to lok at these isues that are far away from religion. And it becomes normal. […] Our traditions in general, the woman must wear religious clothes, this is in our religion and in our traditions. If you go to the vilages south of Hebron, there are no girls who go out without a headscarf. When we were in Zakariya [i.e. his ‘original’ vilage] it was the same. By being here [in the camp], we became mixed with other societies and traditions even from the south [of Palestine] or from abroad, because some people [from the camp] went abroad and they have ben influenced by Western society. […] What we like, that we got from outside, from the Westerners, is science or what they are discovering. [But] what we have received from Western society, clothes, fashion, haircuts, you know… I think what we are doing is in blindnes, we don’t know what we are doing. Khaled here expresed a sense of impurity or polution that is presumed to come from refuge- nes itself as wel as from odernity and outside influences. Some of the outside influences were thought of as coming from Palestinians who were returning from exile 253 . Khaled was not alone in his wory about returning felow Palestinians; Hamer (205) also notes that many locals perceived returnes in the ocupied teritories negatively and as foreigners or outsiders. One reason for this was diferences in habits and traditions concerning anything from language skils and dres codes to eating hamburgers and not respecting elderly relatives. During my minor field study in 200, I noted that returning 253 Another boundary was betwen Palestinians in the ocupied teritories and those inside Israel. Although my informants did not dwel on this isue, Bornstein (202a) argues that his West Bank informers often judged Israeli Palestinians to be moraly corupted through their more frequent and intimate relations with Israelis. 214 Palestinians were often described as lacking morality in relation to alcohol and sexuality. Returnes were sen as not having sufered enough because they had ben spared the Israeli ocupation and they were also considered to have ben contaminated by living outside the homeland. Moreover, there sems to have ben an interplay betwen the perceived imorality of returnes and the mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority; individual returnes who worked with the PA damaged its reputation with their lifestyles while the coruption and autocracy of the Authority conversely damaged the reputation of the returnes who were asociated with it 254 . Questioned Work in Israel Contact with Israelis has, however, ben unavoidable at worksites. Palestinian male labour in Israel has not ben uncontested during the decades of ocupation but it has ben legitimized with arguments about men’s responsibilities as family providers and the way in which the ocupation has damaged the economy of the teritories (Mors 195b). In a group interview several women argued that it was necesary. Layla: The [Palestinian] who doesn’t work in Israel or with the PA is lost. Samar: Like my husband, we don’t have any income; my husband hasn’t worked for a year. Zaynab: And you think the one who works for the PA is living? He’s not living [because the salary is so low]. Samar: How much are the wages in the PA? They’re nothing. […] Zaynab: My husband brings home 130 NIS a month. What does that do for 6 members in a family? Layla: We don’t have projects here so people can work. There are no posibilities for people to work here [in the ocupied territories], this is why they must go out to work in Israel. Samar: If we don’t work in Israel, this may also make people think of migrating. If people don’t find work here or in Israel - how wil they live? Men have never ben requested to stop working in Israel apart from a few days of strike during the first uprising. Tamari (1981) discused the implications of Palestinian work migration to Israel for local rural comunities and noted some of the advantages of working for Israeli boses: higher wages, diversity of jobs and a more relaxed working atmosphere. Palestinians also work in setlements in the ocupied teritories. During the intifada al-aqṣa, some Palestinian men from the local area even tok employment as workers on the Wal constructed by Israel. The women 254 These perceptions probably also hide conflicts of political interests and strugles over power in local society. 215 quoted below claimed this was necesary because of the high unemployment rates in the West Bank. Samar: We want the setlements to be removed, but when we go and build these setlements, we encourage them. Zaynab: But for al their lives, the [Palestinians] have worked [for Israelis] in workshops in setlements and outside setlements. Layla: To me, it's the same 255 . Zaynab: Ever since we were born we have heard that our parents, brothers, and grandparents have worked on the construction of buildings and al the projects [the Israelis] have… Who built it al? Our grandparents, fathers and brothers did. Samar: Do you know that the mufti (i.e. Śeiḫ Ekrima Sa‘id Sabri) said that it’s haram [i.e. religiously forbiden] for the workers to construct the wal. […] Nina: But even with that, there are people working on the wal! Layla: Yes, it didn’t stop them. Samar: They are not Palestinians, the ones who are working, [the Israelis] brought them from outside. Layla: No, they are not from outside, there are people who work from here [i.e. Dheishe]. Fatina’s husband works with his bulldozer… They are not from outside, they are al from here. Zaynab: No one can stop the wal even if they didn’t work. […] Layla: So even if we stop the workers, there is a problem with Israeli weapons. The workers are not al in one neighbourhod that you can gather and talk with and convince them not to work. If we want to stop them we have to go to where they work, and there you find so many soldiers with their weapons, so it wil be dificult to stop them. […] Zaynab: Hold on, the worker would say I’m ready to stop working on constructing the wal - give me an alternative oportunity to work… Samar: True. Zaynab: …so that I can stop working on the wal. Samar: But also, if I don’t stop by myself, when I know that what I'm doing is wrong… If al [the Prophet] Mohamad's people come and tel me that this is wrong and I'm convinced it's not wrong, it's imposible to stop. Zaynab: But if you work for Arab employers you wil be very humiliated. 255 Many Palestinians do not distinguish betwen work inside Israel and in the teritories, since it is al originaly Palestinian land (cf. Gren 207). Layla probably refered to this line of thought. 216 Layla: You have two solutions to stop the workers. Firstly, to convince them to stop and give them alternatives and secondly, to show resistance, to go there [at the site of construction] and start throwing stones, and to throw stones means soldiers wil shot back. Samar: And who told you that those working on the wal were not shot at? They have ben shot at with live amunition, the Palestinian resistance shot at them and they [stil] didn’t stop. If I myself don’t stop, nothing wil stop me. Not even religious prohibitions or shotings could aparently stop some from working on the Wal. Samar also semed ashamed to acknowledge that some of those workers actualy lived in the camp. Work at these problematic sites (i.e. in setlements and on the Wal) remained an insoluble problem, despite the fact that it worked against the Palestinian wish to establish an independent state. In Palestinian national discourse, women’s work in Israel has ben much more controversial than male labour. At the begining of the first intifada, local political activists strongly discouraged women from working acros the Gren Line, advising them to work in the ocupied teritories instead. Many women were warned personaly and some were also atacked physicaly (Mors 195b). This was stil an isue for some in the camp. Huda felt alarmed about the many women working in Israel and the acompanying risks of contamination and moral coruption: Women are working more than before. Many women go to work in Israeli factories 256 . And I don’t know if I like it but they have to do that to provide for their families. I wouldn’t like to do this job. It’s about the dignity of women (karâmat al- mara). […] I know that there are no other posibilities for these people than to go to work there, but especialy for women it’s exhausting. I don’t know, maybe people who are working there would get upset but I don’t like it, this is my personal opinion. As Mors writes, it has in general ben considered shameful for women to work in Israel, although many women have done so since the ocupation in 1967 opened the borders and made the Israeli labour market acesible to Palestinians: ‘[W]omen were perceived as to have les of an excuse than men to go and work there (as only men are, after al, obliged to provide for their families), and because they were sen as puting themselves into greater moral danger’ (Mors 195b: 31). Mors (ibid.) also refers to the shame one of her female informants felt when going to work in Israel. For women, work in Israel jeopardized their reputations as honourable women since they were beyond the control of their families and neighbourhods. As if to hide these moral flaws, I heard several people say of particular Dheishean women who comuted to 256 Acording to Huda, and this is also my own impresion, most of these female workers did not have permits to work in Israel, but worked there ilegaly. 217 Jerusalem were not working for the Israelis, but for Christian churches. Although I had no posibility of checking where they worked, I nevertheles found these local claims that they were working for someone les moraly contaminating than an Israeli teling. One of my female informants was employed in East Jerusalem at a hospital for Palestinian patients with Palestinian staf. She also had a work permit and I never heard anyone question her employment there. Her job was not sen to be risky since she was working among Palestinians. Unlike men, Palestinian women are viewed as cariers of tradition and continuity (cf. Tamari 1981: 62) and they ocupy a special place in the Palestinian national endeavour. The Palestinian Declaration of Independence 257 from 198 for instance says; ‘We render special tribute to that brave Palestinian Woman, guardian of sustenance and Life, keper of our people’s perenial flame.’ As ‘mothers of the nation’ (Kananeh 202: 65f), women transmit Palestinian values and tradition to their children. Women are made to stand for lost vilages, the land and the nation (Slyomovics 198: 208; Katz 196). Female labour in Israel therefore also threatens to contaminate their symbolic force in the nationalist imagery. In sum, working in Israel continued to smack of moral ambiguity and implies dependence and necesity. Being able to provide for one’s family was also a highly valued norm especialy for men and this was often sen as more important than keping one’s distance from the Israelis. One of my younger informants, Rami, noted, however, that it was pointles to refuse to deal with the Israelis or to boycot Israelis products since the very tap water he drank and the electricity he used came through Israeli networks. Dependence on Israelis made it imposible to uphold strict boundaries against them. Moral Flaws of Dheishe However, although camp residents often positioned themselves as moraly superior to others, they were also deeply concerned about the lack of morality in their own comunity. Elderly refuges, however, complained about the present in slightly diferent ways from the younger generation. For the elderly, life had also ben contaminated by consumerism and gred and they said that vilage ideal of generosity had ben weakened. Abu Akram, who was in his seventies said: There are people who if they have things, they won’t give to anyone. It depends on what you have inside. Life is money. In al nations, life is money. There is no dignity. There is only money. If you have money, you’re always welcome. If not… Money is 257 The Palestinian Declaration of Independence was adopted in Algiers 15 th of November 198 by the Palestinian National Council. 218 the main thing in life. Money is necesary, [but] it is about not becoming a slave to money. To live in a god position and to fel with others. To fel with others. [Later in the interview:] People have changed here in the camp. […] How they treat each other, their mentalities have changed. The things they used to like in the past, they don’t like anymore. There was a sense that comunity in the camp was eroding; life had ben beter before - before this intifada, during the first uprising, before the flight. Apart from acounts such as these and the frequent fear of colaborators (who were by definition imoral), the doubts about the morality of felow camp inhabitants and other actors in the local comunity were expresed through moral naratives. These stories semed to prosper as a way of handling contamination or the fear of it. There were naratives about infidelity, prostitution or a girl losing her chastity, about gred or unwilingnes to help relatives out economicaly, about drug abuse or crime 258 . These were stories about the moral failures of people who belonged to the same circle. The stories of colaborators that were discused earlier often contained several kinds of breakdown; colaborators were not only said to inform about the political activities of felow Palestinians but they were also described as drug dealers or car thieves or as being sexualy lose (cf. Mors 195b: 31). Contrary to the Lebanese camp described by Petet (205a: 186), such moral flaws were not talked about in hushed tones but were elaborated upon. The camp was not as moraly proper as it should be; it was garbage, trash, i.e. ‘zbâle al- muḫayyam’, as Taysir said. Also, the political situation or the ‘world’ in general was described as completely broken, i.e. ‘al-dinya ḫarbâne’. Some said Palestinian society neded to be cleaned and by this they were refering to the coruption and bad management of the Palestinian Authority as wel as to colaborators. This imorality was often blamed on outsiders or on those Palestinians who had ben in to much contact with the outside world. It was thus when the boundaries betwen the comunity and others were trespased that imorality flourished. It is likely that the fear of contact with and contamination from others hide a deeper concern with dependence and humiliation in Palestinian society. Gendering Political Morality There was a gendered political morality in Dheishe that concerned whether and how men and women were to be politicaly involved. Gender and age determined which political action against Israel was posible for a given individual. However, it was often imposible to take apropriate 258 Like in most places of the world, Dheishe had its share of social problems such as theft, drug abuse, rapes and domestic violence. Here these problems were not overloked, but on the contrary focused on and often discused. 