Accordingly, no one can enter and no one can
leave Gaza without securing Israeli permission to do so. As a
result, almost all Gazans are trapped there and almost all of those
seeking entrance are denied access. Gaza is like a sealed tomb with
living inhabitants immured inside it.
In the first two selections to follow, a
native Gazan, now a naturalized American citizen, begins by
describing his difficulties in trying to enter Gaza to visit his
family and those he encountered when he endeavored to return to the
U.S. In his second story, he recounts his involvement in the first
international attempt to break the siege of Gaza in September 2008:
the sailing of two ships whose goal was to reach the port of Gaza.
That was the beginning of the Free Gaza movement.
In the final selection, a Gazan journalist
tells of the reception he received from Israel’s “welcoming
committee” when he attempted to return from London to Gaza after
being awarded a prestigious journalism prize for his work.
Both of these contributors provide graphic
accounts of the kind of welcome that Palestinians receive when they
try to enter the prison they call home.
_PHOTO
I, Monir Deeb, was born in Gaza in 1951 to
refugee parents from Haifa and El Majdel (today known as Ashkelon)
and grew up there. I came to the U.S. in 1979 and eventually became
a naturalized citizen. I now own and run a construction company in
Northridge, California, where I live with my wife and three
children. In 2008, I was one of the organizers and participants on
the Free Gaza boat mission that traveled to Gaza to break the siege
that had been imposed by the Israelis since June of the previous
year.
My mother’s steam iron and Israeli
security
It was my first trip back to Gaza in 1982.
Upon my arrival, at what is now Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, two
Israeli soldiers were waiting at the bottom of the airplane
stairs.
“Mr. Deeb?,” one of them asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Would you come with us?”
They pointed to an army jeep parked a few
yards away with two more soldiers armed with machine guns. After
they got me sitting between them, they drove to a part of the
terminal away from all the other passengers who must have been
wondering (I could see it in their faces), who’s that criminal the
soldiers had just picked up. They took me to an isolated room and
started with the usual questions. (I say “usual” because they did
this to me each time I crossed any border to or from Gaza).
Did I belong to a terrorist organization? Do
I have any bombs or arms? Why I am coming back to Gaza? And so
on.
When they were done with that, they took me
to identify my luggage. They then took me to a new room and
instructed me to open my bags and sit down. They started searching
my bags, item by item.
In the end, they found no arms and no bombs.
But they did discover a lightweight electric steam iron that my
mother had asked me to bring to her in order to help her cope with
her arthritis and weak wrists. My mother could no longer handle an
old-fashioned iron.
They asked me, “Why do you have this iron?”
I told them. They said they needed to take the iron to check it
further in order to make sure it was not some kind of device that
could explode. Of course, since I had no choice, I could not
object.
When they finished with their search, they
found nothing of concern in my bags. But now my iron was not there,
so I asked for it. They informed me that they were not done with it
yet.
After an hour or so, one of the soldiers
came back—but with no iron. Instead, he handed me a piece of paper
with writing in Hebrew and asked me to sign it. “What is this for?”
I asked him. He said it was for the iron.
“What does that mean, for the iron? What
happened to my mother’s iron? Did you find anything wrong with it?
Did it have any dangerous explosive components in it?”
He said no, but we cannot bring it back to
you; it’s not allowed.
“Why is it not allowed? What threat does my
mother’s lightweight iron pose to the security of Israel?”
By that time, four or five soldiers were
surrounding me. The one who was talking to me said, “No electric
devices are allowed into the country.”
But on the same plane I was on, I happened
to run into an Israeli acquaintance of mine, and in his hand was
the biggest boom box I had ever seen. As I was retrieving my
luggage, I saw him heading toward the exit with the boom box in his
hand. So I told the officer that couldn’t be true because I saw
that fellow leaving with his boom box without any questions being
asked. The soldier simply said that he knew nothing about that; he
was just following orders.
I offered to pay any taxes for the iron
because the thought of my walking into my mother’s house and not
being able to keep a simple promise to her to ease her wrist pain
with that silly iron was not comforting to me. I pleaded with them
to bring my iron back, but with no results.
All that went on for another hour or so.
Meanwhile, my father and sister were waiting outside with a taxi
for the drive home to Gaza. My last attempt was to ask the soldier
again, why was that Israeli allowed to take his big boom box while
I was prevented from taking my little lightweight iron to my mother
after they made sure it was not a sophisticated nuclear bomb?
I knew all along why, but they would not
have the guts to say it without any shame about how they treat us
Palestinians. They would just dance around the issue and would not
tell the truth. The fact, which I wanted them to admit, was that it
was because I was a Palestinian, and the guy carrying the boom box
was a Jewish Israeli. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
I finally got out to greet my anxious father
and sister, who were very nervous after such a long delay—since all
the other passengers had already long left. I walked away happy to
see them, but with a very bitter taste because of the
discrimination and prejudice with which I was treated. As for the
paper they wanted me to sign, which I never did, I tore it up into
a hundred pieces because I was so angry and frustrated. That is all
I could do at the time without risking that they would carry out
any of their threats against me.
After spending a great two weeks with my
family, it was time for me to return home. However, I had been
informed that I needed an exit permit from the Israeli military
authority (which was occupying Gaza at that time) in order to leave
Gaza and enter the airport at Tel Aviv. The army had placed some
Palestinian administrators to do such work, and, as it happened,
the person in charge of the desk I approached for my permit was a
neighbor of my family whom I knew. After receiving my permit from
him and paying my fee, he asked for an additional sum of money
(about $20) so that he could stamp my Israeli travel document (a
laissez-passé), which allows native-born Palestinians to travel.
Yet this document denied the very core of who I am because instead
of identifying me as a Palestinian, it showed my nationality as
“unidentified.” As if to say they had no clue as to where I belong,
where I was born, or what my own sense of my nationality was.
