Driving to Jenin

TFR Shoutout:Daniella Cheslow, journalist nonpareil, who accompanied me to Jenin.

I boarded the van from Jerusalem to Ramallah a little after 7:00 in the morning, it was cold in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time which is to say that it was welcome and the breeze felt like grapes if you can wrap your head around that. The cars heading in the direction of Jerusalem were jammed in line at the checkpoints, but we were, in essence, making the reverse commute into Palestine and didn’t hit any traffic.

Just outside the limits, there was a sign which had been painted by hand that read To Ramallah in Hebrew, it was followed by a small circled X above the word Israelis, also written in Hebrew, which clarified who was not allowed inside. Beyond the sign sat the security wall, in its high concrete form. There were intricately painted pictures of Arafat and Marwan Barghouti among the normal slogans of graffiti on the wall. We passed an Olive Garden/Popeye’s, a sign for an art exhibit called Nakba at 62, the Arabic phrase for “disaster,” which refers to the founding of Israel without naming it directly. I had forgotten that Israel had turned 62.

My friend and I had arrived in Ramallah and we wound our way up a narrow passage to a garage where we found the van to Jenin. From the overlook, there was a sign in English that read “The Right of Return is a political red line that cannot be crossed,” which was, not surprisingly, written in red.

We were the two of the last passengers in the van and so it wasn’t long until we left, exiting Ramallah and heading north through the rocky hills. It still felt early and the ten of us--eight Palestinians, two Jews--were all starting to fall asleep in our own way while the stereo deck played a CD of a muezzin who was chanting verses of the Koran. The voice was firm and clear, slightly beautiful and austere like a glass of tonic water. The sound of his voice would continue for the next three hours and added to the ride a strange, slightly hypnotic energy.

On the roads we passed signs for Jewish settlements like Tel Shilo and Eli. Signs in Israel and the West Bank are written in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, but on these signs the Arabic had either been crossed out or covered by stickers. I found myself smirking because I assumed it had been done by Palestinians in some small exhibitive rejection of the settlements that were encroaching on the land for their future state.

We were now forty minutes deep into the West Bank when we passed Ariel, one of the last massive settlements of the block and there were young religious girls waiting for a bus, standing in long dresses, looking removed from the conversation we were having about them inside the van with our eyes. My friend woke up and explained to me that the crossed out Arabic on the signs to the settlements were actually done by the Jews who wanted to make sure the Palestinians knew they weren’t welcome there. This instantly made more sense to me.

An hour into the trip, the highway artery became clogged. I had been trying to sleep but in the back row of the van, I felt every jarring slip of the van which was being driven like one skis downhill, wide turns to pass others mercilessly, little interest in braking, lots of cutting and weaving. The two-lane road often became three lanes when someone passed without looking ahead and the oncoming driver simply moved to the side of the road. There was no honking and no fear of collision, just a general understanding that there was space for three where two normally go.

At any rate, the road was becoming congested and we realized that all the cars ahead of us on the road were turning around and coming back our way. We were just short of the town of Nablus. We eventually saw three soldiers ahead on the road motioning everyone to turn around and go the other way back. We had no idea why. Anyway, to turn around seemed like it would extend the trip by a lot, we’d been going on the road for a while without any diversions and we had just entered a village.

Just in front of the three soldiers there was a small road that they weren’t blocking. Our driver made towards the road and the soldiers waved him to turn around. We were now close enough to see their faces. The driver made a gesture to show that he intended to turn left at the road. One of the soldiers quickly brought up his M-16 to level and pointed it at us; he then jerked the barrel menacingly as to say turn around and, of course, the driver did. All of us in the car clucked our tongues in disbelief at what the soldier had done.

My friend asked if the soldiers were Israeli or not. She couldn’t tell; neither could I. The chorus confirmed they were Israeli and then we all speculated about why the road was blocked. One said it was probably the settlers throwing stones at the Palestinians. This seemed slightly knee-jerk; it very easily could have also been the other way around. Beyond the road from which we had just turned, we noticed a small haze of smoke. One of the passengers said it must have been a settler burning down some olive trees. My friend asked why it couldn’t just be someone burning their garbage, which is the practice here.

(Later, I’d find out that it actually was Palestinian fields that had been set afire by settlers. The army had demolished some illegal outposts built by the settlers, the settlers had burned down Palestinian fields in response, then clashed with Palestinians, clashed with Israeli soldiers, slashed the tires to two of their military cars. Something about this information felt irrevocable.)

The driver took us out through the village and onto a few smaller roads. I’m not sure we ever met the original road again, but the detour added an hour to our trip. The passengers were more garrulous now; my friend who spoke some Arabic helped translate, but we entered a more serious discussion with a clinical psychologist named Wael from Kafr Dan, just outside of Jenin. He talked about the stigmas associated with psychology and therapy in the Arab world and how a number of people here were walking around damaged, not being treated for PTSD. He asked us where we were from and we both said America, but had little to say more about it than that.

Wael had trained in the States and worked with the Arab American University in Jenin. He spoke English well. We arrived in Jenin, which looked smaller and felt more commonplace than I expected. The city, being notorious for a number of terrible things, seemed enervated now, like the fatigue following rehab. The driver let us out early because we were running late and our destination was closer in than the final drop-off point. Wael got out of the van with us and walked us the way to our first interview. Going with him made the transition easier, we were starting to get the odd looks from the people we passed: standing in small shops, sitting in plastic chairs on the sidewalks talking, drinking black coffee in what looked like large thimbles in the morning heat. A few called to us excitedly. With Wael as our shepherd, our presence there gained a small legitimacy. When we arrived at the venue, he stuck with us; we knew he had other places to be, but he wanted to tag along. He stayed for coffee and helped translate for the hour.