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REFLECTIONS

Where Is Home? Fragmented Lives, Border

Crossings, and the Politics of Exile

Rabab Abdulhadi

For the politically exiled, going home means more than taking a journey to the place
where one was born. The ability to go, the decision to embark on such a trip, and the
experience of crossing borders to one’s “native” land involves an “interrogation”1 of
the makeup of the individual and the collective self; a definition and a redefinition of
the meaning and the location of home; and a reexamination of one’s current and for-
mer political commitments. In the Palestinian case, going home assumes further
complications, especially in view of the Israeli Law of Return, which bestows auto-
matic citizenship on Jews arriving in Israel while denying the indigenous Palestinian
population the right to return to the homes from which they were uprooted in 1948.
For the Palestinian exiled, going home brings back memories of one’s worst night-
mares at international borders: interrogation and harassment, suspicion of malintent,
and rejection of one’s chosen self-identification. For exiled Palestinian women the
case is further complicated by gender relations at home and abroad—two concepts
that shift depending on where one is situated at any particular moment. Add to the
pot the problematic meaning of such notions, going home ceases to be just about
traveling to the place of one’s birth to collect accessible data—if that ever were the
case. Instead, going home is transformed into a politically charged project in which
the struggle for self-identification, self-determination, freedom, and dignity becomes
as salient as the physical and mental safety of one’s “informants,” and the power dif-
ferential in the production and reproduction of knowledge. “Where is home?” is a
question that lies at the center of Palestinian precarious experience.

Radical History Review

Issue 86 (spring 2003): 89–101
Copyright 2003 by MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc.

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Do We Belong? Home Is a Safe Space

When life under Israeli occupation became worse in Palestine, my siblings and I
began a campaign to convince our parents to leave. We felt that they should relocate
either to the United States, where I lived, or to England, where my sister, Reem,
lives. My parents refused again and again. Whenever pressed, they would invariably
say, “illi waqe’ ‘ala nass waqe’ aleina,” [our fate is not different from others], or “who
ihna ahsan min ennas?” [Do you think we are better than others?]. When we per-
sisted, they would respond by invoking Palestinian dispossession, “ma hada be-‘eid
illi sar fil 48” [no one will ever think of repeating what happened in 1948].
My brother and sister-in-law shared my parents’ sentiments. They were,
nonetheless, contemplating a relocation to give their daughters a better education,
a safe environment, and an innocent childhood. Nasser and Lana2 felt that they had
to make the sacrifice and risk their residence in Jerusalem. The “situation on the
ground,” as Palestinians refer to their reality, was becoming unbearable: Israeli tanks
were holding Palestinian towns under siege; violence was on the rise; and Palestini-
ans were criminalized for being Palestinians or just for being.
Nasser, Lana, and the girls never left Israeli-annexed Jerusalem. With the clo-
sure of U.S. borders to immigrants of Middle Eastern origins, it did not look like they
would make it to New York any time soon. But I did. On August 27, 2001, I came
back from a year in Egypt where I had taught at the American University in Cairo.
I returned “home” to this anonymous city to take in its cultures; to thrive in its
rhythms; to disappear and reappear in a sea of accents, tongues, and lifestyles. Two
weeks later, my life came to a standstill, and so did the lives of hundreds of thousands
of Arabs, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Central and South Asians.
Besides the fear for our loved ones whom we could not locate for several
hours on that infamous day, we no longer felt safe: No longer could we draw on New
York City’s rich, vibrant, and diverse cultural scene, and no longer could we enjoy the
anonymity of this city in the manner in which we enjoyed before. We rationalized
things to make ourselves feel better. We thought to ourselves: we are alive; our loved
ones are alive. This was more than what many other New Yorkers could say. We
should be grateful. My mother’s words rang in my ear, “illi waqe’ala nass waqe’
aleina” [whatever happens to other people will happen to us]— we are not alone in
this!
True, we are not alone. Along with thousands of New Yorkers, we feel miser-
able, sad, hurt, and wounded. But in more profound ways than one, it is not so: What
affects us and how it affects us is very different. My mother’s assurances do not apply
here—we are alone, and very much so!
The experience of diasporic and fragmented lives in which our souls and con-
cerns are split between here and there is a major difference that sets us apart: us who
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have a particular skin shade, a particular accent, a certain last or first name, or mark-
ings on the body that betray some affiliation with the enemy:

— Be careful if you happen to be named Osama, or even if you own a restaurant

named Osama’s Place!