Then I asked the clerk what exactly was this
surcharge of $20 for. He informed me that it was imposed by the
Israelis on all people leaving the country to support the Israeli
invasion of south Lebanon—to destroy the rest of the Palestinians
who had been kicked out of their homes in 1948. I told him to
forget about it! I was not going to aid the Israeli army in killing
my Palestinian brothers and sisters. He then advised me that
without the stamp showing that I had paid this fee, the Israelis
would not allow me to leave the country.
I thought for a moment. I just could not
believe that these Zionists would have the chutzpah—to borrow their
own word—to ask Palestinians to pay for their war to terrorize and
murder other Palestinians! So I left the office, astonished to say
the least, but did not aid Israel in its crimes.
My brother Ibrahim and sister Aida
accompanied me to the airport. We got in with the permit I had
obtained, and, after my luggage was searched, I went to check in at
the desk. I gave the young lady my ticket and two bags with my
laissez-passé. She checked in my bags, issued my boarding pass, and
then, at the last moment, she noticed the absence of the stamp.
When she mentioned this to me, I played dumb and simply said that I
had paid the airport tax. But she replied, “No, it’s another tax
that you need to pay.” I asked her what it was for. She said it’s
called “the liberation of Galilee” tax.
I said, “I don’t see the Galilee being
occupied except by the Israelis. And, if you haven’t noticed, I am
a Palestinian from Gaza, and Gaza is occupied by the Israelis, and
I don’t see anyone asking the Israelis for $20 to liberate Gaza,
the West Bank, or the rest of Palestine.” At this point, I was
looking her straight in the eye, and I was not smiling at all.
I guess she saw that I was serious because I
saw some fear in her eyes as she handed me back my document. I said
to myself, “Well, that was easy.” But before I had reached halfway
in that terminal to say goodbye to my sister and brother who had
accompanied me, I heard a voice behind me yelling, “Sir, excuse me,
sir!” So I turned around, and found myself facing two civilians
with walkie-talkies. I asked if they had meant to address me, and
they confirmed that I was their target.
They identified themselves as airport
security and asked to see my documents. I asked them what I could
have done for them to seek me out, but they avoided my question and
asked me to follow them back to the airline counter. When we
approached the clerk, they informed me that I had forgotten to pay
the $20 tax required. Again, I pretended not to understand and said
I had paid my fee. They said, no, this is another tax. So I asked,
feigning innocence, “What tax?” I wanted to hear them say to a
Palestinian that he needs to pay Israel $20 to aid it in its
criminal intent to wage a war against the very Palestinians it had
already displaced from their homes in 1948, from Haifa, Acre,
Safed, and over five hundred other villages so that they could now
murder them in their refugee camps.
Their attempt to explain this to me kept
slowly shifting as I pressed them whether they with a clear
conscience could seriously ask a Palestinian to do such a thing. As
we continued talking, some of my words apparently got to them, and
their stubbornness eventually turned to confusion as they now
seemed unsure what to say to me or how to handle this situation.
Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered around us, including more police
and security agents.
I pleaded my case to the crowd. “I am not a
terrorist,” I said. “I am not carrying any bombs or weapons. I have
committed no crime, but I am not going to give the Israeli
government money in order to aid its army to kill my Palestinian
brothers and sisters in Lebanon or anywhere else. If all of you who
are not much different from me had been asked by some army to pay
$20 in order for that army to invade Israel and murder your people,
would you pay this?”
I could see in their faces that they got my
message. Meanwhile, the threats to me seemed to diminish as the
people around me just gazed at me. Then—I couldn’t help it—I told
the crowd about my mother’s lightweight iron, and how it was taken
away from me, not because it posed a threat to the security of
Israel, but only because I was a Palestinian.
Finally, one of the officers who spoke
Arabic asked if he could approach me. By then, the whole airport
seemed to freeze and waited to see what would happen next. The
officer asked me what was the issue here. I told him once more my
story of how I was discriminated against two weeks earlier when my
mother’s iron was taken away from me, and that now they wanted me
to be like all the good Israelis and pay $20 so that they can
invade Lebanon. He volunteered to pay the money himself, if that
was OK with me, and then I could go catch my flight.
I refused his offer and told him it’s the
principle and not the $20 that mattered. If they have accepted with
a clear conscience what their government makes them do to carry out
its dirty deeds, then I feel obligated to remind them, myself, and
every witness that persecuting others and oppressing them is not
acceptable to people with any sense of humanity, justice, and
integrity. If Israel has lost its conscience and humanity, if its
people don’t know when blind hatred has reached its limit, when
both perpetrators and victims end up suffering the same
consequences, then it’s my obligation to speak out for both of
us.
The officer to whom I addressed these
remarks did not say anything, but the look in his eyes said it all.
He then ordered the crowd to disperse, and then, turning to me, he
said, “Let’s go catch your plane.”
We walked together up the stairs to the
passport booth where my travel document was stamped. I then walked
to the gate where a bus was waiting, full of people. I stepped in,
and a great cheer and clapping welcomed me in with huge smiles on
most of the faces. I felt like at no other time in my life. I
promised myself never to lose my sense of justice or the courage
always to speak out for our humanity and sense of fairness.
My trip to Gaza
Part I: Cyprus
As a Palestinian, born in Gaza, I live almost
every day feeling the effects of what I believe to be one of the
worst injustices of the twentieth century: the dispossession of the
Palestinian people and the denial of their right to their homeland.
Nevertheless, my life in America is good. I have a wonderful wife
and three great children. I have a comfortable home. I have nice
cars. By nature, I am not a militant or a violent person. So my
selfish cop-out was to leave for another part of the world where I
might not have to deal with it so closely.