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Her dream, my catastrophe, Aref Assaf
July 20, 2007
 The letter below is a
quick
response to an article
headlined, "Our
dream will bring us to another land"
by an American citizen named Abigail Leichman. In her article, Abby, who is a
staff writer for the Bergen Record and often writes about food, etiquettes, and
home decorating interests, is offering her good byes as she prepares to return to her
"biblical homeland", Israel. She also writes for
Jewish
papers about Israel and other Jewish matters. In fact, she wrote a rather
two-part non descript articles about the recent "real estate fair" held in
Teaneck to sell American Jews lands to build more settlements in Israel. Could
it be that Abby was influenced by this event? The organizer's flyer proclaimed:
"Come learn how you, a group of friends, or even a community can own a home and
strengthen the Zionist dream."
I was very much involved in
exposing the supposedly secretive gathering and followed that by having a
letter published
on the subject.
My response to this article was very spontaneous because Abby's words exposed
old wounds and shattered dreams. This was a very painful letter to write but it
needed to be said. More than anything else, I hope Abby will read my words.
(Read other people's letters)
I urge you to first read the article then read my
short response which I sent to the Bergen Record as a rebuttal. Much more can
and should be said
but to render my response publishable, I had to keep it short. But below you
may find my expanded thoughts. AA
Bergen Record
To the Editor
Dear Editor:
Re: Our
dream will bring us to another land
I wish I can
turn into piece of garment in Abby Leichman's luggage who is preparing to go
‘home’ to Israel. Even though I was born in Palestine and was nurtured by its
dry sun and arid soil, I am unable to join Abby in her journey simply because I
am not Jewish. Abby, who admits to not being "fluent
in the local language or culture", and was probably
born in New Jersey, will be welcomed with open arms by other foreign settlers.
While Abby will automatically receive Israeli citizenship, I will be denied that
privilege and, if not thrown back onto the next departing plane, I may be issued
a temporary tourist visa to my homeland. What a tragedy that so
painfully encapsulates but never honestly conveys the very essence of the
Palestinian people’s plight.
The supposedly heartwarming story may solicit compassion and ‘good wishes’ from
some readers. Yet it is the tragic destiny of the other unmentioned side, the
Palestinian Arabs who understandably will not throw the red carpet for Abby. I
wish Abby told the readers that her going home to Israel will mean Palestinians
will have lost more of their lands and groves. This is the area occupied by
Israel since 1967. As part of a final peaceful resolution between the
Palestinians and the Jews, this parcel of historic Palestine, the West Bank and
Gaza, is supposed to become the future Palestine state which our President has
envisioned since 2002.
I have no issue with Abby living in Tel Aviv or Beersheba. In fact, most
Palestinians have accepted the two- state solution by ceding 78% of historic
Palestine to Israel and asking for the remainder to be their future Palestine
state. I do, however, have a major issue with her joining the over 400,000 other
settlers who, because of ideological or monetary incentives, choose to live in
stolen lands belonging to the Palestinians. These lands, through
government-authorized confiscations and illegal and counterfeit purchases will
be where Abby will build her home. Abby did not share with us this little
secret. Abby's new home will mean that Palestinians will be squeezed even more
into their suffocating enclaves, surrounded by barbed wire, massive walls, and
hundreds of checkpoints. Abby may never experience being stopped by an Israeli
soldier at these checkpoints, deep into the occupied West Bank, because in fact
these structures primarily separate Palestinians from other Palestinians,
separate Palestinians from their fields, from their places of worship and their
schools.
Dear Abby, you tell us that
you are returning to your ancestral home to build a nation. But what about my
ancestral home in Palestine, and what about the thriving nation you will have
destroyed? What about my parents' little village of
Allar which you have wiped
off the face of the earth in 1948, rendering its 450 inhabitants refugees for
over five decades? My parents still hold the key to their now non-existent
homestead but which remains vividly alive in their dreams and prayers. Nothing
is left of Allar ( you renamed it Matta) which you obliterated in October 1948.
Only the lone one-room school remains standing and intact as a memorial to its
past. You have tuned the school, the place where my parents earned their
alphabet into a stable for animals. The natural spring that ran though the
village is all but covered with garbage and chickens' refuse. When I visited
Allar, its new occupants confessed to not knowing what really happened to
Allar's original owners. How will you answer your victims?
It pains me, Abby that you make no mention of the Palestinian people on whose
corpses you will be stomping, and whose hundreds of villages which you have
destroyed and turned into Jewish-only towns and cities. These people deserve a
home too, Abby - don't they? What gives you more right to my home? Has God
turned into a real estate broker? Will you ask yourself about the fate of the
original owners of the land? Should they forget about their land, homes, and
dreams so that you may have guilt-free peace of mind and a conscience devoid of
doubts? Will you ask yourself how the Palestinians will feed their children
since you have uprooted thousands of their centuries-old olive trees? How will
they learn since you have destroyed their schools? How will they treat their
sick since you have demolished their hospitals?
Abby, the Palestinians will not share your worry about who will cut their hair
or whether milk will be sold in bottles or plastics bags. Their worries are more
basic than that: they worry about their next meal; they worry if they will
survive another 1000 lbs. bomb thrown at their apartment. They worry about such
things as being able to pass a checkpoint to make it in time to deliver a baby
or receive a blood transfusion or to farm their fields. I am sure all these
matters were left out from your glossy sales brochure as they somehow
metaphysically never existed and if they do, they should not matter to you.