219 action anyhow and this created a further sense of moral failure and emergency. I am grateful here to Peny Johnson’s (203) observations of the crisis of motherhod and fatherhod that has ben prompted by the second intifada. The Crisis of Political Motherhod In the Dheishean context, a moral woman was idealy also suposed to have engaged in political activities during the first intifada. The early phase of the first intifada had ofered a special oportunity for women to expand their gender roles by participating in the uprising (e.g. Augustin 193; Sabagh 198). Women’s participation sems to have ben largely informal and often quite spontaneous; many female activists constituted ‘emergency activists’, whose political involvement would no longer be required when independence had ben won (Strum 198: 63). Their activism was often built on Palestinian motherhod; being a god mother who educates and cares for one’s children is to be a god Palestinian female nationalist. The ideal Palestinian woman sacrifices for her children as wel as for her country and this may mean sacrificing her children for her country (Gren 201). In Palestinian colective memory of the first intifada, for instance as told in the legends that Kanana has analysed (1998: 123), heroic deds were most often caried out by courageous women who saved male youngsters from the Israeli army. Petet (194) also describes how omen witnesed and engaged in stret batles with Israeli soldiers in ways that revealed the soldiers’ imorality. Petet ses these stret fights as a moral reconstruction; witnesing violence and interfering in arests was a way of reconstituting the female self by caring for and protecting children in a sort of extended motherhod (just as men reconstitute their moral self by enduring violence in prison, se below). The militarization of the Palestinian strugle during the intifada al-aqṣa has meant that popular participation for instance by women in strugles with soldiers has become to dangerous. Rami told me a story about events from the year before my fieldwork. His aunt, who was in her 60s, and some of her female neighbours had tried to save a mortaly wounded young man during an army incursion. This woman had ben involved in numerous similar actions in the first intifada. This time, however, as the middle-aged and elderly women rushed towards the soldiers, who were standing beside the dying man, they were met by live bulets and were forced to retreat. The extended motherhod that had ben so culturaly celebrated was no longer posible. 220 Instead, women in Dheishe concentrated on keping their children at home, out of danger (cf. Johnson 203) 259 . When there were Israeli soldiers by the entrance of the camp, Huda rushed out to lok for her 1-year-old son who was trying to throw stones at Israeli army jeps. Um Ayman recounted how she tried to kep her tenage children, especialy her sons, at home when the situation was agravated. The partialy ofensive stret action that camp women had previously engaged in had ben replaced by a completely defensive position. Women like Layla and Samar had also participated in the first intifada when they were unmaried tenage girls. Now, though, as adult, maried women, they did not want to risk arest or injury. Layla: I used to go to al the demonstrations. It’s only recently I stoped going as I said [earlier in the interview] because I’m afraid of others and people don’t trust one another. There were many things that I tok part in, like dabke [i.e. folk dance], demonstrations and I brought fod for people during the invasions, for the people who were isolated with bulets raining down on us. We used to go to the mountains [during the first uprising]… […] Samar: I received a container with my name on to deliver to the camp [in the first intifada] and the camp knows [about it]. Layla: Wanted men - [both of us] used to help them in the early morning to escape from the camp during the rain. We used to take them to Bayt Jala. […] Life changes. Now we are married. I have a husband and children. My life is not my own. If they had ben maried during the first uprising they would most likely have engaged in stret fights with Israeli soldiers to protect their own and others’ children. At this stage of the Palestinian strugle, this kind of political participation was no longer an option. Crisis of Fatherhod Maybe even more alarming to Dheisheans was the crisis of fatherhod (cf. Johnson 203). Petet (194: 34) sums up Palestinian masculinity 260 as part of Arab cultural paterns but also as constructed in a certain political situation: Arab masculinity (rujulah) is acquired, verified, and played out in the brave deed, in risk-taking, and in expresions of fearlesnes and asertivenes. It is atained by constant vigiliance and wilingnes to defend honor (sharaf), face (wajh), kin, and comunity from external agresion and to uphold and protect cultural definitions of gender-specific propriety. The [Israeli] ocupation has seriously diminished those realms of practice that alow one to engage in, display, and afirm masculinity in autonomous actions. 259 These atempts to kep children at home are not new (cf. Petet 194: 37). The diference sems to be that it became more or les the only way for mothers to react. 260 Compared to the amount of research that has ben caried out on Palestinian women and female gender, Palestinian masculinity is under-investigated. 221 Frequent witneses to their fathers’ beatings by soldiers or setlers, children are acutely aware of their fathers’ inability to protect themselves and their children. Manlines is also closely intertwined with virility and paternity, and with paternity’s atendant sacrifices. Denying one’s own neds while providing for others is such a signifier. At the time of my fieldwork it semed virtualy imposible for grown up men to display fearlesnes vis-à-vis the Israelis so maried fathers in particular stresed their moral identity primarily as providers for their families. For instance, Baxter (207) describes the many obligations and responsibilities Palestinian men have towards their family members, especialy their female ones. This may explain the somewhat half-hearted reactions to Palestinian men’s work in Israel or in the Israeli setlements. Although the Palestinian religious leadership has protested against this kind of activity, a Palestinian man is nevertheles expected to provide for his family, so even participating in building the wal may be sen as necesary. By helping to build the wal, a man could remain a moral father and husband, although he was a por nationalist. Many of those I spoke to argued that they risked their lives to met the everyday neds of their families. If they were forced to chose, many prioritized the role of family provider. Some of those who did not chose this remained unmaried, like Taysir, whose strugle to finish his apartment was described in chapter 6. One man I interviewed in Dheishe had managed neither to protect his son from imprisonment nor to provide for his family, which his wife did instead by comuting to a job inside Israel. Acording to others, he had ben a sucesful building contractor in Israel before the outbreak of the new uprising. Now he just stayed at home or went to the cofe shop that presumably also sold ilicit liquor, judging from the smel of alcohol that surounded him. In interview he told me: ‘Before we used to fight [the Israelis]. They used to beat us, we beat them and stil we had a god [economic] situation. We used to throw stones at night and go to work [in Israel] in the morning. I’m one of those who gave up [the strugle].’ It has ben reported that domestic violence has increased in Palestinian families during the intifada al-aqṣa. Although it is dificult to judge the acuracy of these claims, increases in domestic violence have ben related to thre factors concerning Palestinian masculinity; men’s los of their breadwining role due to unemployment; humiliations experienced by men at encounters with the Israeli army and the increased temptation to take out frustrations on family members since unemployed men are stranded at home for extended periods of time (Human Rights Watch 206: 36). 222 Palestinian manhod is also related to political violence and opresion, especialy for younger men. Male youth (śebâb) are idealy fearles fighters and they may achieve manhod by enduring public beatings by Israeli soldiers or imprisonment. Masculinity is also related to sufering. Mustafa remembered when his father had visited him in jail years earlier to encourage his son ‘to be a man!’ With tears in his eyes, Abu Mustafa had raised his shirt to show his son the scars on his own body that came from torture in Israeli prison years earlier. Mustafa’s story shows how masculinity through endurance of sufering may literaly be transmited down the generations. As objects of violence both through public beatings and in prison during the first uprising, young Palestinian males acquired masculine and revolutionary credentials that transformed age hierarchies and to an extent also clas hierarchies since the politicaly active urban elite had ben les exposed to Israeli violence (Petet 194). Although they have no traditional authority, young men who have ben released from prison may be chosen as mediators on the basis of the politicaly acquired authority. Sufering and strugle did not, however, ofer straight paths to masculinity. A person who had ben in prison might, for instance, be suspected of colaboration or of having ben ‘emasculated’. Rapes or threats of rape and other sexual harasments in Israeli detention form part of this ‘de-masculinization’. Writing in the mid-190s, Petet noted that her argument that Palestinians could reclaim agency and meaning by interpreting Israeli violence as rites of pasages to manhod was already eroding. ‘Sexual forms of interogation deprive young men of claims to manhod and masculinity. One canot return from prison and describe forms of torture that violate the most intimate realm of gendered selfhod’ (ibid.: 45). People in the camp did of course understand that prison experiences were dificult and sad. I was told that older, more experienced men informed their younger relatives or friends about how to behave during investigation so I asked a tenage boy whether he had heard stories that would help him if he was arested. The boy loked excited, posibly thinking that ‘yeah, that would be col, I would be able to handle an arest’. His uncle, who was also present, slowly shok his head in doubt and said to the boy ‘yah ḥabîbi!’ (i.e. ‘oh my dear’). This chapter has shown how moral boundary-making tends to become acentuated at times of experienced threat. In this case, the camp inhabitants were positioning themselves as the oposite of both Westerners and Israelis, by stresing their proper conduct and through the teling of diferent kinds of moral naratives. Sometimes they also distinguished themselves from other Arabs in ways that recaled the patern of whom to trust, which was discused in chapter 5. They tried to establish clear boundaries betwen themselves and others by talking about the 223 moral faults of those who were not considered part of ‘us’ in their proces of othering. Dheisheans strove for ‘democracy’ and ‘modernity’ but simultaneously asociated these with ‘the depraved West’, Israeli state building and identity formation and, ironicaly, with their own subordination. However, my informants not only claimed that Palestinians were moraly superior, but they also expresed alarm about their own decaying morality and the dificulties of upholding a moral order under presure. 224 225 10. The Making of Martyrs So far, I have focused on everyday life rather than ‘spectacular’ violence. This chapter, however, concerns Palestinian martyrs. As we saw in chapter 5, Palestinian deaths had to some extent become normalized. But such naturalization had limits and Palestinians have historicaly made sense of fatalities by interpreting them as politicaly meaningful. They have a number of ways of symbolicaly marking those kiled as martyrs. In the ocupied teritories, whether they are political activists or not, people who die in the notorious suicide bombings as wel as those who are kiled by the Israelis are considered martyrs. The majority of Palestinian martyrs are thus not suicide bombers, most of them are unarmed and many are not even involved in political activities. Suicide bombing, with its dramatic efects, nevertheles dominates in reports in the global media and this makes a large part of the international audience believe that Palestinian martyrdom is equal to suicide bombings and atempts to kil Israelis. In reality, though, suicide bombers represent a very smal proportion of the martyrs 261 and they are also a recent phenomenon, starting in 194. Initialy, the Palestinian public was unanimously oposed to the idea of atacking Israeli civilians (Seitz 206: 15). Nevertheles, suicide bombings have sometimes gained considerable suport during the intifada al-aqṣa, though my field material shows that they continue to be questioned. Martyrdom is thus primarily about dying, not about kiling others. This chapter discuses colective understandings of martyrs in Dheishe 262 . Firstly, it focuses on the acentuation of violent death, by glorifying martyrdom, resistance, sacrifice and through an ilusio f violence. Secondly, it outlines the complexities of the social making of martyrs. Dheisheans suceded to some extent in turning loses into gains but this transformation proces was complicated by a number of obstacles. There was, for instance, a ned to constantly reafirm the authenticity and intent of martyrs and to distinguish betwen diferent degres of martyrdom. Thirdly, this chapter discuses the dilemas asociated with martyrdom. Suicide bombers were particularly moraly troubling because they undermined the Palestinian moral superiority that was discused in the previous chapter. 261 During the four first years of the intifada al-aqṣa 12 suicide bombings were comited, compared to the 3,275 Palestinians kiled by Israel (including 173 women and 139 children under 12) (Palestinian Red Crescent in Fasin 208: 541). 262 Some recent research on martyrs in the Israeli-Palestinian context has focused on the various motives of individual suicide bombers (Alen 202; Haso 205a; Hage 203). In this chapter, I build on my ethnographic field material, which does not include any individuals who tried to cary out atacks. My concern here is not to try to examine the motives of individual Palestinians for carying out atacks (they were probably several), but to elucidate the significance of martyrs in the local moral discourse and in the daily life of Dheisheans. 226 Dheishean Martyr Terminolgy In daily conversation in the camp, the word for martyr śahîd (shuhada in plural) was used in a broad sense to include civilians, unarmed activists who were kiled by Israelis and those who kiled themselves when atacking Israelis. When I asked people to tel me a story about a martyr using the word śahîd, I never knew hat kind of martyr my informant would chose to talk about. It might be a story about a child who was kiled by Israeli sheling, or a stone-thrower who had ben shot or a suicide bomber who had blown himself up. Although suicide bombers are often included in a wide range of lost ones, there was also a frequently used local term for them, istaśahidîn (istaśahid, singular). This word literaly translates as ‘those who kil themselves in a martyr’s death’. Many also talked about a suicide bombing as a martyrdom operation or amaliyye istiśâdiyye. To avoid disrupting the text with to many local terms, I wil use the English word martyrs when refering to the general category shuhada, but martyrdom operation and sometimes suicide bomber or istaśahidîn to describe the act and persons who intended to hurt Israelis by carying bombs atached to their bodies. I am, however, aware that some would claim that the English term ‘suicide bomber’ has ben misinterpreted in international media and that this is not a suicidal act 263 . This is nonetheles a term that adequately describes a person who caries out the act of blowing himself up without caling it ‘terorism’ or for that mater ‘resistance’. Acentuating Violent Death It was late March and the weather was chily and grey. We stod by the women’s entrance to a mosque in Dheishe, Um Mustafa and I, waiting for a funeral procesion to start. Um Mustafa had found a female friend of hers and they were chating quietly. The day before, four people had ben shot to death by Israeli soldiers in central Bethlehem and one of them was going to be buried this day. The kilings had taken place close to the house where I stayed during my first visit to Palestine in 200. As son as the news about the shoting had ben shown, as was usual, in a subtitle on the local news station, I had caled my former landlady. Not surprisingly, the line was busy, but when I finaly got through my landlady could confirm that she was unharmed although a bit shaken since ‘we haven’t had any shoting right outside the house for a couple of months now’, she explained. Among the four dead Palestinians, there was a young Christian girl of 12 years. Her father had also ben seriously injured but later recovered. It remained unclear why the girl and her family had ben shot at. Two of the thre other martyrs, who were al Muslim men, were understod to be political activists by local Palestinians and 263 For instance, Strenski (203) has sugested ‘human bombers’ as a more neutral designation, but this term has not become popular. 