05/09/02 - Posted 11:08:56 AM from the Daily Record newsroom
Palestinian refugee "torn" by experience

Denville man tries to balance family needs, parents' suffering
By Matthew Katz, Daily Record

DENVILLE -- Aref Assaf is the American dream.

From a corrugated-roofed, cinder block-walled shelter for 11 family members in the Kalandia refugee camp in the West Bank, Assaf, 42, now has the biggest home on his block in Lake Arrowhead.

The home is a hybrid of a modern 21st-century estate and a Persian Gulf villa, and seems to reflect his personality. Middle Eastern-style columns provide the support, elaborate Arabic artwork line the walls and a Muslim prayer adorns the top of the front door.

Meanwhile, an extensive model car collection is situated perfectly around the perimeter of the living room, a big-screen television is built into the wall unit and the sleek kitchen would impress Martha Stewart.

Such is the home of a man who has made his fortune in a country he loves, but whose mind is focused on a people that he adores.

His parents still live in the refugee camp. They will leave only to go to heaven or back to their village, which they were evicted from when Israel won independence in 1948.

Back at Lake Arrowhead, Assaf is married, an American citizen, the father of four children, owner of two businesses, co-chairman of the New Jersey chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and was an successful school board candidate last week.

``You live almost a dual life, trying to balance your needs with what happens to your parents and family,'' Assaf said. ``You are torn sometimes.''

Assaf came to the United States in 1977 as a Palestinian who grew up in pitiful conditions in a refugee camp under Israeli control. His parents' village, where the family had lived for about 500 years, is now settled by Yeminite Israelis.

When he was 9, his 11-year-old brother was fatally shot in the back of the head by an Israeli soldier. Assaf became the eldest. He grew up distrustful of Jews, and would throw stones at Israeli soldiers with other children.

Sometimes, the soldiers fired bullets back at them. ``You're always desiring to show dissatisfaction with your occupiers,'' he said. ``It's as human as nature itself.''

His brother, Jamal, 36, threw stones also, and was almost hit by two Israeli bullets. Now a computer programmer in Randolph, he explained the mentality. ``The reason why violence on behalf of the Palestinians will become a choice is because the desperation that these children feel,'' he said. ``Put yourself in a small room and imagine how you would feel after 48 hours. That's how they felt.''

Growing up, he was told Jews were the enemy. ``The Jew had no place in Palestine,'' he remembered believing. ``He took our land, confiscated our national rights and the only solution is to take back what we lost.''

Changed hearts and minds

In 1977, Assaf became the first in his village to come to America for an education. He had $60 and an admission letter for Columbia University in his pocket, but no place to live. He was taken in by a dean there, a Jew, for six months.

``It was a shock when we had dinner and he started to do the prayer in Hebrew,'' he said of his first meal there. ``We changed our hearts, our feelings for each other. It changed my mind that there is a way we can overcome our differences and live together in the Middle East.''

Now, he believes an international force should control borders between an independent Palestinian state and Israel. ``I think they (Palestinians) have accepted the fact that Israel is there,'' he said. ``I believe in both sides that there is a strong majority that once it is nurtured by the United States. . .the end will be a two-state solution. Nothing short of that can resolve the problem.''

But on one wall in his home, there is a map that seems to contradict that vision. It is a map of Israel and Palestinian territories, but the names of the towns are all in Arabic, and there is no mention of Israel.

Assaf, wearing a pin with the Palestinian and American flags, says the map is of historic Palestine. But, he concedes, the map is also a depiction of the future. ``The two-state system is only an intermediate solution,'' he said. He envisions a secular, democratic state where both peoples live together.

``The notion of a Jewish state will not be needed because the threat of extinction won't be there anymore,'' he said. Such a concept, however, is unappetizing to many Jews because it runs against Zionism.

For Assaf, however, Zionism turned his familial village of Allar into the Israeli town of Matta. Assaf has traveled back to this town with his father (Assaf himself never lived there), and the new Jewish residents told them ``get out of here, it's not you're land.''

His father still has the key to his home and the deeds to the property; a clinging hope common among Palestinians displaced in 1948. ``My father's life literally ended in 1948,'' he said.

But Assaf, who owns All County Limousine in Morristown and Denville Getty, has a life that is flourishing. On Friday, he appeared as a Palestinian panelist on the NBCTV ``Today Show,'' and he has asked a Jewish acquaintance to speak at his synagogue. ``If we can't talk about it here, there'll be fighting there,'' he said.

Devastated by rumors

But even in Morris County -- Assaf said there are about 1,000 Palestinians here, less than 1/4 of one percent of the county's population -- some aren't as open to communication.

After Sept. 11, the 43-year Denville resident got calls from friends and neighbors who said they would no longer buy gas from him because he was ``part of a huge Arab celebration'' after the attacks.

``It was devastating to me,'' he said. And during his recent successful bid for the school board, rumors circulated that he was anti-Semetic. He said his son has Jewish friends, and he tells him that in America, that's okay.

One night last week, as the family sat down for a dinner of upside down chicken, potatoes and rice called makloba and kafuta (ground beef with tomato), his 9-year-old daughter said a prayer in Arabic. Assaf's wife, Elham, a distant cousin whose family lives in Jordan, prepared the meal. The Assafs abide by Muslim dietary rules of halal, akin to being kosher for Jews.

The conversation was about politics. Jamal was talkative, but Elham was not.

``As Israelis were talking peace, they were building settlements,'' Jamal said. Assafs' father, a laborer, helped build the Israeli settlements in the West Bank because he could get no other job.

``The U.S. has to stand up and say enough is enough,'' Jamal said.

But his older brother Aref stopped him, explaining that President Bush has to weigh politics in America with every move he makes. Still, he said that Yasser Arafat is the rightful ruler of the Palestinian people.

``I believe Arafat can deliver peace and deliver the Palestinians,'' he said. ``We have to reach the need first, an independent Palestinian state, then resolve all the other issues.''

The vogue argument among Israelis is that America's war on terrorism in Afghanistan is commensurate with Israel's war against Palestinians. ``But the fact of the matter is America is not occupying Afghanistan, Israel is destroying the Palestinians,'' Aref said.

Matthew Katz can be reached at mkatz@gannett.com or (973) 428-6200.