— You do need to worry if your last name sounds like an Abdul, an Ahmad, a
Mohammad, or a Masoud!

—Change your name if you can, from Mohammad to Smith!

—Americanize!

—Be thankful that winter is upon us, for it allows you to wear a heavy long coat and
a big hat. It allows you to hide your beliefs from the public space that is supposed
to accommodate all beliefs: If you are a Sikh man or a devout Muslim woman, do not
parade your convictions in public—the public has no space for you!

—Do not speak up a lot. Save your words. Try not to use words with a “P” if you are
an Arab. You may mix it up with a “B,” causing someone to ask, “and where are you
from?” You do not want to answer this question—avoid it as much as you can!

—Try to avoid situations in which you have to present an ID: do not drive a car, do
not use a credit card, pay in cash: Money laundering is not a priority for law and
order now. No one will check if you present big bills.

—Avoid as much as you can being you!

—Pass if you can!

—Melt in this melting pot!

—Do not cry multiculturalism and diversity! This is not the time . . . better save your
life!

—Better yet: “Go home,” foreigner!

—What if you have no home to go back to? What if this is your home?

—Dual loyalty? Split personality? Divided? Not a real American? But who is? How
many “real” Americans are still left around?

Crossing Borders: Passing and Passing Through

September 11, 2001
I am stuck on Ninety-sixth Street and Lexington Avenue. I cannot get home. Trains
are not running. I desperately need to hear Jaime’s voice, to know that he is alive. I
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cannot reach him. A long line is getting longer at the phone booth. I begin walking
aimlessly, hoping to find an available phone to call my mother-in-law. Right in front
of me, a woman pushing a baby carriage starts to cross the street. She is covering her
head with a scarf. I am debating whether to say something. Finally, I decide to
approach her: “Go home!” I said. Immediately I realize how awful I must have
sounded. She looks at me with a mix of fear and resentment, too polite to ask me to
mind my own business and probably too afraid to fight back. I come closer and
declare a part of me I thought I would never claim: “I am a Muslim like you! Go
home now. You cannot run with a baby. When they realize what has happened, they
will attack.” I am already bracing myself for the battle between “us” and “them.”
My hand instinctively goes to my neck to hide the chain with the Qu’ranic
inscription my students, Ghalia and Hedayat, gave me before I left Cairo. Luckily,
I had forgotten to put it on today. My split lives are on a collision course again: I feel
like such a traitor for passing. But wouldn’t it be better to pass today? Do I want to
identify with “them,” though? Do I want to escape the collective guilt by association,
the fate of my fellow Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims? Should I renege on my
roots? There is this nagging feeling that I need some sort of a symbol to shout to the
world who I am. I want so much to defy this monolithic image.
Better tread lightly, I conclude! Today is not the time for bravado! “Don’t be
foolish. It is not about courage,” I tell myself. The thought of what might happen to
a woman wearing a hijab sends shivers down my back. It won’t leave my mind. “But
we all make choices,” one part of me says. “Not always as we please,” the radical in
me shouts back.

—Passing is a survival mechanism.

—Lie low until the storm has passed and hope for the best.

