Letters from Palestine (36 page)

Months later, I got the message that I had
been waiting for, and they asked me to come to a meeting at the
offices of AMIDEAST (America–Mideast Educational and Training
Services), which was the go-between connecting us and the
custodians of the scholarship. There I met my six colleagues:
Abdul-Rahman, Osama, Duaa, Fidaa, Hadeel (my namesake), and Zohair.
We could have flown with joy and our eyes sparkled with hope when
the man in charge started by saying “Mabroook” (congratulations).
But immediately after that we started to worry when he continued
that the real challenge would be to reach the American Consulate in
Jerusalem where we would have to submit to interviews for the visa.
Since Palestinians can’t travel to Jerusalem without authorization
from Israel, there would be no escaping another wait for permission
to be granted. Couldn’t we even enjoy our good news for one day
without more worry?

A few more months went by with our waiting
and praying not to have our dreams stolen from us. In May 2008, we
received an email from the American Consulate in Jerusalem that the
consulate would not be able to continue with the procedures for the
scholarship. The consulate would not give any reasons for the
sudden withdrawal of the seven scholarships, but they “strongly
urged” us to apply next year, and they assured us that we will have
“priority.” I remained staring at the message and reread it again,
hoping the words would change and the nightmare would go away.

Is that how our dreams and life are crushed,
merely because we are Palestinian?

Amid my tears, which I was not strong enough
to hold back, I got a call from an activist in a human rights
society dealing with freedom of movement, and she informed me that
she had heard about what had happened with me and my six colleagues
and asked me to talk to the American press.

I do not hide that I was afraid and hesitant
at first. What if my talk would be the last nail in the coffin of
my ability to travel again? What if I would be put on a blacklist
somewhere? But the tyranny that I felt at canceling the scholarship
had a stronger voice, and I agreed to talk to the media. And my
point was what did Israel prefer, an educated neighbor or an angry
one?

The withdrawal of these scholarships caused
an international stir and attracted attention, at least
momentarily, to the plight of the seven students in the Gaza Strip.
It drew the intervention of the then American secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, who said she was “surprised” by this decision and
that the stance should be reversed. In June, new email messages
were sent to us telling us that the American State Department
decided to reinstate the seven scholarships and affirmed that it
was “working closely” with Israeli officials to secure permits for
us to leave Gaza for the U.S. For the first time since the earlier
message, I smiled with hearty satisfaction and thanked God that our
efforts were not in vain.

Finally, the good news came in July that we
would be allowed into Jerusalem on the morrow. I was walking and
feeling the breeze around me, dancing to the tune of my happy
heart, while heading to the meeting place agreed upon.

Upon arrival, I immediately noticed that
Osama and Fidaa were missing, and Zohair told me that they got
calls at night telling them that they were refused on “security
grounds”! When we arrived at the Erez checkpoint and entered the
Israeli side, two officers asked Zohair to go with them for
investigation. Hours went by waiting, then Zohair emerged with a
look on his face I will never forget and said “I am not allowed to
travel!” They called for the rest us to move, leaving Zohair
behind. The cruelty to my three young colleagues and their
ambitions stuck in my throat. I knew enough about them to be angry
when they were described as a security threat.

Ten days later, I received the visa, and the
AMIDEAST official told me I was the only one of the seven who would
travel the next day and that my colleagues would have their travel
arrangements finalized later (only two traveled after me). My
tension reached a very high level at the thought of the day I had
dreamt of for so long. I bade farewell to my grandmother and aunts
and friends, and I said farewell to the corners of Gaza and its
streets and beach, and I promised them all to return in order to
write a story of a future more beautiful than that of the past.

We were met by the American bus at the Erez
crossing, and they told us that we were forbidden to stop anywhere
inside what they call Israel but what I insist on calling
Palestine. I wondered if my wish to study had made me into a
terrorist to be deported to Jordan under American supervision. We
passed by the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, but we could not stop for a
prayer before we departed and before it crumbles because of all the
Israeli digging under it.

Finally, we arrived at the Jordanian
borders, and I looked back at Palestine with a sigh, telling myself
that I would miss it in spite of everything and in spite of all the
agony that I had lived through under the siege.

A new chapter of my life started in the
United States of America. The state of Arkansas was my first stop
as I spent three weeks there with students from all over the world
who were, like me, Fulbright Scholars. The first thing I saw were
the names of Zohair and Osama on doors of rooms reserved for them
at the student accommodation, as if to remind me of the oppression
still there which I had left behind.

One of the things that attracted my
attention was that there were Americans who didn’t know anything
about Palestine or Gaza, who acted as if they were hearing about
them for the first time. Another thing that left me speechless was
the “map of the world” when a friend asked me to show him the
Palestine that I was talking about and where I come from. It was
painful not to find it on the map but to see the name of our
occupier in its place, as if it treads on the dignity of all
Palestinians. If Palestine did not exist, who am I? Which planet
did I descend from to earth?

Everything in the U.S. seemed to me
luxurious and very comfortable, and I could not escape the
comparison with the deteriorating situation in Gaza. I could not
believe that everything we needed was available without
interruption: water, electricity, even “security.” I often felt
guilty and selfish for enjoying the things that I know my loved
ones in Gaza need and wish for. I was sad to see the oppression of
man by man there. Is it their fault that they were born
Palestinian? Did they choose their fate to be punished for it so
cruelly?

In August 2008, I moved to California to
start my master’s program in software engineering at the California
State University. How happy I was that I was now on my way to
realize my dreams and proud of being part of this undoubtedly solid
and special educational program. The first semester was over and
then came the worst vacation in history, the war on Gaza.