Please, Abby
let the world know that your new home will be in an exclusive settlement built
only for the Jews, and Americans of different faiths may not live there. Please
tell the world that the roads you will travel to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv were
built for Jews only and no Arab cars are permitted on them. You will know an
Arab-owned car because your government issues color- coded licenses plates and
Arabs will have their 'unique' colors. Remember the fifties and early sixties in
America, when you will see a sign "Whites only". We have long since overcome
such illegal and moral repugnant discriminatory policies. In Israel,
discrimination against Arabs is legal because your Supreme Court said so
recently and because your Prime Minister once described our people as crushable
grasshoppers.
Please tell
the world that the water with which you will quench your thirst and cleanse your
body will be stolen from Arab-owned lands
from which over 90% of the water is diverted to Israel. Arabs, you should
know, aren’t even being allowed to dig for water on their own property. Please
tell the world about the wild pigs your government lets loose into our felids to
destroy their crops and to insult their religious sentiments. Please tell the
world about the more than 13,000 Arab homes that since 1967 your Israeli
government destroyed-often with a moment's notice.
Abby, please tell the world
how and why your Israeli soldiers, armed with American-made weapons, shot dead
my unarmed eleven-year brother with an M-16 rifle's bullet which pierced through
his young head. How can you console and comfort my parents who were never
allowed to see their fallen son or even to bury his young shattered remains?
Will you endeavor to find the killers and bring them to justice? Will you help
my parents bring their great loss to a closure? As mother yourself, can you
possibly fathom the enormity of our loss and the needlessness of our suffering?
Abby, before you pack up
your belongings, I pray you will unpack your heart and let in your conscience.
Should you decide to stay here in America, I do hope our path will cross. I
suspect that our meeting will be most revealing because you will finally come
face to face with the other side of your dream-and my catastrophe.
Abby, please tell the world
the missing chapter of your saga: Palestinians will cease to dream of their own
home as you begin to celebrate your homecoming. Please tell the world - for
you may never have inner peace until you do.
Tell you
and I meet in OUR homeland,
Dr. Aref Assaf
Denville, NJ
"Our dream will bring us to another land"
Thursday, July 19, 2007
By ABIGAIL LEICHMAN
STAFF WRITER
Bergen Record
ON AUG. 6, my husband and daughter and I will board an El Al jet for a one-way
trip to Israel. We will join our older son, who's been there for five years.
It's not that I was eager to leave The Record. Over the past 13 years, this has
become my home away from home, providing me with a rewarding career and the
acquaintance of wonderful readers and talented co-workers.
What is pulling me away from my dream job is simply a dream with more pull -- a
dream built upon many personal and ideological layers.
I understand the viewpoint of those who doubt our sanity for leaving a serene
existence in North Jersey for a sliver of land in the volatile Middle East. But
I prefer the viewpoint voiced by my Aunt Sarah, who in 1966 left a serene
existence in Maryland for that same sliver of land: "Israel is not yet what it
could or should be. Rather than staying away because it's not perfect, you could
come live here and help make it better."
I keep that inspirational statement in mind as we navigate the logistics of a
inter-continental move. Because before we try our hand at nation-building in our
ancestral home, we've got to get ourselves and our stuff over there.
Many of the items on our check-list are the same as when we moved from New York
to New Jersey 20 years ago: Alert the phone and electric/gas companies. Arrange
for new drivers' licenses. Put in a mail-forwarding order. Decide what to bring,
give away, sell or discard. Say goodbye to the neighbors. This time, we've had
to sell a house and two cars, and find new "parents" for our cat.
But there's more at stake now than mere logistics. We have relatives and friends
in Israel, yet we're leaving some of our closest relatives and friends 6,000
miles behind. We're quitting jobs we love and seeking employment in a country
where we aren't fluent in the local language or culture.
We are trading dollars for shekels, miles for kilometers, 110 for 220 volts. We
are trading snow shovels for solar panels, Stop & Shop for a neighborhood
grocery run by a guy named Mickey.
Here, we live within spitting distance of the No. 167 NJ Transit bus to New
York. There, we will live within spitting distance of the No. 174 Egged bus to
Jerusalem.
We are swapping a grassy back yard for a patch of red-hued stones overlooking
the Judean Desert -- the same landscape Moses saw from Mount Nebo more than
3,300 years ago, minus the paved roads and satellite dishes.
Other differences
Instead of national barbecues on July 4, there will be national barbecues on
Iyar 5 sometime in May. "Weekend" will mean Friday and Saturday, not Saturday
and Sunday. Milk will come in plastic bags; lox and bagels will be replaced by
tahini-drizzled diced cucumbers, olives and tomatoes with warm pita.
I don't know who will cut my hair or who will give me my annual physical. I
don't know if I'll like the family next door (they're moving from Rockland
County) or the folks upstairs (they're coming from South Africa). I don't know
if I'll ever stop feeling like a fish out of water.
I do know this: We already have invitations for meals well into September. Some
are from generous strangers who "met" us through Internet chat groups for
English-speaking immigrants.
These chat groups are invaluable sources of information. Which cargo shippers do
the job best? Should we bring transformers or simply buy new appliances? For
which national health-insurance plan should we register? Where can we buy Skippy
and Cheerios if we get the urge?
Encouragement
Along with these practical nuggets come words of encouragement.
Rotter, who moved to Israel last summer from Passaic, writes: "We are
connected to this place and to the people here in a way that is almost tangible.
Everyday activities carry a new weight -- like everything we do really counts
now, and everything we did in life up to now was preparation."
She's not pretending it will be easy. She's just promising it will be
meaningful.
Abby Leichman is a Record staff writer. Contact her at
leichman@northjersey.com.
Send comments about this column to The Record at
grad@northjersey.com.
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