Report Three: “We Don’t Even Exist”

Novemeber 5-6

“Can you guess where we are?” our guide Tamer asked us, pointing at the official Israeli map of Lod. “It’s the blank spot in the corner. According to the Israeli government, we don’t even exist.”

Lod -- Lid in Arabic -- is a mixed city where Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians live.  We stood in an empty parking lot near the “Mahatta” area of Lid and we saw that the city, despite being mixed, is clearly segregated. Mahatta, home to 9,000 Palestinians, doesn’t officially exist. It isn’t on the Israeli map. It is squeezed on all sides by the railroad, the highway, and Jewish-only neighborhoods. We literally cross the tracks – eight commuter rail lines that bisect Mahatta’s only entrance. In the five minutes that we stand there, trains shoot by, closing the road for four of those minutes.

This is our second day among the so-called “Arab Israelis”: Palestinians and their descendents who remained inside Israel after the fighting of 1947-1949 – and who were granted Israeli citizenship by the new state.  Palestinian citizens of Israel now make up roughly 20% of the Israeli population.

In meetings with Ittijah (Union of the Arab Community-Based Organisations) and Ma’an (Workers Advice Center), we learn profoundly disturbing statistics about this community. Ten percent of Palestinian-Israelis live in unrecognized villages – towns that don’t appear on official maps and thus receive no services such as electricity, water, sewage, and education. Twenty-five percent are internally displaced. They are Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948, stayed within the borders of Israel, but were nonetheless not permitted to return to their homes and properties.

 “We are a community at risk,” Ittijah’s Director Ameer Makhoul tells us. These words don’t fully sink in until we cross over into Mahatta the next day.

On the other side of the railroad, there is pure squalor. Thirty percent of the Palestinian population in Lid isn’t connected to the sewage system – in Mahatta, it seems to be higher. Tamer Nafar is a local hero, as we see from the crowds of kids who follow us and shout his name. He is a hip-hop artist, quoting socially conscious rappers like Tupac and Chuck D to underscore that this is life in the Palestinian ghettoes of Israel.

Tamer looks the part, in baggy jeans, wool cap, and oversized hooded sweatshirt. His raps are punctuated with Arabic cultural references – musicians like ‘Abd al-Halim and Egyptian films comprise his poetic landscape. He is also an activist, working with organizations like Shatil and Coalition of Women for Peace, and facilitating workshops for Palestinian youth with the other members of his internationally acclaimed hip-hop group, DAM.

The whole scene is one of ironic contrasts. The passing trains carry middle and upper class suburbanites. Nearby Ben Gurion airport, built on land belonging to the Palestinian residents of Lid, is “the face of Israel,” Tamer tells us, “not this place.” New high-rises for Russian Jewish immigrants to Israel can be seen towering over the piles of Mahatta’s uncollected garbage. As for the mounting unsolved crimes in Mahatta, Tamer references Israel’s concern about the Palestinian birth rate in Israel. “For them, it’s not a problem if I die. But if I’m born, that’s a problem.”

One final contrast for the day was our journey from the poverty of Lid to the suburbs of Tel Aviv. Our dinner hosts were Israeli grandmothers Dorothy Naor and Ruth Hiller of New Profile. Now in its seventh year, the group works to address the pervasive militarism in Israeli society. They offer us several examples. One Israeli mother, at the funeral of her soldier son, said, “Today, I have become an Israeli.” When a baby boy is born, his parents are complimented: “The next Chief of Staff,” their friends tell them. “So even if the occupation ends,” Ruth tells us, “the militarism is still there.”

It is clear that the violence of Israel/Palestine goes far beyond the violence of occupation and terrorism. It is a systemic, dehumanizing violence. There is much reason for despair.  But between the rappers and the grandmothers, there just might be hope.

-- Marthame Sanders and Jim Ledbetter for the November 2005 IFPB delegation

___________________________________________________________________

Other Reports from this delegation

Report 1 - Report 2 - Report 3 - Report 4 - Report 5