I was sleeping at my uncle’s house in New
Jersey, where I was spending my vacation, when I was woken up at
six in the morning by the loud sound of the TV repeating nervously
“Gaza . . . Gaza.” The word rang in my head to end my sleep. I got
up panicky to watch the Israeli occupation army air force
aggressively bombing Gaza, in what they called “Operation Cast
Lead.” War and destruction and blood were everywhere. I felt dizzy
as if the earth was moving beneath me.

I rushed to my cell phone to find out about
my loved ones, but I found that the war had affected even the
telephone lines and that they had no electricity by which to get my
emails—nothing to tell you if they were still alive or if they had
been reached by the Israeli war machine.

After many repeated attempts, I managed to
talk to an aunt in Gaza who told me in a voice full of fright that
they were seeing death coming undoubtedly this time and that this
was not like previous times. How I wished I could be with them
because living their fear is easier than watching it and seeing
it.

The days of the war went on, and I was stuck
to news broadcasts, and my heart and tongue never ceased to pray
for the safety of my family and all the people of Gaza and the end
to this massacre. How I hated numbers as they were counting the
martyrs and the wounded. The story is not of numbers but of
bleeding hearts for the departed ones and seeing them die: mothers
weeping for their children; wives crying for their husbands that
they wished to grow old with; a child finding himself the only
survivor of a whole family and not understanding why his mother
left him alone in the cold and had not returned. How will children
feel, unlike other children with rosy dreams, but with dreams the
color of blood? Did they eliminate what they call “terrorism”? Is
the defense of Israel in my bleeding grandmother? Is demolishing
her house a security necessity? What madness inhabits the world?
When will the world wake up from this coma of oppression to which
it surrenders?

The new term started with very low morale
after the psychological stress I had lived through during the war.
But the stories of my friends who survived this tragedy, that they
will not give up their dreams and ambitions despite the savagery of
what they went through, was an incentive for me to do all I could
to succeed.

Yes, I decided that my success will be my
gift to my wounded homeland, which I would like to be proud of its
daughter. I would like it to be proud of its daughter who still
loves it and hopes that it will come back to her and hug her, like
other homelands. The remaining question is “until when?”

—A Daughter of Palestine

_PHOTO

Zohair Abu-Shaban, twenty-five, is a
prize-winning Palestinian student. He was born in Kuwait and
returned to Gaza with his family in 1992 after the first Gulf War.
He studied at the Islamic University of Gaza and finished his BS
degree in electrical engineering in January 2007 at the top of his
class. After that, he worked as a teaching assistant in the same
department for two years. He wanted to get his post-graduate
education abroad in the same field to fulfill his dream of becoming
a professor at a university. He won a Fulbright Scholarship and
then lost it. Luckily, he earned another scholarship to study in
the U.K.

* * *

I first became aware of Zohair Abu-Shaban, a
university student in Gaza, after reading about him in the
Hartford Courant
in August 2008. The article told the story
of how he had been prevented from pursuing his graduate education
in America as a result of his U.S. visa being revoked—a story that
he will narrate in full in the account that follows this
introduction. What particularly interested me about Zohair, a
Fulbright Scholar, was that the university he had been slated to
attend was where I had taught for nearly thirty-five years, the
University of Connecticut, in Storrs.

After reading about the plight of other
Fulbright Scholars from Gaza who had, like Zohair, first been
accepted and then denied entry to the U.S.—articles about them had
made the national press at the time—I had already been moved to
anger about what seemed to be an obvious and arbitrary, politically
motivated blockage, probably instigated by Israel, to prevent
Palestinian students from acquiring the kind of graduate education
abroad that was simply unavailable in Gaza. But here was a student
that had been barred, seemingly so unfairly, from attending my very
own university. That rankled, so I determined to see if I could
help him.

Through a Palestinian intermediary, I was
able in short order to establish email contact with Zohair in early
September. He responded appreciatively and provided a great deal of
information about himself and his situation and gave me a number of
specific suggestions for how I might be able to help him. Over the
next two months, until it was time for me to travel with Anna to
Palestine, I did everything I could think of to do so. I wrote to
several of the engineering professors at the university who were
familiar with his case as well as various university officials;
they were, to my great disappointment and surprise, collectively
very unhelpful. Some of them never even replied to my letters,
which stung.

I wrote (or called) people at the State
Department; I talked to diplomats at the U.N.; I communicated with
a prominent journalist who had written extensively on the subject
of these Fulbright Scholars for a leading American newspaper; I
spoke with administrators of the Fulbright program who were, of
course, familiar with Zohair’s case; I was in touch with Gisha, an
Israeli-based organization devoted to helping Palestinian students;
I wrote to people at the Carter Center who likewise knew about
Zohair and had offered to help; and I make contact with various
other people and organizations that I thought might be able to
effectively intervene. Some of these people were indeed very
sympathetic, but in the end, none of my efforts proved to be
availing. I had failed to achieve anything significant for Zohair
after two months of trying, and now I was about to leave for
Palestine and would not be able to do anything further until after
my return in December.

The only thing I had been able to
“accomplish” was to have developed a very warm personal
relationship with Zohair as a result of our frequent
communications. Indeed, I felt that we had become very close,
despite never having been able to meet, because of all of the
communications I had received in which Zohair had shared his
feelings of despondency over his continuing to be mired in Gaza.
But I think it meant something to him to know that, however
unsuccessful I had been in trying to effect his release from Gaza,
at least he had an ally in me who was determined to continue to
help him.