You have no rights

I am walking in the park in London, just arrived. Blue fingertips, crescent moon, a different light.

On the plane back, I sat next to a Muslim woman whom Israel had refused entry. The air hostess came at the start of the flight and took the woman's passport away. She entered the plane from a separate door, driven straight across the tarmac from her prison cell – two days’ incarceration with, as her interrogator told her, ‘no rights’.

You have no rights, is what he said, upon the woman’s suggestion that he tell her – indeed that she was entitled to know – what would happen next.

The woman, J, had intended to travel via Israel to the West Bank. It was not her first visit but this time she arrived on the same plane as a Muslim man who frightened security. They said that he and J were together in a plot. He was being deported too and sat on my other side, ranting throughout the flight about Yahud, and the gun his son was building to take them out.

‘That is the definition of bad luck,’ says J. Meaning that because by chance she and the man had shared a flight, the West Bank is closed to her now.

J lowers her voice to barely audible when she says ‘West Bank’ or names a town in Palestine. She drops her head to say it too. I can hardly hear her at one point. And she checks to see that no one’s listening while we speak.

There were three others in her cell. One, from the Philippines, cried all night. A Russian woman never said anything, only rocked back and forth and moaned. She spoke neither English nor Hebrew and no one knew what she thought.

The prison graffitti was shocking. It said I hate the Jews. Over and over. I hate the Jews. Not the Israelis but the Jews.

‘Israel has made people everywhere dislike Jews,’ says J.

‘Why can’t they distinguish between Israelis and the Jews?’ I ask.

‘Because Israel is the country that’s meant to look after the Jews. If you’re Jewish you can go there and get everything you need – a home, money. There was a Christian woman in the jail who’d been servant to an Israeli Jewish woman. They were from the same place in Russia. The Jewish woman got everything and the Christian woman was cleaning up after her.

‘When the Jewish woman died, the Christian woman had to leave Israel. Four years’ work – she paid for the visa, did Hebrew courses first – but the woman is not allowed to stay.’

The jailors, when they wanted something, shouted your nationality: You! Philippino! Come here! Or Russian! But they didn’t know how to refer to the British J. They called her nothing. Not even by her name. ‘I can understand it, why they don’t like someone who looks like me,’ J motions to her hijab. 'I mean, I am the other. I represent everything they fear.’

But why? Why did that security guy, the Israeli who had been so kind and talked about his Arab friends, why did he remain silent when the interrogator shouted in J’s face? Told her she had blood in her eyes. Said that the reason she was tired was because she was a liar, and lying takes hard work. How could someone be so kind one minute, so callous the next?

J shifts under her black jilbab, which has small pink roses sewn in a line all the way down the front.

Comments

[Alice Bragg]

Hey Leila,

Your blog is amazing. Rarely have I seen human beings depicted so beautifully, and the stories they tell say so much about the political situation. Your photos are phenomenal too.

If you're interested in watching a documentary about schools in Nablus, check out this link -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtziKpJi2Wk

It's a brilliantly made doc, with just the right combination of interviews and action. A masterful work.

Lots of love and stay in touch,

A xx

[Uri ZACKHEM]

Shabbat Shalom.
U

[Leila]

Alice, thank you. I'll take a look at the documentary. Also, look forward to collaborating soon. Hope the theatre project coming together, can't wait to hear.
L xx

[Leila]

Uri, same to you and sorry that I missed you this time. L