I find a Caribbean taxi driver who agrees to take me home. Four “white” business-
men jump in on 125th Street. We are on our way home. As the only passenger who
knows the back roads around blockaded bridges, I begin to give directions. Then I
begin to worry that someone may notice my accent and ask where I come from. I
am not sure I want to deploy my activist identity and use this occasion to try to
explain the plight of the Palestinian people. A passenger next to me says, “So this
is how it feels to live with terrorist bombings.” I am certain that he is referring to
Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. There is no way he could be relating to how
Palestinian towns are being bombarded every day. I almost say something about the
value of Palestinian life. I want to share what I have personally experienced this
past year alone, but I am not sure that this is such a good idea. So I keep my mouth
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shut and try to pass for a professional “American” woman. Another passenger, I
realize from his accent, is Iranian. But we sort of make a silent pact not to tell on
each other. We both pretend not to notice each other’s accents. At least this is what
I think.
Police cars are stationed at the bridges and on different checkpoints along the
highway. I should be calm. I have seen this before. But West Bank memories add to,
rather than alleviate, my anxiety: What if they stop us now to check our ID’s? They
will surely notice my last name. Would I be safe? What if a cop became trigger-
happy? Would it do me any good if they were to apologize to my family afterward?
I shudder remembering Nasser and Lana telling me about a “road incident”
they experienced. A few months before Yasmeen’s first birthday, they were driving
from Israeli-annexed Jerusalem to our parents’ home in Nablus, with the baby in the
backseat. At an Israeli checkpoint near the settlement of Ariel, a large rock flew at
them out of nowhere, shattering the windshield and almost killing them. Twice priv-
ileged for having a Jerusalem ID and for being employed at a United Nations agency,
Lana got out of the car full of rage and lashed out at the Israeli soldiers who con-
trolled the human traffic in and out of Palestinian-controlled areas. “It is not our
fault!” yelled an eighteen-year-old soldier. “It was the settlers. What am I supposed
to do?” was all he could say, shrugging away Lana’s fears and contributing to her
sense of helplessness.
For Nasser and Lana and the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank
and Gaza, “road incidents” are a daily routine. There is no ordinary travel. If you live
under Israeli control, you never know whether you will make it to your destination
alive. “You were given a new life,” Palestinians say to each other whenever one suc-
ceeds in making it home safe across the never-ending checkpoints.
What happened on a recent drive to Nablus finally convinced Lana and
Nasser that it was time to make the move to the United States. During my visit to
Nablus in July 2001, Lana was bringing the girls over to see me. As they were about
to leave their Jerusalem apartment, four-year-old Yasmeen asked her mother if she
could bring along their kitten, Nadia, named for her youngest sister. It was not the
request, rather the way Yasmeen asked that broke Lana’s heart: “Do you think the
army will let her pass through, mama?”

September 13, 2001

I am working at home. No one is allowed below Fourteenth Street in Manhattan
unless she or he can prove a legitimate reason; so the mayor of New York City
declares. I am very grateful that I cannot get to work since I still did not have a valid
ID. September 11 was the day on which my New York University paperwork was to
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94 Radical History Review

be completed. I am spared the trouble of having to go through checkpoints or to

reveal my identity.
A police car stops in front of the house. I begin to think that they have come
for me. Maybe someone called and said that a Palestinian lives here. Maybe it is
because our house has no flags. The neighborhood is full of flags. Flags are every-
where: Our next-door neighbor has two flags on the front of her house, two on the
back porch, one on a planter, and two on her car; her husband has three flags on his
van.
The only public symbol of Palestine we could speak of is a sticker my dad had
given us with the phrase, “Palestine in my heart.” It was made in 1994 when Pales-
tinians thought they would soon have a state. Better remove it immediately. The next
day, Jaime says, “I am glad we removed the sticker. There were so many roadblocks.
The car was searched twice. They even asked me to open the trunk.” My sense of
security is wiped out. This home is becoming so similar to what happens back home.
I share this experience with my liberal friends, but I sense the skepticism in
their eyes, or at least a flicker of disappointment. I should not jump to conclusions,
they seem to be cautioning.

Another Road—“Back Home”—May 14, 1998

I am leaving Ramallah on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Nakbah, or Palestin-
ian dispossession. My cousin’s children ask if I want to hoist a Palestinian flag with
the slogan of the occasion, “So we will not forget,” on the car. “Sure, why not?” I say,
not really thinking things through. I exit Palestinian-controlled “Area A” and drive
through “Area B,” with joint Israeli-Palestinian patrol (Palestinians control the pop-
ulation and Israel everything else, according to Oslo accords) to catch the highway to
Nablus. All is well. It is a beautiful summer day. I should make it home in thirty min-
utes or so. At the fork, one direction leads to Ofra, a Jewish settlement built on
sparsely olive-tree-covered hilltops. The other, to which I am allowed passage, leads
to “Area C” (total Israeli control) and ‘Aber Samera. ‘Aber Samera, or Samaria (the
name Israel assigned to the West Bank) bypass, is a modern highway carved out of
the mountains by then-Israeli minister of infrastructure, Ariel Sharon. The road links
the network of West Bank Jewish settlements whose villas have red tile roofs, lush
gardens, and children’s playgrounds. Winding through Palestinian towns and vil-
lages, the highway, a short commute to Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, allows the
120,000 settlers to bypass the constant reminder of the two million Palestinians
whose land was seized to construct these privileged gated colonies.
Along the highway, electric poles are covered with Israeli flags. It is Israel’s
fiftieth birthday as a state and as a haven for diasporic refugees escaping discrimi-
nation, intolerance, and the Holocaust. But there is no space in this celebration of
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Jewish diversity for Palestinians. My lonely flag is not welcomed here. Cars with
Israeli license plates full of settlers honk in annoyance and make obscene gestures at
me. Palestinian drivers veer away from this provocative car.