227 they semed to have ben the target of the Israeli operation 264 . The third dead man was considered a non-fighter localy and he had probably just ben unlucky to be in the company of the wanted men when the Israeli soldiers showed up to asasinate them. According to my former landlady, who had run out onto the balcony at the sound of guns, after the shoting the Israeli soldiers had prevented the Palestinian ambulances from reaching the wounded. This was a comon story I was told. While I was stil talking to my landlady we both noticed that the firing was stil going on. ‘I don’t understand why they are stil shoting’, she said quietly. This day in Dheishe, one of the Muslim men was going to be folowed to the graveyard in a masîrat iś- śahîd i.e. funeral procesion of a martyr. Both some local and international journalists and cameramen were waiting for the martyr along with the rest of us, the media representatives had placed themselves on a wal to a courtyard to get a beter overview. Sudenly, the mas of people started to move slowly, some men were coming out from the mosque carying the martyr on their shoulders. The dead body was wraped in a Palestinian flag. To my relief his face was covered unlike the pictures I had sen on TV from martyrs’ funerals. Contrary to how corpses are usualy treated acording to Palestinian custom, a martyr is not washed before the funeral since his or her blod is said to wash the body 265 . Women do not normaly join in funeral procesions for others than martyrs. Among the mas of people who moved up the hil of the camp there were, however, also women although we waited until most people had pased and then joined the end of the procesion. The unwashed body that is wraped in a Palestinian flag (or sometimes an Islamic flag), the presence of women and the flower decorations distinguish a martyr’s funeral procesion from other funerals. Martyrs’ funerals are also frequently turned into political manifestations (Jean-Klein 197). This political aspect of the funerals is probably the reason why the Israeli army often refrains from (or sets special conditions for) returning a dead person’s body to his or her family (Bowman 201). When the women started to move I tried to kep pace with Um Mustafa, who, despite her age, walked surprisingly fast. Later on some young girls whom I knew from a youth organization in the camp joined me. There were hundreds of people in the procesion and as we walked up the camp I felt rage and grief mixed with a sense of empowerment. When I later asked Um Mustafa if she had felt the same mixture of emotions, she cast a surprised glance at me and said ‘of course’. We walked al the way through the camp and continued down towards the vilage of Artas. The procesion ended at a place outside the camp caled the martyrs’ graveyard (al maqbarat al śuhadâ’). The martyrs’ graveyard had ben constructed at the begining of the intifada al-aqṣa, when it had ben judged to dangerous to cary out funeral procesions to the usual graveyard in Bethlehem, which is close to an Israeli army post at Rachel’s 264 This Israeli strategy of so-caled targeted asasinations (or, more acurately, extra-judicial executions) has ben widely employed during the intifada al-aqṣa, but is not a new phenomenon. 265 Not washing the corpses of a martyr aludes to a Hadith, which says that someone kiled in jihâd wil be washed from his sins by the first drop of blod (Fastén 203). 228 tomb. When we women finaly reached the martyrs’ graveyard the ceremony was already over and people began hurying back to get inside in the chily weather. Um Mustafa and I then returned to the aleys of the camp. * Martyrs are ever present in daily life in Dheishe through such public funerals and in many other ways. If anyone was to forget them, there is a huge sandstone monument by the camp’s main entrance in the form of a map of Palestine prior to 1948. It is caled ṣarḥ al-śahîd, literaly the martyr’s release, and was erected to comemorate those who died in the 190s. At the other end of the camp, as described above, there is the martyrs’ graveyard. These two places related to martyrs close in and mark of the camp from its suroundings, underlining the refuges’ understanding of the camp as a place of sufering, strugle and los. Martyrs were also a part of life because so many Dheisheans had ben kiled in political violence over the years (se chapter 2). Even without loking for informants who were relatives of martyrs, I stil often met people who had a martyred family member. During the intifada al- aqṣa alone some 25 persons from the camp had reportedly ben kiled, including 7 people who had caried out suicide bombings. In Dheishe, one’s daily routine would not necesarily be shaken by hearing of yet another death; at least not if it was an unknown person in another local area. In relation to martyrs, Alen (208: 465) has noted that martyr posters with their ‘predictable repetitivenes […] visualy subsume[d] each individual death into the comon stream of intifada martyrdom, only add[ing] to their normalcy’. As people in Dheishe would say death was ‘âdi (normal). At the same time as death was normalized, it was also acentuated. Stories and practices concerning martyrdom were ways of handling violent death by giving it multiple meanings. Reinterpreting events in order to give them a higher purpose may promote resilience among people who live under harsh conditions. ‘Even the most unbearable events can be described as “not so bad after al” or as something that wil lead to positive change in the end’ (Scheper- Hughes 208: 4). Scheper-Hughes relates how a Brazilian father of a thre-year-old girl, who died from alnutrition and pneumonia alone at home while her parents had gone dancing, concluded that ‘perhaps Mercea died to bring us to our senses, to make us a united family again’ (ibid.). In Dheishe, violent deaths of loved ones were not completely in vain because they were symbolicaly marked and interpreted as patriotic gains, either when the martyr was a civilian or when he or she had taken part of more organized resistance. Fatalities were moreover rendered inteligible and meaningful through a politico-religious discourse on martyrdom and cals for armed resistance. 229 Glorified Martyrs: A Politico-religious Discourse [These Palestinians] were not kiled; they were martyred. […] One who gets kiled, his life is ended without him having done anything in his life, while a martyr dies defending his country. He goes to the highest level in Paradise. […] God finds a martyr with strong wil, so when he dies he wil not be scared. God gives the honour of martyrdom to someone who prays to be a martyr. […] First, the martyr is beter than al of us. A martyr who sacrifices his life is beter than someone who prays and fasts and stays in his home; he doesn’t sacrifice. No one wil be sad for someone who died for his country. When asked to tel a story about some Palestinian who had ben kiled, Ziad, a 15-year-old boy, corected my field asistant as shown above 266 . Ziad’s words display comon notions of glorified martyrdom, which include conotations of nationalism, religion and sacrifice. Such notions helped make sense of Palestinian deaths. In Palestinian nationalism, there is a strong rhetorical discourse about martyrdom (cf. Jean- Klein 197; Khalili 207). Martyrs are sen as political heroes who sacrifice their lives for the nation. As underlined by Benedict Anderson (1983), dying for one’s country is comonly treasured within nationalism and is definitely not unique to the Palestinian case. Al Palestinian political parties have used martyr rhetoric to fuel resistance. It was, however, not until the 190s that the śahîd concept became flavoured by political Islamist discourses (Lindholm 203a: 129). One example of this rhetoric that cals for revenge for lost ones is from the folowing Hamas comuniqé during the first uprising: ‘[T]he blod of our martyrs shal not be forgoten. Every drop of blod shal become a Molotov Cocktail, a time bomb, and a roadside charge that wil rip out the intestines of the Jews’ (quoted in Mishal & Aharoni 194: 202 in Khalili 207: 197). There is also a long tradition in Palestinian society of celebrating martyrs that goes back to the Palestinian peasant revolt during the 1930s (Swedenburg 203: 107f). Also during the first intifada, the localy based nationalist leadership emphasized the significance of martyrs by proclaiming strike days as a gesture of mourning of the most recent martyrs (Khalili 207; Jean- Klein 197: 87). At the time, popular rhetoric compared a martyr’s funeral to a ‘nationalist or patriotic wedding’ (a‘râs waṭaniyye), the martyr being equivalent to the bride who maried the land, i.e. the grom 267 (ibid.). To Jean-Klein’s informants, the march that acompanies the martyr to the grave was asociated with a wedding procesion idealy involving hundreds of people, although the Israeli authorities often disrupted or put obstacles in the way of the corect 266 Later on in the interview, Ziad also acknowledged that there were other ways to sacrifice for the Palestinian cause, for instance by helping one’s people as a medical doctor. 267 The homeland is normaly described as a female in Palestinian nationalism, in the ‘nationalist weding’ described above there was an inversion of gender symbolism. 230 performance of this practice. The image of the ‘nationalist wedding’ provided an example of how diferent key symbols (Ortner 1973) can ‘fed each other with meaning’; the cultural and political significance of the wedding reinforces the importance of martyrdom (cf. chapter 6). However, none of my informants compared the funerals of martyrs to weddings. It semed as if this kind of metaphor had lost its importance. Apart from its nationalistic dimension, martyrdom also caries religious conotations. An overwhelming majority of the Palestinians in the ocupied teritories are Suni Muslims and most are to some extent actively religious (Dabagh 205: 19). As Dabagh writes about contemporary views on martyrdom in Arab countries more generaly ‘[d]ying for the sake of others, particularly other Muslims, is greatly respected and admired’(ibid.: 4), a statement that fits neatly into the Palestinian discourse 268 . Although Christian Palestinians have ben martyred over the years 269 , the discourse about martyrdom is highly influenced by Suni Muslim beliefs. A Palestinian martyr is thought to be rewarded after death, as Dabagh (205: 30f) explains: Martyrdom is considered to be the sacrifice of life in the service of Alah, usualy as part of the strugle for God’s cause, jihad. The rewards for the martyr are many. […] Having given up his life for God, a martyr is not judged as an ordinary human, but al his sins are forgiven by the very act of martyrdom. […] Several times the Quran says that martyrs should not be thought of as dead, but living. In this Muslim context, it is not without significance that the earliest known use of the term śahîd was by the Prophet Muhamed at the batle known as Badr (Kanana 205: 190). In the preparation of this batle the Prophet promised those who joined him that they would be martyrs and therefore guaranted an entrance to heaven. Both the Koran and Hadith colections (i.e. the Prophet’s sayings and stories about his life) promise the martyr a place in paradise. As noted by the Palestinian anthropologist Kanana (ibid.), martyrs are understod to only emerge in jihâd, which is often inadequately translated as holy war, although it also caries a more spiritual meaning 270 . As interpreted by Kanana, such war must be both defensive and serve God’s wil to qualify as a true jihâd. It has ben argued that a ‘true’ martyr is a Muslim who dies in a true jihâd and whose only motive is to serve the wil of God (ibid.: 187). The strugle against Israeli ocupation neds to be defined as jihâd for defensive purposes and as acording to God’s wil; this went without saying in the camp. As long as someone who was kiled by violence related 268 This ideal of doing things for others to the extent of sometimes neglecting oneself is also present in daily life; a decent Palestinian is expected to act towards others in this way. 269 To my knowledge, there have ben no Christian suicide bombers in Palestine. 270 In its primary meaning jihâd means ‘exertion’ or ‘strugle’. It is sometimes also translated as ‘to strive’. Although jihâd is a colective obligation for Muslims, it may be undertaken in many ways; ‘by his heart; by his tongue; by his hands; and by the sword’ (Ruthven 197: 16). 231 to the strugle against Israel had the right intention he or she was generaly considered an authentic martyr; as we wil se, Dheisheans often discused and questioned whether specific martyrs had the right intentions or not. The Armed Strugle and the Emergence of Suicide Bombings Violent resistance in diferent forms can be a means of dealing with opresion. Historicaly, and maybe most notably in Lebanon, the Palestinian armed strugle was suposedly caried out by fidâ’iyyîn, i.e. guerila fighters, atacking Israeli targets. During the first intifada, the leaders and participants from the ocupied teritories broke with PLO’s strategy of an armed strugle and promoted mas mobilization as their primary method. The more violent resistance was handed over to the young stone-throwers. ‘[T]he iconic figure of a young guerila fighter, armed and ready to do batle, was replaced with the equaly iconic stonethrower, his face covered in the kefiyeh [i.e. the famous white and black checked scarf], sometimes carying a ‘sling and a stone, like David’’, Khalili (207: 196) notes. The typical martyr during the first uprising was thus often a youngster who had thrown stones - at least this is how it is remembered today. As was described in chapter 3, the first Palestinian suicide bomber was sent by Hamas as a response to an Israeli setler’s atack on praying Palestinians in Hebron during the Oslo years. When the intifada al-aqṣa erupted in 200, there was also a re-emergence of the armed strugle; the use of suicide bombers intensified along with other military operations such as atacks on Israeli checkpoints, exchange of fire betwen Palestinian militia and Israeli setlers and the launching of homemade rockets. In this heavily militarized uprising, suicide bombers became part of the much wider category of celebrated martyrs. Among Palestinians in the ocupied teritories during the intifada al-aqṣa, there was general agrement that violence in the form of an armed strugle was justified and necesary to overcome Israeli domination and to gain independence 271 . However, many people in Dheishe reasoned somewhat ambivalently way about militarized resistance. Layla, who was against the martyrdom operations, explained as folows: To me, the martyrdom operations or any [military] resistance are our only hope to scare the Jewish people and force them to leave our country, because this is the only choice we have. But at the same time for us as Muslims even if we resist and throw stones we can’t go back [to our vilages] until we stand together. Islam wil return to what it once was, people wil become like one hand, there wil be no colaborators and no traitors, when we al love our country and when we al resist. So it’s not only 271 A public opinion pol released in January 201 by the Jerusalem Media and Comunications Center (JMC) reveals that 70 per cent of women and 74 per cent of men aprove of Palestinian military operations as a suitable response to Israeli agresion (Johnson 203). 