—Passing is a survival strategy!

September 24, 2001

A day before traveling from New York to Washington, D.C., to speak at an antiglob-
alization teach-in, a scholar of a certain descent reserves the ticket over the phone,
wondering while being put on hold whether her name is being checked by the FBI.
She begins packing, going through her wallet — cleaning it up. She finds a
Home Depot receipt that she sets aside lest an unexpected search raise questions as
to why certain tools were bought. She takes out her U.S. passport (a passport is for
passing through). With a name like hers, a driver’s license and a faculty ID from a
major university may not be enough to prove her “Americanness.” After all, equality
does not mean total equality; it only means that some of us are more equal than others.
She goes through her briefcase. Should she take her laptop along? Would it
be searched, causing a delay and a humiliation in front of other passengers? She does
need it. It is a four-hour trip. She has a lot of work to do. Take it but better leave
early to avoid embarrassment. Better ask someone to go with her to the station: what
if she is held? Someone needs to notify the organizers of the teach-in, someone
needs to call a lawyer.
She arrives at the station one hour early. She approaches the window to pick
up her ticket. She slips in the credit card and driver’s license under the glass ever so
discreetly, hoping that the clerk will not address her by her last name. It is taking a
while to print the ticket. All the while, she is wondering whether a camera high up
is taking her photo. She is convinced that it is there. She picks up the ticket with no
incident. She goes to the tracks. Five policemen are standing there on the platform
looking directly at her — she is convinced. She begins rehearsing what to say when
approached—not if but when approached: what she is doing here, why she is going
to Washington, D.C. “Did I bring the formal invitation on the official letterhead?”
she wonders. Acting like a criminal, she treads ever so lightly, moving away from the
eyes of the cops, burning her back, to the center of the station. She is getting more
nervous and starts babbling away. Her companion warns: “You are attracting atten-
tion. Relax! Stop it!” All to no avail.
The train pulls into the station. She gets on and finds a seat. Now the con-
ductor will come to check the ticket. Is he going to give her looks once he sees her
name? She opens the briefcase to take out a paper to read. Al-Hayat? You cannot
read Al-Hayat here! She puts it away before anyone notices the Arabic script. She
turns on the laptop. “Can the passenger behind me see what I am working on?” Like
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96 Radical History Review

a little third-grader who guards her work from cheaters, she wraps her arms around
her laptop before she gives up and puts it away.
The train arrives. The Washington station is full of security personnel. Will
anyone pull her aside for questioning? Nothing happens. She is free to go where she
wants. Why does she, then, feel this way? Is this paranoia? She has not done any-
thing wrong. “I am not a criminal,” she tells herself.
Her mind travels to another time, another place, and another continent a few
months earlier.

June 10, 2001

The plane is approaching the airport. Butterflies in the stomach: excited to arrive,
soon to be “home”— soon to see her parents and her fifteen nieces and nephews.
She disembarks and gets on the bus. A short distance and they are at border control.
Standing in line for “holders of foreign passports.”
Butterflies in the stomach: fear and anxiety: “Did I clean up my wallet? Did
I remove all business cards from the briefcase? Is my calendar clean? Did I white-
out all suspect dates?” “What should I say if they ask about the letters from the kids
in Shatila to their friends in Dheisheh?” She rehearses her story, reminds herself to
only answer with a yes or no, no need to elaborate: This is where they try to trick
you—it only prolongs the interrogation. Do I smile or keep a straight face, rude, or
docile, which image to present to the world here today? What do I do when asked
again and again the same question?
Here it comes: here we go again.

King Hussein Bridge, July 1994—Going in/Ben Gurion Airport, July 2001—Getting out
“Rabab, what is the purpose of your visit to Israel?” asks a young Israeli woman
behind the counter. I am a bit annoyed for being addressed by my first name, almost
wanting to say, “Do I know you?” but I bite my tongue and maintain my calm. I
respond that I am visiting the Palestinian areas to see my family. She asks again: “You
have family in Israel? Where?” I answer, “In Nablus.” She retorts, “Shekhem?” (The
Hebrew name Israel assigned to my hometown). I calmly say, “Nablus, yes.” Now, I
am directed to step aside so that my luggage will be searched. I remember — a bit
too late—that I should have said that I was staying in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to pre-
vent the hassle of luggage search. I am taken, along with my luggage, aside.
A young man in civilian clothing approaches me and states that he is from
Israeli security. He wants to ask me a few questions — this is being done for my
safety, he says. Having been through Israeli borders so many times before, I do not
bother to question or correct his concern about my safety. I am too tired. I just want
to get home. He, along with a young female soldier, searches my bags. They take
everything out and spread my stuff on a table. My underwear is there for everyone
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to see. An elderly Palestinian man is being searched at the next table. We pretend
not to notice each other’s intimate belongings, but my face is getting very, very hot
with embarrassment. They go through all my stuff waving an electrical device over it
to (I am guessing) detect explosives. Having found nothing, they attempt to put
things back as they found them, but it is not possible to replicate the manner in
which I packed my stuff or to restore my dignity.

Exile and Exclusion

Home—October 5, 2001

—News Bulletin: “Reconstruction of the downtown area is being discussed.”

—Who moves back?

—Who goes home?

—Who returns?

—And who is left behind?

Back Home—June 2001

—News Bulletin: Beirut is a city reconstructed—beautiful, fashionable downtown.

The “Paris of the Orient” is resurrected!

Shatila is a miserable place. It is a crowded area of one square kilometer on which

17,000 people live and where expanding the livable space is not an option. People in
Shatila, though, are resourceful. To make space, “they buy air,” says Nihad Hamad,
director of the Shatila Center for Social Development. I first dismiss it thinking that
she is just joking. “Move along; do not dwell on it!” I think to myself. But then she
just repeats it. So I ask. It is very simple: there are more people than land, the only
choice left for camp residents is to expand vertically: Buy the roof of a house and
build another house on top of it—the towers of Babel without the glory! The geog-
raphy of dispossession in action!
The streets of Shatila — alleys would be more accurate — are narrow and
dirty. Sewage is open for the eye to see and the garbage is piling up all over the place.
In the winter, rain and cesspools flood the alleys, and in the summer, the acrid smell
of the garbage threatens to suffocate you. If you lived here, you would probably want
to escape too.
The people of Shatila have nowhere to go. The only place to which they want
to return is a home no more: Erased from the map, not from memory — collective,
alive, and painful. But the borders are closed today!
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Home—September 21, 2001

— News Bulletin: “Artists, developers and families discuss how to memorialize 9/11
victims.”

Back Home—July 2001

We are walking toward the mass grave. This is where most of the victims of the mas-
sacre are buried. A sign at the gate announces, “Here lie the martyrs of the Sabra
and Shatila Massacre.” We enter through the gate. A lone man is watering the plants:
Adnan, the custodian, is not a Palestinian; he came with his family from the south
of Lebanon to escape Israeli incursions. With little access to resources, Adnan’s fam-
ily could only afford to live in the Palestinian neighborhood, viewed as a ghetto in
dominant Lebanese discourse. Their fate was not much better than that of their
Palestinian neighbors. Thirty-eight members of Adnan’s family, the Miqdadis, were
slaughtered during the 1982 massacre. To honor them and other victims, Adnan has
planted flowers and greeneries but “not the tomatoes,” he said, “I did not plant the
tomatoes; they grew out all on their own.”

Home—October 20, 2001

— News Bulletin: A mobile phone message with the last words is saved. Cellular
companies offer it to families free of charge.

Back Home—July 2001

We are sitting in the living room of Maher Srour as he remembers what happened to
him and his family nineteen years ago. He speaks in matter-of-fact tones, and a ghost
of a smile comes across and slowly disappears from his face as he tells us how his
youngest sister, fifteen-month-old Shadia, was ordered to stand and put her hands up
in surrender, like the rest of her family members. “‘But she cannot walk! She is still
crawling!’ we told them. Their leader said: ‘Yes, she can.’ Sure enough, she walked. It
was her first time walking— Shadia walked just like the rest of us. She stood in line
with her hands up and walked. They shot her and she fell right there between the
bodies of my mother and my father. You see? Right there on the floor. That is Sha-
dia.” Maher points to the television and the homemade video he assembled from
newspaper cuttings and fading copies of family photos, exhibited to remember
Palestinian refugees killed in the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila camps on the
outskirts of Beirut.
We are all sitting around, tears flowing down our cheeks; none of us can stop.
Each one is trying very hard to stop, but it is impossible as Maher remembers, or
tries to reassemble, to put together, memories of family members who are gone for-
ever—the only remaining memories are faded photos and a broken heart. As Maher
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remembers, my mind drifts to another setting. Ciraj Rassoul, a cofounder of the Dis-
trict 6 Museum in Cape Town, recounts how this community was completely razed
to the ground by apartheid’s Group Area Act, save for a mosque and a church.
“Remembering,” Ciraj says, “is re-membering, putting together. District 6 Museum
is all about remembering our community, putting it together.”
A video of faded pictures here, a museum there: People remember. People
memorialize.