232 the martyrdom operations, but also our love for our country and our love for each other that wil lead us to return and force the Jews to leave our land. An armed strugle can be caried out in a number of ways and was for most people thought necesary to overcome the enemy but insuficient to achieve political goals. Layla added that there was a ned for Palestinian unity and a religious and patriotic awakening. The local view of martyrdom operations in the camp was also influenced by competing discourses among the Palestinian political leadership and elite. Arafat and his party Fateh semed to spread a mesage of double moral standards. Walid and his friend Ali thought of it as an act close to betrayal: ‘[…] Arafat said that we are going to Jerusalem as milions of martyrs. [But w]henever there is a martyrdom operation in Jerusalem [Arafat] is the first one to condemn it. And he says that we are against these things’, Walid said. His friend Ali continued to explain that the PA encouraged resistance but when they knew of Palestinians who planed to atack Israeli targets they arested them. ‘It’s orders from the Israelis’, Ali said. Officialy, the discourse in favour of martyrdom operations was mostly maintained by the Islamic parties at the national level. For instance, cited at a main Israeli newspaper’s website, the Islamic Jihad’s spokesman Abu Ahmed legitimated a suicide atack in Tel Aviv a day earlier by saying: ‘This is a legitimate atack by al the international laws and conventions, as wel as religious rules, and no one can condemn this act of resistance’ (Haaretz 206-04-18). The divide betwen Islamists and PLO- conected parties was not always as clear as it might sem here. It is, however, beyond doubt that suicide bombers were much debated in Palestinian society during my fieldwork and a leter of protest against the use of them was published and signed by leading Palestinian intelectuals and political actors in late 202 (Khalili 207; Alen 202). Religious authorities also tok diferent stands on this isue (e.g. Larzilière 201: 938). Death as a Release from Life As we have sen in earlier chapters, hope in a Palestinian context was sometimes even extended beyond death, to paradise. During the intifada al-aqṣa, when chanels of agency were considerably restricted, the only chance for some to obtain a beter life semed to be in afterlife (cf. Hage 203). Field asistant: Isn’t it sad that young people go to blow themselves up? Maybe he has a chance to get an education, to get a life. Mounsir: That’s posible but you have to ask yourself why this young person goes to do this. You wil find out that most of his family has ben kiled. With al respect, what do you want from this guy? 233 Walid: There is also something else; to believe in God. There is a heaven. Since [the suicide bomber] believes that he wil die one day, he wil not live forever, death is not his decision. If God doesn’t want that, the soldiers wil capture him [before the explosion]. If I want to kil myself, I wil anyway. God knows when this person wil die. Most of the people who get kiled [are] from the Palestinians, [for example] a litle child who goes in a car and [the Israelis] atack them by plane. Also Um Ayman, who like many camp inhabitants had a fatalistic view of events, said that ‘their souls are teling them that they wil be martyrs’; death was already decided. Death thus hapened acording to a divine plan also when related to martyrdom operations. The religiously influenced discourse on martyrdom also points out that a martyr wil indeed be compensated for his sacrifice, in heaven. Martyrdom was imagined as a beter option than a continuous batle in life. Alen’s (202) findings from her fieldwork in the West Bank in 201/202 sugested that Palestinians did not take despair as a valid explanation of the istaśahidîn. In Dheishe in 204, however, most people did. Martyrdom operations were explained as an outcome of frustration and desperation, as sugested in the folowing interview ith two women: Zaynab: Did you se the man who was caught [by the Israelis] yesterday, trying to go for an operation [i.e. suicide bombing]? He left ten children behind. Samar: He tried to go through the checkpoint twice. Zaynab: Por guy! He was on TV yesterday. […] Samar [explaining]: A man from Gaza, he’s 42. For 2 years he comes and goes to Israel. He pased through the checkpoint twice carrying explosives. The first time, the metal detecting machine rang, and he claimed it was his watch, so they tok his watch away and he pased. He puled his shirt up, there was nothing. He was doing tests on coming in and out from the checkpoint. He made the explosives as shorts; he was trying to check and se if he could get through with this type of belt instead of the one around his waist. Two times it worked out, but the third time they suspected him, so they caught him and undresed him. He was going to do a martyrdom operation. Zaynab: It’s al from despair from life - this is what he said. In the women’s interpretation of the news, even a family man, who aparently was lucky enough to have a work permit in Israel so he could suport his many children, was so frustrated with the political situation that he wanted to become a suicide bomber. In Abu Amir’s view, the situation was so desperate that the Palestinians were aproaching a colective suicide: The Israelis pushed us into a corner - we have nothing more to talk about. It loks like their Masada story [i.e. a historical Jewish strugle ended with a colective suicide]. What hapened last wek [when there was a martyrdom operation] is no surprise; more and more blody events. The Palestinians have nothing to fear, we have 234 already lost everything. [The Israeli army] kil and kil and destroy houses even if we don’t do anything. Also, as Alen (202: 37) notes, many Palestinians felt that any Palestinian could be kiled anywhere, at any time; suicide bombers did at least put up a fight. When faced with overwhelming power discrepancies, a martyrdom operation or risking one’s life in a demonstration was also an atempt to take control of one’s own death, although God would always have the final say. In desperate circumstances, death could be interpreted as liberation. The fact that the monument comemorating martyrs by the main entrance to Dheishe had ben named ‘the martyr’s release’ was hardly a coincidence. Sacrifice and the Ilusio of Violence Śahîd literaly translates witnes from Arabic, as in ‘a witnes to the truth’ (Dabagh 205: 30). The Palestinian martyr is a ‘sacrificed person, the one who has chosen to give up his life to afirm his religious - and by extension - political truth. [T]he martyr bears witnes without speaking: he testifies through the sacrifice of his life, and after his death through his image, reproduced in icons’ (Fasin 208: 541). For Palestinians the term artyr is linked to a militant rhetoric, acording to which there is a single condition for becoming a heroic victim and that is to die either voluntarily or involuntarily in the strugle against Israeli ocupation (ibid.: 541). As a form of sacrifice, Palestinian martyrdom is not a strictly individual act but is related to empowerment of the Palestinian people as a whole (cf. Gren 201); Ivan Strenski (203), profesor of Religious Studies, notes that sacrifice is a profoundly social action that involves networks of relationships and of social exchange. It is a special mode of giving in which that which is given is typicaly destroyed and thus becomes sacred. ‘By extension, much that comes into contact with that which has ben made sacred by the sacrifice, itself becomes sacred by contagion’ (ibid.: 25). Acording to Strenski (ibid.: 21), Palestinian suicide bombers give up their lives for Palestine and other Palestinians who are also obliged to reciprocate for these deaths by continuing to resist. The families of martyrs gain status from their sacrificing relative (se below). The sacrifice also makes the teritory of Palestine sacred, since it is the site of an event of making something holy as wel as an intended recipient of sacrifice: ‘[T]hese suicides or homicides are sacrificial gifts of an extreme sort, ofered to atain something in exchange – Palestine – to kep it alive, to realize it, to create it, in return for the sacrifice of young lives’ (ibid.: 27). At the time of my fieldwork, power was experienced in the ocupied teritories as overwhelming and brutal; despair and hopelesnes prevailed and rational action semed to be of limited value. In situations distinguished by ‘a widening gap betwen expectations [in this case of 235 national independence, return and a proper life] and chances’ (Jackson 205: xii), marginalized populations may turn to alternative chanels of agency; they withdraw their investment in society and sek an ilusio elsewhere. This ‘elsewhere’ may be sought in the afterlife. When people gamble with their own or others’ lives, they rely on an ilusio f violence, thus hoping that change wil come through violent acts (cf. Hage 203). Such gambling is engaged in not only by suicide bombers but also by others who risk their lives by joining public marches, throwing stones, refusing to folow curfews or provoking Israeli soldiers. However, in Hage’s view (ibid.), Palestinian suicide bombers in particular, who are deprived both of a proper life and of a means of armed resistance, consciously try by dying to gain a status and honour that they could not obtain in life. On an inter-subjective and colective level, I wil argue that by transforming suicide bombers into martyrs, Dheisheans and other Palestinians have taken a more or les calculated moral risk in the hope that sacrifice may pay of. For many Palestinians, suicide, which is forbidden in Islam, is no longer a shameful act but is a weapon against one’s enemies. But what if al those who have died were not martyrs after al? In the face of such uncertainty it is important to clarify the boundaries betwen diferent kinds of martyrs. The Social Making of a Martyr - An Extraordinary Death Every Palestinian who is kiled by Israel is idealy a martyr. However, for my informants it was important to confirm that someone realy was a ‘true/authentic martyr’. A death could be socialy transformed into an act of martyrdom in a number of ways. Jean-Klein (197: 91) meant that Palestinian martyrs during the first uprising ‘demanded the continuous and apropriate practical atention of a living comunity of “reciters” so as to bring their status, or rather, their quality to lasting closure’. The status of martyrdom required continuous maintenance. Since people were also kiled because they were colaborators or because they were involved in clan feuds or criminal controversies, the status of martyrdom had to be kept clean and clear. As Jean-Klein (ibid.) has noted, the secret nature of many political activities among Palestinians often demanded a clarification of a dead person’s intentions in order to establish whether they were in fact a secret activist and martyr. One of the clearest ways in which Palestinians maintain boundaries around martyrdom is in stories about martyrs to give them a kind of posthumous reputation. These stories recount the events imediately before and after their death, the way someone died and often hints about the kind of person the martyr was. Kanana (198, 205) has colected thousands of such naratives 236 over the years 272 . He coments that Palestinian naratives have ben inspired by and resemble stories that were told about Afghani martyrs during the war against the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s as wel as stories from the times of the Crusaders and from the Koran (Kanana 205). Stories of martyrs frequently include mysterious events. Martyr Legends as Moral Naratives I heard one story about a martyr when my field asistant and I had sat down for a cofe with Huda before continuing an interview ith her. We started to talk about reading cofe grounds 273 , which is a comon art of divination in the Palestinian teritories. Huda related that more than ten years ago, towards the end of the first uprising, when she was pregnant with her first child, she had asked a woman from Gaza to ‘read her cofe’. The woman tok a lok at Huda’s cup and then refused to tel what she had sen because it was to sad. Two days later, an Israeli setler shot Huda’s favourite maternal uncle to death. Before the kiling, Huda had several nightmares about a brush that her uncle had given her and in the dreams the brush was broken. Huda said that ever since the kiling of her uncle she has had dreams that come true. There were numerous similar stories told in the camp. Often something supernatural hapened in conection to a martyr’s death to signal that it had ben foretold. Um Ayman told one such story of a Palestinian martyr who died without being involved in any armed operation, that contained many typical signs of martyrdom (cf. Kanana 205: 191f). I had a paternal uncle who became a martyr; half an hour before he was kiled he washed (i.e. the Muslim ritual washing before prayer), prayed and said godbye only to his mother, who was siting with other people and he said to her “pray for me, because I don’t know if I am going to se you again” and half an hour later he was martyred. Then, one wek after, they wanted to get his ID to give to the Israelis [Field asistant: Because when it comes to martyrs the Israelis usualy colect their ID cards.] He had his ID in his pocket when he was buried so one wek later [his brother and a friend] went to the grave and opened it to take the body out and bring the ID. They said that one wek after his death he stil smeled realy nice as if he was sleping. Even his grave smeled nice unlike the other graves, and it wasn’t frightening. As in Um Ayman’s narative, martyrs might reveal to someone, normaly their mother, that they have a feling that they wil become martyred. Male martyrs are also often remembered as 272 In his initial analysis of this material Kanana (205) distinguishes betwen a true karamât aś-śuhadâ i.e. legends of martyrs and other stories about martyrs. Here I do not distinguish betwen true legends and mere stories but treat them al as moral naratives. 273 To tel fortunes by ‘reading’ the grinds left in the botom of a cofe cup, a finjân. Se Rothenberg (204: 46f). 237 having a special relation to their mothers (Kanana 198). Some martyrs had also beforehand expresed that they wanted to become martyrs. ‘There are so many people who ask for martyrdom. Because they love martyrdom so much they would expect it any minute. I heard about some people who, for example, refused to get an education because they want to be martyrs’, explained Um Ayman. Before their deaths, martyrs were often said to have put on new clothes, corected things, asked for forgivenes, paid their debts and prayed a lot 274 . These ways of setling acounts before martyrdom also implied that the martyr knew or at least had a presentiment about their coming death. In the naratives, something extraordinary often hapens after the death of a martyr, like the scent of jasmine coming from the corpse or it failing to decompose (cf. Kanana 198). In this example from an interview ith Samar, even the forces of nature reacted to the kiling of a young boy from the camp: There is another sad story. When Mutaz got martyred, there was no rain anywhere except in Dheishe camp. hen they anounced that [there] was a martyr, it started to rain. He had no father. His mother was the only one in the family who was working and he was the oldest son. […] Seriously, it started to rain. In these martyr legends, most martyrs were described as being god people who were beautiful, righteous and, if they were young, with excelent schol records. Kanana (205) notes that legends about young martyrs predominate. Naratives about martyrs contain many similarities acros the ocupied teritories. Underlining how serious the subject of martyrs was and in response to my guarded questioning of the stories, Ziad said ‘[These are] not just stories, nobody can tel a lie about a martyr’. There were also diferent levels of martyrdom depending on the martyr’s intention with the act. A person may be more or les acidentaly shot to death, they may pray for martyrdom or may be a suicide bomber who had planed and prepared their death. Samar elaborated on these diferent intentions, but also acknowledged that God was the only one who could posibly know for sure what a person’s deepest thoughts were: There are diferent levels of martyrs; some people fight, fast and pray to die. The second level is god Palestinians who fight but they don’t pray or fast. And there are others, like a person who was kiled from behind when he was drunk at the checkpoint. God decides. [People discus these types] like the guys who kiled the moneychanger [and then became suicide bombers to repair their reputation]; they are not real martyrs. But people can’t know the iner thoughts of others. Sometimes you discover that the teacher is a colaborator [for example]; there was a teacher of 274 These practices are also claimed to be part of the preparations for suicide bombers. 238 religion in Gaza and for ten years he had ben colaborating with the soldiers [and nobody knew about it, everyone thought he was a god religious man]. Religiosity combined with nationalistic engagement and a wil to die therefore constituted the ingredients of the most valued kind of martyrdom. To be kiled because one was drunk or to sek death as a way of compensating for an ireversible mistake, such as having kiled a felow Palestinian, were not considered adequate criteria for martyrdom. Some people in the camp, such as Huda, refused to make distinctions betwen kinds of martyrs, claiming that anyone who had ben kiled by Israel was as much a martyr as anyone else. Young children who were kiled were also considered martyrs, without any judgement of intent. These stories al point at extraordinarines as the qualification for a martyr’s death. The naratives establish boundaries around martyrdom, distinguishing betwen martyrdom and other deaths, such as asasinations of colaborators. Special Traits in Stories about Suicide Bombers Although stories about istaśahidîn ormaly contain the same elements as other martyr stories, informants tended to add some ingredients. The storyteler usualy underlined that the suicide bomber had experienced bereavement and emotional upset that created an urge for revenge or justice; grief was frequently used as an explanation for the decision to cary out a martyrdom operation (cf. Rosaldo 1989). More importantly than in other stories it sems, the suicide bombers were described as ‘ordinary people’ and it was also emphasized that they were moral persons. These elements were not coincidental; on the contrary, they highlight the moral uneasines and ambivalence in the camp about martyrdom operations. Rami told me about one of his friends who became a suicide bomber, and about the circumstances and experiences that made this young boy take this irevocable decision 275 . Muhamed was 17 years old when he caried out a martyrdom operation. In 203, his picture was on a poster that was put up al over the camp to comemorate earlier years’ martyrs. Rami described Muhamed as someone who was initialy ‘normal’, which localy means ‘not politicaly active’; Muhamed used to tel people that he did not know anything about politics. He had many friends and was god in schol. Muhamed, however, was ‘a boy who became a man’ when something overwhelming and shocking hapened to him, as Rami put it. Muhamed had tried in vain to save one of his friends from dying after he had ben wounded in the head by an Israeli bulet. He was later interviewed by a local TV-station. With tears in his eyes, Muhamed had sworn to avenge the 275 What interests me here is not the acuracy of the turn of events but Rami’s way to narate them. 239 kiling of his friend, acording to Rami. He then went to a man in the camp who was known to organize atacks on Israelis. After a period of carying out administrative work in the local branch of Fateh, Muhamed was sent on a martyrdom operation to Jerusalem, disguised as an Orthodox Jew. Here, he blew himself up and tok some 30 Israelis with him to their deaths. The ned to ‘pas’ as an Israeli by being disguised or wearing ‘Israeli-loking’ clothes or haircuts, captures the extreme separation betwen Israel and the ocupied teritories. Haso (205a: 25f) notes that: ‘Palestinians who undertake these atacks can only comit them by violating such geographic organization through ideological, sartorial, and racialized forms of ‘pasing’, so that they are deemed unsuspicious enough to enter Jewish-majority places’ 276 . Like others of Rami’s stories about martyrs, this narative acknowledges the main character as a martyr, but also tries to explain and make sense of how young people like Muhamed came to chose martyrdom. In Rami’s story, the martyr was described as a moraly god person, even as apolitical, but who experienced something terible that he could not make sense of. Muhamed’s experience was far from unique in the camp. Considering how randomly violence semed to afect Palestinians, this experience could have ben almost anyone’s. Being a ‘true Palestinian’, Muhamed had sufered and mourned. As has ben argued by Rosaldo (1989: 6f), modes of coping with bereavement often involve rage in cultural contexts as diverse as Ilingot head-hunters and the Anglo-American uper middle-clas, although the ways in which they deal with their rage difer (cf. Jean-Klein 203: 569). Through political engagement Muhamed then managed to transform his experience of sufering, his rage and grief into strength and a sense of empowerment in the terms of the local moral discourse. Ironicaly, the only way he felt he could ‘rebound’ from his experience was by bringing about the deaths of others as wel as himself. Since Rami also added a mysterious dimension to his story by speaking of the unknown road Muhamed tok to Jerusalem during curfew, he confirmed that ‘his’ Muhamed was in fact a ‘true’ martyr. It should be noted that Rami was personaly oposed to suicide bombings. He was convinced that there would be no peace if one was unable to fel compasion with one’s enemies. But Rami also recognized how grief and rage are intimately conected. The expresion ‘to explode’ in a frustrating situation takes on new dimensions in the Palestinian context. By experiencing a friend’s death, Muhamed also ended up reproducing death. A comon saying in the camp was that the istaśahidîn were mostly people who had lost a close relative or friend. In Rami’s story, Muhamed did not realy sem to have a choice but was forced by the circumstances. Others would explain it as events being out of his control, as destiny or as a divine intervention. 276 For an outsider, it takes time to learn to distinguish betwen the loks of Israelis and Palestinians. The diferences are mainly evident in dres codes, fashion and hair cuts than in physical features. 240 Often ‘ordinary’ martyrs semed, by definition, to be moraly righteous. When it came to istaśahidîn, however, their morality was not self-evident to al. Several of my informants felt a ned to stres the compasion, humanity and morality of people who caried out martyrdom operations 277 . In Rami’s story, this becomes clear in the part of the story where Muhamed is disguised as an Orthodox Jew, with apropriate clothes and haircut. His only mistake was that he had smoked nervously and since Orthodox Jews do not smoke on the Sabath, people around him became suspicious. This nervousnes implied a sense of humanity. In Rami’s story, Muhamed was, despite his sucesful mision of kiling a number of Israelis, not a cold-bloded terorist but an ordinary empathetic person, not unlike you and me. These elements are even more obvious in the story of a young female suicide bomber from Dheishe, Ayat Al-Akhras (se also Victor 204; Haso 205a). The eighten-year-old was described as beautiful and she had ben engaged to be maried; acording to one of my informants ‘she had everything a girl could ask for’. Many explained her act as a way of saving her family’s reputation, since her father, who was a foreman with an Israeli building firm in a setlement nearby, was thought to care more about his financial situation than about the national cause. Acording to the story I was told by several people from the camp, Ayat was an excelent student and had managed sucesfuly in an exam the same day that she blew herself up. This extraordinarines was combined with her moral righteousnes. She even remained an empathetic moral person while carying out the atack, the story goes, by warning two Palestinian women before blowing herself up at the entrance to an Israeli supermarket in West Jerusalem. The fact that Ayat ‘only’ kiled two people in addition to herself did not diminish her glory. In media reports about Ayat, her family and fiancé mourned her death and were also against her act (Haso 205a). ‘True’ istaśahidîn thus semed to be distinguished by grief and revenge but also by compasion and humanity despite their violent acts. These naratives were also told in a context in which Palestinians and their claimed moral superiority were questioned by outsiders because of the suicide bombings. Since many Palestinians were conscious of how they were represented in global media the stories became speches in Palestinians’ defence to Israeli and international claims that they were mere terorists. However, the naratives also imply the uneasines in the Palestinian comunity about martyrdom operations that I wil return to below. 277 The concern to display suicide bombers as righteous people was probably influenced by what the camp inhabitants asumed that I, as a Westerner, thought about them. 241 Practices Asociated with Martyrdom Apart from the teling of stories, there were a number of other practices conected to martyrs in the camp (cf. Jean-Klein 197; Alen 208). It is for instance comon in the Palestinian teritories to erect monuments comemorating martyrs, such as the one by the entrance to Dheishe. The naming of a stret or an open space after a martyr has also ben a way to remember and honour lost ones (cf. Bowman 201; Alen 208). As discused in the last chapter in relation to the comemoration of al-nakba in Dheishe, gifts in the form of smal souvenirs were distributed in public to martyrs’ families, conecting the ‘original’ disaster with more recent sufering and sacrifices. In conection to the imediate death of a specific martyr there were a number of public practices that the camp residents comunaly employed. As described earlier, the funeral procesion of a martyr was distinguishable from that of an ordinary death in a number of ways. The procesion led to a special graveyard, al maqbarat al śuhadâ’, behind the camp. To be buried there was a sign of martyrdom in itself. For someone who had caried out a martyrdom operation, the practice of reading funeral prayers also confirmed that this person had not comited suicide, but was indeed a martyr. As in the first uprising, activist youth would stil ocasionaly compete with the Israeli authorities or inteligence services to claim the body of a martyr (cf. Jean-Klein 197). If the Israeli authorities suceded they would hinder local Muslim burial procedures acording to which the dead are suposed to be buried before sunset on the day of death, and they also put obstacles in the way of politicized funeral procesions. If it was not clear to which political group a martyr belonged, political parties also tended to compete for the right to print posters with the picture and name of the martyr 278 . An apolitical person, who had ben kiled ‘acidently’ or as a bystander, thus often became politicized after death. It sems that a political afiliation was desirable in order for Dheisheans to make sense of a Palestinian martyr. The posters of martyrs, displaying the faces of men, women and children superimposed on a colage of nationalistic symbols such as Al-aqṣa Mosque, Koranic verses and the logo of a political party, were then pasted up on wals of the camp as wel as downtown Bethlehem. As Alen (208) notes, these posters were everywhere, in the homes of people, in shops and restaurants as wel as on lamp posts and house wals, displaying ‘a nation united through death’ (ibid.: 463). Also grafiti-like wal paintings and outdoor templates of the martyr’s face were part of the practices that comunaly acknowledged the authenticity of a particular martyr. Public recognition continued by adding a martyr’s name to lists of kiled Palestinians that are printed in newspapers and magazines and showing them on local broadcastings. Sometimes 278 This competition semed similar to the way families in the camp competed over the right to cok for a mourning family during the days after a death. 242 people printed t-shirts with the image of a martyr and distributed smal prints with Koranic verses in comemoration of martyrs. Aniversaries were also held, usualy in the martyr’s family home. Extended social suport to the close kin denoted a martyr’s death. Shiren explained: ‘In a funeral for someone who died naturaly, only close relatives atend. But for the martyrs, everyone joins, whether they knew him or not. Everyone joins the funeral. Even schols participate at the funeral of a martyr […].’ In conection to any death in Palestine, neighbours, friends and relatives visit and stay with the grieving family for the first wek to expres condolences, frequently in sex-segregated groups. Martyrs, however, are clearly everyone’s concern and they are an ambiguous political gain that may symbolicaly strengthen the nation. Also during the first intifada people paid condolence visits or solidarity visits to the family and especialy to the mother of a martyr (Jean-Klein 197: 92). Thus, extended social suport was for instance manifested by the many unfamiliar camp inhabitants and people from other parts of the Bethlehem area who showed up at the house of a martyr – as my informants said - not to lament the death, but (at least rhetoricaly) to congratulate the mourning family. I wil although argue that this has more to do with suport to the mourning family and relatives’ atempts to ‘com[e] to terms with grief and iresolvable contradictions’ (Johnson 203: 19) than to celebrate. More privately and individualy, people comemorated their lost ones in multiple ways. To show to her visitors, the mother of a martyr I visited had aranged an album with photos of her son who had caried out a martyrdom operation. In the album, photos from his visit to Europe with a youth organization and his participation in a dabke dance troupe were mixed with family photos and pictures of him as a militant fighter with a gun taken just before he embarked on his suicide bombing mision. In the Palestinian context, the mothers of martyrs have also ben vital in the acknowledgement of young males as both victims and resisters, as true martyrs in the local comunity (Jean-Klein 197). Families often put up a photo of a martyred relative on the wal of a reception rom in an almost shrine-like maner, denoting both pride and sorow. At a youth organization where I ocasionaly helped, one girl caried a photo of a young man in her key ring. The girl shyly explained that the photo showed her martyred brother and this was her own private way of remembering her brother. It was also comon for a newborn to be named after a martyr in the family. The suicide bombers also had their own practices for influencing their transformation into martyrs. Their filmed testaments that have usualy ben released after martyrdom operations are filed with mesages about their reasons for self-sacrifice and the righteousnes of their acts. In the recordings, they ask their audience to pray at their funerals and also exhort them to rejoice 243 and mobilize (Khalili 207: 201f). It is particularly important to read the funeral prayers for suicide bombers in order to show that the person is a martyr and did not simply comit suicide. When istaśahidîn ask for funeral prayers in their testaments it implies that it is not beyond doubt that they are fighters and not ‘simple self-kilers’ for who one does not read a prayer (Fastén 203: 14). They normaly also try to clarify the intention of their acts and the righteousnes of the martyrdom operations is established by references to jihâd, holy war (ibid.). Using the Palestinian nationalist symbols, the suicide bombers in these video testimonies constitute themselves as soldiers in God’s army. Khalili (ibid.: 202) notes that the videos use the language of other Muslim contexts with martyrs (cf. Larzilière 201): Although the symbolic elements present in the videos are Palestinian nationalist symbols (the flag, the kefiyeh [i.e. the Palestinian white and black checked scarf], the familiar poses of young men with their Kalashnikovs), the format itself and other elements therein remind the viewer of other martyrdom videos elsewhere. The headbands worn by the son-to-be martyr recal the headbands of Iranian martyrdom-sekers during the Iran-Iraq war or the militants of Hizbulah; they contain slogans or Qur’anic verses. The language of masculine bravery is also familiar from the same context. Martyrs’ videos, as macabre as they may sem, are also a forum for the martyr-in-waiting to articulate his or her own reasons for seking martyrdom, and in a sense to comemorate his or her own impending self-sacrifice. Despite these video recordings, not al istaśahidîn were sucesful in convincing people of their intentions. Moral Capital and Social Support to Families of Martyrs The families of any kind of martyr were normaly understod as being marked by sufering, strugle and sacrifices; they therefore enjoyed respect, prestige and empathy in Palestinian society (cf. Petet 191; Jean-Klein 197). Um Śahîd (or in the case of a female martyr Um Śahîda), a martyr’s mother, and Abu Śahîd (or Abu Śahîda), a martyr’s father, are respectful forms of addres for the parents of a kiled son 279 . This prestige often stays with a family for a long time. Huda’s in-laws, for instance, had a famous martyr in the family who was kiled in the first intifada, something that stil marked them as a sacrificing family and added to their reputation of being politicaly active. If a family had not ben politicaly engaged before the los of a close relative in political violence, they son became so; a martyr in the family semed for many to be a catalyst for further political consciousnes and activism (cf. Rosenfeld 204) 280 . 279 More than 90 per cent of the Palestinians kiled during the intifada al-aqṣa are male (PCBS 207b figure 51). 280 This kind of family acomodation has also ben noted in other conflicts with political violence; Scheper- Hughes (208: 4) tels a story of a South African mother who managed to acept the kiling of her son and then went on to become an important comunity activist. 244 Apart from this social and symbolic marking of martyrs’ families, there was a popular story that recounted how a family had ben literaly marked by their martyr. In a refuge camp nearby, a martyr’s nephew had ben born with a birthmark in the form of his late uncle’s name on his chek. Photos of the baby, showing a clearly distinguishable name, were distributed and discused in Dheishe during my stay. In this case, the story and photo of the newborn proved to the local comunity the special mark on the martyr’s family. Depending on their social relations and political conections, families with a martyred relative were able to cultivate their moral capital in diferent ways. The hierarchy among these families was also due to the status atached to their martyr, which was often conveyed in stories as wel as in rituals and practices. Al martyrs and acts of martyrdom did not therefore imply the same degre of status and moral capital, but depending on circumstances and intentions for dying, martyrs were judged as more or les authentic and their families as more or les sacrificing and moral. The story about a man who was found kiled in a nearby vilage is iluminating (also chapter 8). I was told that people came in their mases to mourn with his family since they thought he had ben martyred. When the rumour spread that he had ben kiled by other Palestinians for being a land dealer and colaborator, people stoped atending his wake. His family, of course, lost al claims to any moral status. As far as I could observe, the diference in social status was also striking betwen a widow, who had lost her civilian son during a curfew and the father of a suicide bomber who was visited by representatives of the Palestinian political elite. To a ‘true’ martyr and his family, death was not futile. Acknowledging that someone had died as a martyr was a way to console the family of the deceased (cf. Fastén 203: 15). This view of martyrdom was quite explicit in the camp; Shiren, for instance, claimed that ‘a woman whose husband dies [as a martyr] wil not wep in the same way as if her husband had died naturaly because she believes that he is martyred and he is going to heaven and God wil give her patience.’ The martyrs’ families were in theory not suposed to mourn their lost family member. Jean-Klein (197: 98f) notes after her fieldwork in the West Bank 1989/190 that: Mothers were expected to fear for their sons and try to protect their health and lives; and they were expected to sufer and display los when a son sufered ilnes, injury, or death. But in the end, it was in their own personal interests, their sons’ spiritual interests, and their comunity’s nationalist interests that as mothers of heroes they demonstrated graceful aceptance of their son’s dedication to the strugle to the point of death; in fact, completing this move by ‘leting go’. The mother’s exultation in her son’s death by thriling at his funeral, as if it were his wedding, was the ultimate form of publicly demonstrating her readines to let go. 245 My impresion is that these stoical ideals of endurance for the concerned families were even more dificult to live up to during the intifada al-aqṣa when many camp residents found it hard to ‘believe’ in the strugle and the political leadership. It semed as if failures to ‘let go’ were also met by understanding from other camp residents. Despite the honour and pride of having a martyr in the family, the kiling of a relative of course brought tremendous grief that often persisted and was remembered by families for decades. Some middle aged and older women, for instance, tok the oportunity to speak with me about their brothers who had ben martyred in the 1960s. For individuals and families, martyred loved ones continued to be mised and grieved, although they also prompted pride and were evidence of the torment sufered by Palestinians. Dilemas with Martyrs It is important to note that although martyrs provided the Palestinian comunity with symbolic force through patriotic sacrifice and gave martyrs’ families moral capital, they were more of a necesity than anything else. If there had not ben a crushing Israeli oponent, Palestinians would not have neded to be martyred. Martyrdom was ‘âdi, normal, because it had to be normal (cf. Alen 208). Emotionaly, al kinds of martyrs posed a dilema to the comunity. The kiling of Palestinian infants and young children were especialy dificult to come to terms with and these deaths also semed to remain futile. But older martyrs were of course also mised and mourned. Represed emotions were palpable at the aniversary of a martyred young man in the neighbourhod where I stayed. Although she loked as though she would fal apart at any moment, the Um Śahîd uncomplainingly chated with her guests and served cofe and tea. Contrary to the media images that tend to focus on Palestinian mothers ululating and celebrating at the martyrdom of their children, reality was far more ambiguous and complex. The large number of martyrs during the second uprising was of course also problematic, not only for the concerned families but for the whole Palestinian comunity. Socio- economicaly, it was especialy problematic if someone had many dependents. It was often pointed out to me how many children a martyr had left behind or if the person kiled was the oldest son with no father, which implied a specific socio-economic responsibility for his mother and siblings. Folowing the Palestinian tradition of levirate mariages, it could be aranged for a brother of a martyr to take his place as husband and stepfather. For instance, a tenage girl I came to know during fieldwork never knew her father because he had ben martyred during the first intifada when the girl was stil an infant. After the death of her father, her paternal uncle 246 proposed to her mother and tok care of the girl. Her mother explained that since the girl was his dead brother’s daughter, her husband was especialy atached to this girl. Another concern with the many martyrs was increasing dificulties with replacing the curent political leadership since so many politicaly active Palestinians had ben kiled. To many informants, the high number of martyrs was sen as an ongoing political ‘brain drain’. The experienced lack of educated or politicaly engaged individuals was also related to the migration of many Palestinians because of the economic and political situation. Moreover, one case of martyrdom ay give rise to more martyrs. Firstly, if a martyr was a suicide bomber or was involved in other military operations against Israel, the Israeli army was likely to retaliate by kiling more Palestinians as some of my informants noted. The army also often destroyed the houses of suicide bombers and other activists. Secondly, even if hardly talked about or sen as problematic localy, the kiling of a felow Palestinian made people more wiling to sek revenge and to sacrifice themselves. A vicious circle may ensure, fueling further violence. The Eficiency of Martyrdom Operations The istaśahidîn and their martyrdom operations were often discused with even greater ambivalence in the camp. As I wrote earlier, in Palestinian society, there is not and never has ben any consensus about the use of martyrdom operations as a means of strugle. I often tried in vain to discus with Dheisheans the political eficacy of the martyrdom operations and how they afected the view of Palestinians in Israeli society as wel as internationaly. Some, like Hanan, noted the unwanted outcomes of the suicide bombings and argued that one should refrain from them because they were used as an excuse by the Sharon-led government to implement even harsher methods against Palestinians. Walid on the other hand claimed that it did not realy mater what kind of resistance the Palestinians employed since Israel always managed to influence the media reports to the outside world; ‘[i]n general, the Israelis are smart and so strong. […] When you want to fight them, they wil tel you “Lok such terorists [the Palestinians] are!” When we want to live with them in peace, they don’t say how much we like peace, they say that they like peace.’ A comon view in the camp was that since the Palestinians neither had an army nor the military technology of an army, they were forced to use martyrdom operations to defend themselves. Several camp residents argued that the Israelis should fel fear in their everyday lives just as the Palestinians felt fear. Samar also reasoned that suicide bombings were efective since they made Israelis scared: 247 When the martyrdom operations were continuous, the soldiers and the Jews in general were afraid. My husband’s [Israeli] bos was so frightened to leave his home for work, he said to my husband that he’d rather stay home without any job than go out and die. As you se buses leave empty, you hear of demonstrations by the peace movement in Israel, and so on… Al this has an efect. The politics of insecurity and arbitrary power display employed by the Israeli state were to some extent imitated by the Palestinians with the martyrdom operations, creating fear and adding to a sense of distrust among Israelis. In Samar’s opinion, it would in the end bring a solution to their plight. Most people, either against or in defence of the operations, also tried to contextualize them. Abu Amir for instance said that ‘[f]olishnes is met by folishnes, but only the [Palestinian] reaction is sen, not the [Israeli] action. I’m not hapy when twenty people die in a suicide atack. I don’t acept this. And I am not afraid to say this’. At one of my visits to Sawsan’s place, the news on TV reported about a suicide bombing in Israel. Sawsan, who tended to favour the martyrdom operations, turned to me and comented that since I knew how the Palestinians sufered I neded to understand by now that the atack was a result of the ocupation. Suicide or Resistance? There are strict religious and social tabos about suicide in Palestinian society 281 . A number of people were therefore woried that the intentions of some suicide bombers were indeed suicidal and not political and religious. These were martyrdom operations that Dheisheans doubted had ben caried out due to love of the country and the people. Localy, one knew of circumstances in specific individuals’ lives, such as having disgraced oneself publicly in one way or the other, that may have led to a suicidal act that had ben given political conotations rather than the other way round. ‘The guys who kiled the moneychanger’ that Samar mentioned was one such case. Authentic martyrdom operations neded to be interpreted as non-suicidal, with the right intention to serve God and the nation. The intentions of female suicide bombers, which have emerged during the initfada al-aqṣa, were particularly strongly questioned. In January 202, the first Palestinian woman completed a 281 Contemporary views on suicide in Palestine can, acording to Dabagh (205: 40f), be sumed up as folows: First, suicide is a sin or ḥarâm i.e. the strongest level of prohibition in Islam. Second, someone who comits suicide is an infidel or an unbeliever. Only an unbeliever despairs while a true Muslim patiently puts his or her faith in God’s hands. Third, suicide is tabo and is considered shameful and is not much talked about. Fourth, suicide is a Western phenomenon. Fifth, no prayers are read at the funeral of someone who comited suicide, even though the corpse is buried at the same cemetery as everyone else in the usual way. Fifth, an atempted suicide may be forgiven, although it is remains shameful. In two contexts, Arab Muslims stil tend to tolerate suicide: in legendary love stories and in the case of actual military defeats (Dabagh 205: 32). These two conditions relate to how my informants understod the situation at the time of fieldwork; many people were filed with rage and grief after losing loved ones and experienced defeat and subordination. 