—Whose memories are valid?

—For whom are memorials built?

—Does your life count if you are a person dispossessed?

Home—October 25, 2001

—News Bulletin: “478 people are confirmed dead at the World Trade Center.”

New York grieves for people with a mix of last names, cultures, professions, lifestyles,
religious beliefs, and family arrangements.

—Grieve, New York, Grieve!

— Grieve for the Pakistani man who died in the INS detention center of a heart
attack while awaiting deportation: Prisoners are not entitled to adequate healthcare!

—Grieve for the Egyptian who moved to New York in search of a safer life.

—Grieve for the West African who used to pray in the Bronx.

—Grieve for all those anonymous beings whose labor no one credits, names no one
remembers, and bodies no one dares to claim.

—Grieve for the mothers and fathers, the daughters and the sons, the lovers and the
beloved, the friends and the coworkers.

—Grieve for shattered dreams, for lives lost, for closed possibilities.

—Grieve for a loss of human life and Remember!

—Remember, New York!

—Remember.

— Remember Iman Hajou, a fifteen-month-old baby girl whose brains were splat-
tered on the back seat of her father’s car as he went looking for help. No hospital for
Iman. No passing through: The “road situation” is bad today!
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— Grieve for Mohamed el-Dura, whose father could not protect him from death,
bullet after bullet after bullet—a Palestinian Amadou Diallo?

—Grieve, New York!

—Search your heart!

—Is there a space to grieve?

—Grieve, if you will, for the Afghanis whose screams of pain no one seems to hear.

—Grieve!

Where Is Home?
I once believed that the restoration of my dignity was possible in New York. In the-
ory at least, people are supposed to be equal before the law. I am not naive: I am
fully aware of subtle and not so subtle systems of domination and discrimination.
But no one is pretending any more that equality before the law applies to us.
As we continue to be ethnically and racially profiled, thousands of Arabs,
Arab Americans, Muslims, and Muslim Americans are made to feel foreign at home:
No longer do we feel welcomed nor do we feel safe. Call it what you want, but the
melting-pot theory fails as “America” refuses to grind the coarse kernels of our foods,
name them what they are, and accept them on their own terms: garlicky, spicy,
strong, and fulfilling. Beneath the facade of liberal advocacy of multiculturalism lies
an ethnocentric New York that continues to deny our existence except as blood-
thirsty or suspect male villains, helpless female victims, and exoticized alien others.
Our cultures are erased, our lives flattened to fit neatly into the folds of “American-
ness.” No longer can we draw on New York City’s rich, vibrant, and diverse cultural
scene: Red, white, and blue may be a safety blanket to some, but they symbolize
exclusion to the rest of us. Safety in this anonymous city is a precious commodity
achieved only by those who can pass for something other that the multiplicities and
complexities in which we are embedded.
Rationalizing things to feel better may help; a band-aid solution to dull away
the pain. But when 1,000 are detained and 5,000 are not so voluntarily interviewed,
New York, and indeed the United States, feels suspiciously like the occupied West
Bank. But this is not the West Bank, where most Palestinians are subject to the same
misery and terror, and, as my mother would say, “illi waqe’ ‘ala nass waqe’ aleina”
[we are very alone here: our diasporic lives are fragmented]. Our souls are split open.
It is perhaps time to go home, but back home exists no more.
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Notes
Different versions of these notes were presented at “All I Have Is a Voice: A Teach-in on War and
Peace” at Hunter College-CUNY, October 25, 2001; the “Globalization and Resistance”
conference at CUNY Graduate Center, November 16, 2001; the “Guadino Lecture” at Williams
College February 25, 2001; and the symposium on “Women, War, and Displacement: The
Gender Dimension of Conflict” at Hofstra University, March 8, 2001.
1. I use this term with reluctance for its painful meaning to those who experience prison and
torture.
2. Lana’s mother, Shaden Abu Hijleh, sixty, was killed on October 11, 2002. She was sitting in
her garden embroidering when an Israeli jeep stopped in front of her house. Soldiers got
out and shot at Shaden, killing her instantly and injuring her husband, Dr. Jamal Abu
Hijleh, who was picking oregano, and their son, Saed who was sitting with them.