248 martyrdom operation and was later folowed by seven other females until May 206 (Schweitzer 206: 25) 282 . In Dheishe, several women’s reasons for carying out a martyrdom operation were claimed to be social rather than strictly political (cf. Victor 204). For instance, when a maried woman with several children caried out a martyrdom operation in Gaza people in the camp wondered if this woman had had problems in her mariage that made her chose to become a suicide bomber (cf. Haso 205a). In relation to this, Samar exclaimed: ‘If I have a fight with my husband or his family, and I go to cary out a martyrdom operation, I am not a martyr - this is a suicide’. Female suicide bombers were also debated in Dheishe because some felt it was not a woman’s duty to sacrifice her life for the nation like a man. The national strugle is normaly and traditionaly suposed to be caried out by Palestinian men, although the list of national heroes also includes some women 283 . Regional responses by male Muslim leaders and Islamists to the women’s atacks and their martyrdom status varied (ibid.: 31) 284 . Acording to Dabagh (205: 32), martyrdom is reserved in Suni Muslim beliefs for men who die in jihâd; women can become martyrs but primarily when they die during childbirth. Women should idealy bear children for the nation, not kil the enemy. Some of these young women, for instance Ayat Al Akhras from Dheishe, were however also glorified. Shiren for instance said that ‘Girls who go for martyrdom operations, they are fighters’. There were practical reasons behind the strategy of females carying out martyrdom operations, since the restricted mobility in the ocupied teritories made it easier for women than for men to move; women were more efective weapons than men. Thus, although the strugle is usualy strongly conected to masculinity and manlines, women have emerged as a kind of emergency activist (cf. Strum 198). The severity of the situation during the uprising gave rise to localy considered desperate responses, including female resistance. The Concern with Kiling Civilians The contested suicide bombers were however mostly discused as a moral isue concerning the victims and the moral costs of the strugle. Most significantly, many camp inhabitants argued that to kil was actualy ḥarâm (i.e. strongly prohibited) acording to the Koran; the kiling of 282 Israeli sources count 67 Palestinian women as planing to cary out suicide bombings betwen January 202 and May 206, but only eight suceded (Schweitzer 206: 25). 283 There have ben female Palestinian fighters especialy in Lebanon (e.g. Petet 191; Lindholm 203a: 136f). Two of the most famous Palestinian women militants, kiled in batle, are Fatima Ghazal and Shadiya Abu Ghazaleh. Another woman, Layla Khaled, became renowned worldwide when she hijacked two airplanes in 1969 and 1970 (Haso 205a). 284 Although a Muslim authority in Cairo stated that women were henceforth authorized to sacrifice themselves and that they would be rewarded after death, local Hamas leaders were initialy against this. Most of the female suicide bombers have also ben sent by the secular Al-Aqṣa Martyrs Brigade (Haso 205). 249 civilians and especialy of children was judged as imoral for religious reasons. Others, who were not very religious, felt that it was simply moraly alarming. This is how some young men, al unmaried and in their early twenties (except for my field asistant, who was older), discused the isue in a group interview in which many of the arguments against and pro the martyrdom operations were raised: Field asistant: What about the one who goes to blow himself up - is this a god [resistance] strategy? Mounsir: He is not going to blow himself up, he is going to get martyred (istiśady). He defends his country, he protects his people and his honour. He wants to show the Israelis and Sharon that any time you kil, we wil kil as wel. Walid [jokingly]: You wil get us arrested tonight! Ali: Maybe you wil not like my opinion but… […] Kiling babies and children, I don’t agree with that. If someone goes to blow himself up in the midle of some soldiers [ok], but if they go to a schol for children to blow themselves up, I don’t agree with it. Field asistant: I want to ad a coment. We are al against kiling children, al of us. […] Mounsir: The inocent should not be involved. Field asistant: […] We have no order to kil their children. To make it clear, there has never ben a [martyrdom] operation in a schol, in a hospital or in a kindergarten. The children get in the way. But the Israelis, when they make an [army] operation they kil Palestinian children on purpose. Walid: One shouldn’t have the wrong opinion about a person who goes to blow himself up, maybe he goes to blow himself up and there is a litle child that wil die. But if it was earlier and the person saw a litle child about to be run over by a car he would certainly help the litle child. Even if he is a litle Israeli, he wil not have any problem with that. If we had an organized plan to kil their children, anyone could go to any playground or schol and kidnap the children there. Most of the istaśahidîn they go to blow themselves up among soldiers. To prove it, lok at yesterday’s operation. And the idea of that girl [i.e. a female suicide bomber] was to get on a Jerusalem bus [with soldiers]. Mounsir: I want to ad something. The prophet said: “Don’t cut the tree, don’t kil a child nor even an old man or a woman”. Nina: What? What do you mean by that? Mounsir: There is a war [ḥarb] between us and the Israelis, but it’s forbiden to kil a child, to cut a tree or to kil a śeiḫ or a woman. It’s forbiden. It was writen in Islam that if you want to kil, kil the man with a weapon who came to kil you. Alongside the arguments put forward against martyrdom operations, namely that it is both moraly questionable and religiously prohibited to kil, especialy children, the quotations from the focus group include arguments pro martyrdom operations. Mounsir initialy talks in a rhetorical maner to justify and clarify martyrdom operations; his way of speaking also implies a sense of 250 justified revenge against the Israelis. Since the Palestinians are in an underdog position, several of the participants also claim that martyrdom operations are a justified way to resist. They also make a distinction betwen kiling children intentionaly and doing so acidentaly. Another distinction is made betwen the kiling of civilians and the kiling of soldiers in the Israeli army, the later being much les debated. Military atacks against soldiers and Israeli army camps are not generaly considered ambiguous but are mostly understod as righteous. A distinction betwen the ocupied teritories and Israel proper is also sometimes made; international law is in general interpreted as alowing violent resistance in teritories defined as ocupied, such as the West Bank and Gaza. Avoiding atacks against civilians inside Israel therefore earns more legitimacy in the international comunity. Other camp inhabitants, however, argue that the whole of Israel in fact belonged to the area of the British Mandate that most Palestinians stil consider their true homeland; al of Israel is thus ocupied teritory (Gren 207). Below folows a discusion from a group interview ith thre women in which Layla saw the moral superiority of the Palestinians as threatened by the istaśahidîn: Field asistant: Do you think martyrdom operations are something god? Zaynab: Honestly, I personaly don’t suport them. Nina: Why? Layla: I’l tel you why! Martyrdom operations hapen when the Israelis asasinate a Palestinian, then the Palestinians want to retaliate in a harsh way. It’s more of a release of pain and anger. Nothing more, especialy when [the Israelis] are forcing siege and make the people suffer. But I don’t agree with martyrdom operations. Why? Because our Islam is against kiling children. But you might say that they kil our children, but God didn’t grace them as he graces Islam. What is the guilt of a baby to be kiled in such a way? If the martyrdom operations were [only] in military places - then yes, but among civilians I don’t agre. Samar: But at the same time, the Jewish baby when he grows up he’l be a soldier [since the military service is compulsory for Israeli Jews], so why do we forbid ourselves to kil Jews? Layla: Because our Islam tels us so. Samar: Our Islam fine, but … Layla: [The Israelis] are criminals, we are not. People also questioned the morality of the Palestinian individuals who aranged suicide bombings and thus sent others to their deaths. Layla said, ‘If someone wants to do something [against the ocupation], why does he send other people’s children? Why doesn’t he send his son 251 or his father? […] He sends others’ son, [exactly] because it’s not his son. He didn’t sufer to raise him.’ Or, as one of my field asistants comented; ‘Why doesn’t he go himself?’ During the course of my fieldwork, camp residents also frequently changed their minds about the contested martyrdom operations; someone who initialy argued against them could some months later defend them as necesary. This was the case with Dalal who once told me that one must fel for the Israeli mothers who had lost their children in the conflict and that one should not kil civilian Israelis. Later on during my stay in the camp, she had had enough of Israeli violence and claimed she wanted to se as many Israelis as posible dead. One should not underestimate how violent acts by the Israeli army evoked responses on the ground. During periods when many Palestinians were kiled and there was much military activity in the camp it was clear that people were les wiling to fel compasion for individual Israelis. Others argued that even if they generaly agred to use martyrdom operations, there were situations when that kind of resistance strategy was not advisable, for instance when there was no direct violence and negotiations were in the ofing. In sum, this chapter has shown that even though violence may sem senseles, it is never completely meaningles to those involved (Schmidt & Schröder 201: 3). It expreses some kind of relationship with another party, even if the relationship may be based on power imbalances. By marking the dead as martyrs, loses were inscribed with meaning and purpose in Dheishe. Violent death was a way of sufering and sacrificing together and it enhanced a sense of comunity. Practices, legends and negotiations about martyrs constituted moral statements, demarcating martyrs from other dead and underlining the intentions and righteousnes not only of individual martyrs but, by extension, of the local comunity as wel as the Palestinian nation. Acording to this moral scheme, Palestinians were victims acting from an underdog position and they had the right to stand up to ocupation. The istaśahidîn were however more dificult to fit into a moral discourse; the comunity neded to clarify this kind of martyrs’ intentions more than others’ and even if their intentions were clear and interpreted as righteous, many Dheisheans would stil not acept this way of strugling since they were concerned about kiling Israeli civilians, especialy children. At the same time, these operations were part of an ilusio f violence that aimed to create another imagined future through risking one’s own and other people’s lives. Some camp inhabitants suported such an interpretation of the martyrdom operations, while others did not. Martyrs provided a crucial way of highlighting Israeli brutality and the Palestinian victimhod that were the locus of Palestinian moral superiority. Some martyrs were deemed to 252 embody the righteous strugle of a moral comunity. Others, such as suicide bombers, threatened to destroy this same comunity. 253 1. Concluding Discusion [The Israelis] believe that if they presure people from al sides, Palestinians wil surender and acept the reality of such a life. Or that they wil do whatever the Israelis want them to do. […] They have forced us to acept this situation but there are stil honour and principles. In the quote above, Shiren is refering to the proceses of normalization described in this study but also to Palestinian atempts to stand up against Israel. When Shiren made this statement, she was a student at the Open University in Bethlehem and was having problems paying her term fes. Her family was living from hand to mouth since her father, who used to work in Israel, was unemployed and her oldest brother was the only one in their large family who was bringing home a smal income. With felings of humiliation, her mother had visited the director of the University to beg him for a grant or a reduction of the fes but had only ben promised that they did not ned to pay the total sum imediately. Shiren regularly visited her maternal grandparents in Hebron and had to deal with the many checkpoints and roadblocks on the road. ‘They make us wait and sufer’, she comented about the Israeli soldiers who stoped Palestinian vehicles. She had not ben in Jerusalem for several years because that would require going through al the hasle of geting a permit. Like everyone else in Dheishe she huried home in the evenings so as to be safely indoors in case there were arests by the Israeli army that night. Although she was used to gunfire, curfews and house searches, she ocasionaly woried that one of her brothers would be arested. At the begining of the intifada al-aqṣa, her brother Rami had ben taken into custody. There were indeed things to be anxious about in Dheishe. One of Shiren’s neighbours had ben shot to death two years earlier by an Israeli sniper and although she never knew the young man personaly she pointed out to me the spot where he had ben martyred. Like most camp residents, Shiren did not se much of a future and she was woried about whether she would manage to get through her education and, if so, whether there would there be any jobs for her? Maybe she should wait for a suitable suitor and end up being a housewife instead but these days she was unsure as to whether any man would be able to suport her. Meanwhile, she tried to concentrate on her studies and she helped her mother with the housework. Shiren felt that there were constant economic, political and psychological presures on her and other Palestinians. In these circumstances, Dheisheans’ overiding concern had become to remain ‘whole’ despite intrusions. Shiren’s acount epitomizes what this disertation is al about. The thesis shows how people in Dheishe deal with repeated emergencies and strugle to recreate ‘normal order’ and continuity in which daily routine, tactics of resilience, comunity, memory and morality are 254 significant building blocks. The data reveal the creative and often ambiguous ways which people establish felings of hope and trust despite the dificult conditions. Shiren and other Dheisheans experienced that their society was under constant atack. Israel was invading the Palestinian teritories both literaly and symbolicaly; Israeli military forces had re-ocupied Palestinian towns, Israeli consumer gods were floding shops in the West Bank, the state continued to confiscate land and ‘invade the minds’ of Palestinians by disquieting them. The camp inhabitants were living in a situation of ongoing calamity - a ‘state of emergency’ in which emergency is not the exception but rather the rule (cf. Walter Benjamin 1969 in Scheper-Hughes 208). Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Violation The concept of integrity sems crucial for understanding the refuges in Dheishe and their atempts to resist violations. The word integrity has two main meanings (The Oxford English Dictionary 1989). The first is related to moral qualities such as rectitude, honour, righteousnes, virtue, decency, sincerity and trustworthines. Its second meaning is related to unity, as in an unbroken state, unification, cohesion, togethernes and solidarity. Resilience, which has ben frequently discused in this study, is also about resuming shape or the ability to recoil. In this context, integrity is les of a personal quality and more of an aspect of the colective. Dheisheans felt that they risked disintegration both in the sense of losing honour and in the sense of losing comunity and they faced a number of dilemas and contradictions in their quest for integrity. Reframing is key to understanding the camp residents’ predicament because it is used in atempts to salvage integrity and/or to become inviolable in the face of violations. For example, imprisonment was reinterpreted by claiming that it did not jeopardize the integrity of the Palestinian cause; on the contrary, the cause had ben strengthened. As representatives of the people, prisoners had withstod presure to colaborate while in jail and had often become more politicized. Although the Israeli army’s house searches were literal penetrations of homes, such events were redefined as acts of resistance by their inhabitants and as ocasions to display one’s moral rectitude. Camp residents also claimed that they and other Palestinians had not resigned themselves to an overwhelming power but that they maintained their integrity by being steadfast instead of resisting in more directly political ways. These interpretations aserted that there were after al ‘honour and principles’, just as Shiren claimed. As mentioned earlier in this study, Douglas’ (202) work on boundaries and polution may also provide inspiration for understanding quotidian life in Dheishe. Douglas (ibid.: 5) notes that society is constantly subject to external presures on its boundaries and margins. This is particularly true for groups that live with insecurity and long-term threat from the outside; such 255 groups also tend to be distinguished by a greater colective concern with boundary making (cf. Kurkiala 205: 20f). Dheisheans were involved in several proceses to counteract the disintegration or even anihilation of their local comunity as wel as of the Palestinian nation. Boundaries to ‘the outside’ were established by emphasizing diferences in culture and politics. These diferences were defined acording to a moral scheme that positioned Palestinians as moraly superior to Israelis and other outsiders. However, social realities partly elude atempts to categorize them; concepts canot fuly capture the complexities of life. Therefore, there are always things that canot be fited into a systematic order. Dheisheans not only claimed that Palestinians are morally superior to Israelis and others, but they also expresed alarm about a crisis of morality in their society and the dificulty of upholding order under presure. With increasing menace by and separation from Israel, any boundary transgresion by the Israelis or by felow Palestinians was felt to soil Palestinian unity. Contact and coperation betwen Palestinian and Israeli NGOs and negotiations betwen political leaders from both sides were despised. The kilings of Palestinian colaborators are extreme ways of abolishing a dangerously unclear margin of the comunity and establishing instead a strict boundary betwen ‘us and them’ (cf. Douglas 202: 150). Strugling Against Temporarines There is a tension that sems to permeate the lives of al Dheisheans throughout this study, namely that betwen life in transition and life as normality and permanency. As camp refuges, Dheisheans acted on the basis of an experienced liminal condition that had ben brought about by al-nakba. The ambition of establishing an independent Palestinian state was also necesary in order for them to become ‘like everyone else’ in the world of nation-states. Life in a refuge camp was also unsatisfactory. Holding on to the idea of return and staying in the camps or, conversely, moving out, buying land and trying to make new lives elsewhere were somewhat contradictory ways of resolving the same predicament. As we have sen, some of these practices were controversial. The discourse of return is deeply embedded in Palestinian thinking. Cals to return are not only rhetorical but resonate with a deeply felt existential dilema. Acording to Dheisheans, solutions to this dilema resonate with desires to restore comunity, honour and rots (juzûr). The development of a sense of belonging to the camp and of a camp refuge identity also contributed to a proces of emplacement that involved everyday practices, formation of comunity and conscious reflection on place. Solidarity and shared sufering were the bases of social cohesion in the camp. At the same time as Dheisheans made a social place out of the camp 256 they also established a sense of place. By ‘sense of place’ I mean a place in the world ‘where meaningful action and shared understanding is posible’ (Turton 205: 258; cf. Apadurai 196). In the confusing interface betwen latent and manifest meanings of the refuge label, deeply ambivalent identities emerged, often simultaneously implying victimization, empowerment and stigmatization. During the decades since their displacement, Dheisheans had engaged in a reformulation of refuge-nes; in their own view, they were not to be pitied and they refused to be marginalized but saw themselves as moral political subjects who oposed Israeli domination and rejected prejudices about them held by locals. Many had acted in acordance with their iconic status as true fighters for Palestinian nationalism, for instance by enduring imprisonment. Having a Life or Being a True Patriot? The dilema betwen transition and permanency can also be sen as emerging from a conflict betwen personal life goals and colective political aims. In some highly politicised contexts, it is dificult to distinguish betwen the quest for personal wel-being and that for political autonomy (cf. Jackson 205: 187). However, at this time in the Palestinian strugle, people often find themselves traped betwen their concerns as individuals who belong to specific households and families and their desire to live up to the image of Palestinian patriots and camp refuges. As members of kin groups, many Dheisheans were anxious to establish new households and uphold kin obligations in everyday life. To become proper adults, refuges were expected to establish, protect and suport a family of their own. Kin relations and camp comunity also demanded solidarity both socialy and economicaly. The neds of the nation were not necesarily the same as those of a family. For instance, involving oneself in the national strugle may lead to martyrdom. This is a heroic act in terms of Palestinian nationalism but a partly problematic and tragic one for families and the local comunity. Another dilema was that of child bearing: should one have many children in response to nationalistic cals to outnumber Israelis and to a kin ideology demanding many men, or should one have few so as to be sure of being able to suport them? The Dheisheans I met strugled daily to reconcile social and nationalistic demands. Given the restrictions upon their agency, however, Dheisheans are not always in a position to chose; individuals may be inexorably drawn into politics. The example of the young man whose newly-built flat was blown up because of the political activism of his brothers is a case in point. He had chosen not to get become politicaly engaged but his atempts to establish a home and a stable adult life were nevertheles interupted when the Israeli authorities colectively punished his family. In predicaments like this, many Dheisheans showed steadfastnes for 257 instance by (re-)building houses despite the threat of demolitions and by having children despite their fear of losing them. How May One Remain a Political Subject? To Dheisheans, having integrity meant being politicaly engaged. In the context of militarization and lack of confidence in the political elite, Palestinian political subjectivity was expresed in new ways. To Dheisheans, ṣumud or steadfastnes constituted a form of political agency and tactic of resilience. Maintaining ṣumud was Dheisheans’ main way of remaining political subjects even when direct oposition against Israel was not feasible. Leisure activities that had previously ben condemned were redefined as necesary ways of showing resilience and continuing the political project in the long run. Other forms of resistance, such as public demonstrations close to the camp, were sometimes imposible or considered pointles. However, many felt a ned to continue their strugle but by other means as a way of refusing to sucumb to tragic realities. Political action was also manifested symbolicaly such as by comemorating al-nakba and eating herbs grown on vilage land. This kind of practice may be sen as augmenting a sense of belonging to the land and as an existential reasurance of identity, along with hopes for the future. Funeral procesions held for martyrs also remained emotionaly and politicaly meaningful. Notions of glorified martyrdom, resistance, sacrifice and an ilusio f violence gave violent death strong symbolic conotations. However, this kind of symbolic transformation of loses into gains involved a number of obstacles. It was necesary to continualy reafirm the authenticity and intent of martyrs and to distinguish betwen diferent kinds of martyrdom. Martyrs were crucial in demonstrating Israeli brutality and Palestinian victimhod that together justified Palestinian moral superiority. Some martyrs were the embodiments of righteous strugle. But the suicide bombers were more problematic and their actions were a potential threat to the Palestinian moral comunity if the bombers could not be clearly defined as empathetic, sufering people who were acting out of altruism. This symbolic rendition of death and its transformative power contrasted with the routinization of violence, though both semed to be necesary in dealing with the complexities of life in the ocupied teritories. This disertation is the result of my anthropological interest in writing against comon views of Palestinian refuges as either ‘terorists’ or mere ‘victims’ and in instead presenting them as social agents who have choices and aspirations although within limiting conditions. I have thus taken into acount the profound power imbalance betwen Israelis and Palestinians but without asuming that this asymetry renders the dominated party pasive or disabled. The way in which camp residents caried on with life in al its ordinarines despite the extreme conditions around 258 them ay sem provocative for some; these lives do not fit easily into the simplifying discourses and media representations that highlight Palestinian militancy, heroism or sufering. Dheisheans’ lives are marked by ambivalence and constraints but also by creativity in finding ways to deal with their predicament. The ways in which future generations of Palestinians wil confront the dilemas mentioned above remains to be sen. The intifada al-aqṣa has ben a time of crisis but also of change. At the time of my fieldwork, morality was being renegotiated and a renewed Palestinian- nes apeared to be emerging. Existence and Politics This study was also motivated by my interest in exploring how high politics pervade ‘ordinary life’. We have sen how Dheisheans’ daily lives are afected in a number of ways by the Israeli ocupation and the conflict betwen Israel and the Palestinians. It is also at the level of daily life that Palestinians defend their integrity politicaly and existentialy. Circumstances are, however, conspiring to reduce the camp inhabitants’ oportunities to demonstrate resilience. Al aspects of life in Dheishe sem to cary both political and existential dimensions. The notion of Palestinian martyrdom, for instance, is a political weapon but it is also a way of making sense of violent premature death. The right of return is both a political isue and an expresion of an existential ned for belonging. When we try to understand the Palestinian predicament we ned to take into acount both of these dimensions. In this context, politics is not ‘just’ about peace negotiations betwen political leaders, death tols and destroyed infrastructure, the repatriation of refuges or human rights abuses; it is about existence itself. The Dheisheans have shown here that it is stil posible to remain actors even under the most constraining circumstances. Despite the limitations on their agency, the camp residents did make a space for themselves to salvage integrity through steadfastnes, moral subjectivity and their pursuit of rots and permanency. They also nourished hope in the days to come through diverse forms of ilusio. There is something universal in the dilema Dheisheans face. Al humans ned to handle the tension betwen ‘being an actor and being acted upon’ (Jackson 202: 12). Do we not al try to maintain our integrity although our particular definitions of integrity and our ability to take control of our existence may difer? We redefine our lives so as to present them in more favourable ways to ourselves and to others. The ethnography presented sugests that human survival under dire conditions depends on the maintenance of integrity, honour, morality, justice and national pride, which may be semingly elusive properties for the onloker. It also depends on resilience through the 259 upholding of daily routines, sharing a meal with one’s family and confining in a friend. The fact that life is a strugle in Palestinian refuge camps in the West Bank may not come as a surprise. More surprising, however, are the many inovative ways of acting and handling everyday life that Dheisheans have developed. They persist in spite of it al. To me personaly, their eforts ofer a sense of reasurance. 260 261 References Abink, Jon 200, Preface: Violation and Violence as Cultural Phenomena, in Aijmer, Göran & Abink, Jon (eds.) 200, Meanings of Violence –A Cros Cultural Perspective, Oxford and New York: Berg. Abdel Jawad, Saleh 201, The Clasification and Recruitment of Colaborators, in PASIA, The Phenomenon of Colaborators in Palestine – Procedings of a PASIA Workshop, Jerusalem: PASIA Publication. Abdo, Nahla &Yuval-Davis, Nira 195, Palestine, Israel and the Zionist Setler Project, in Stasiulis, Daiva &Yuval- Davis, Nira (eds.) 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Jerusalem Post 18.06.204, Upfront’s frontpage. Photos by the author. Front-page: On the way to and from a checkpoint close to Ramalah (204). On top above: A view of Dheishe (204). Above: A demonstration on the road outside the camp (204).