To: bob@cactus48.com
Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 10:52 PM
Subject: My life and Your site and Your help
Mr. Robert
I have been a Palestinian activist for thirty five years...and just
recently I built a site for Palestine...not as nice as yours but it is
okay....I would just like it if someone would keep me alive.....
That is the beginning of my first e-mail message from Felloula, a woman
the same age as me whose life is a much different story to tell than mine.
With her permission, I have consolidated her notes and edited them into
one letter.
This is her story.
This is her page.
Make sure I am remembered...
I was born in Haifa in 1942. My family always believed in the Palestinian
cause. However, unlike me, they believed in working alongside Jews for
peace and for a life together with our cousins, the Jews.
We lived near a Jewish settlement and helped each other with farming,
selling produce at the market, everything, living almost door to door.
A Jewish couple who lived near us had a son who grew up with me. I never
felt any romantic feelings toward him. He was like the older brother (by
2 years) I never had. We shared our childhoods together. He would always
tell me that Jews and Muslims were cousins who should love each other and
that Christians are the ones we should hate.
But I never cared for someone because of their religion. There are bad
Jews and good ones, bad Muslims and good ones...in every people and religion
there is a good and bad side.
1948 we lost our homeland to Israel, the newly founded state for Jews.
We stayed. We didn't sell our land. We didn't run away like others. We
were offered Israeli passports. However, we refused.
We lived in fear and terror for years.
As I grew up with feelings of anti-Zionism, my friend grew up with the
idea that any relations he had with Arabs and Muslims were sins. So he
grew to the other extreme. By the time he was 12 he would not set foot
near us or any of our friends or members of our community.
The Jewish population began to grow and there was more and more fighting.
More clashes. More murder. As this began, my parents and their friends,
the Jewish couple, the parents of this boy, grew apart. We ended up moving
to Hebron.
The boy I grew up with became a soldier and killed many friends of ours.
His change in attitude caused frustration, because we were raised with
the same ideals and ideas and thoughts about the world, life and religion.
My friend had been such an open-minded person, but he lost all of this.
My feelings turned to hatred for him after the killings. However, the soldiers
treated it as competition, who can kill the most.
One of the soldiers in that district killed a man named Abu Alama. In
addition to Alama, his oldest son, he had two other sons. Ismaeel left
for Jordan to study when I was a little girl. Unfortunately no one ever
heard from him again. The third son was Abdullah, who would eventually
become my husband. I didn't know the family until we started visiting his
mother and father and that is how we met. He was after me since then but
I couldn't stand him. I was 18 at the time.
We stayed in Israel until 1967. I was 25 years old at the time. Then
I lost one of the people most important to me, my uncle. He was shot in
the marketplace by Israeli soldiers who claimed that he looked suspicious.
He looked like a threat. He looked like someone who might start trouble.
After this incident we decided to move to Jordan, where we got Jordanian
passports and the Arab world lost all of Palestine to Israel.
Without the consent of my parents I decided to move to the Gaza Strip
in October of 1967. I lived with a cousin named Reem and her mother. I
became an Activist because of my uncle's death, not for revenge.
My cousin Reem was killed in a clash on the roadside. My aunt and my
mother both died the year before Reem was killed.
Reem was 19 and I was 12 when I met her. She grew up in Ramallah, with
a very simple life much like mine. She taught me all I knew. I looked up
to her as a my friend, mother, sister, and cousin. She taught me how to
wear my hair during Eid dinners. She made me dresses. She treated me like
her daughter.
When Reem was shot...I was the one who found her body lying in the street.
She was still beautiful and graceful. I was sooooo hurt I even made people
call me Reem for six months and I wore nothing but black for a year.
Reem was one of the most passionate people I ever knew. She fought with
all her might. She swore she wouldn't leave until this land was restored
to its rightful owners. I don't think Reem would have liked for people
to know about her struggle. She said recognition ruins all that have worked
for.
When Reem was killed I tried my best not to cry because she made me
promise that if anything happens to her not to cry. She said "you
of all people should not shed a tear because if anyone knows what suffering
is...if anyone has experienced it...it is you." So I kept my promise
and tried my best, but I had to cry when I saw her box of personal pictures,
half of them of me as a child.
I didn't have a stable income and couldn't afford to keep the apartment,
so as I protested and demonstrated I lived for a while in the Al-Fawar
refugee camp in Hebron, then in a small hostel, which didn't cost much.
From there we began, me and some new acquaintances, to work, delivering
food to small makeshift refugee camps and delivering fresh water to villages
without it.
While I was away my father became ill and died. However, I couldn't
return to Jordan because I wasn't granted entry.
So I continued my work with a group we had formed called the "Moassasa't
al anaya", or the "organization of caring". The seven of
us worked tirelessly. Three died in clashed during the first Intifada.
Four of us remained good friends and continued working until I had to stop
in February 2003.
In 1975 I moved into a refugee camp and continued working as an Activist
in Hebron, delivering water, goods, sanitary products, emergency aid, plasters,
canned good, and I participated in protests. I was working as a librarian
in Al-Quds library for many years.
I moved to Bethlehem in 1992. I studied English translation and I pretended
to be a Christian in order to work in Jerusalem as a translator from Arabic
to English and English to Arabic. I participated in protests and aid work
on the side.
In 1993, because of loneliness, and because he was my only memory of
our village, I married the farmer Abdullah Al Rajabi, who was 69 years
old at the time of our marriage and I was 51.
He was not what I would call a dream husband. It was a co-dependent
relationship. He had a weak character and I never loved him and I tried
to spend as little time as possible with him.
However, he died in 1996 of a natural death, and during the last year
of his life I held on to him, clung to him. I didn't want him to go, He
was my only reminder of my past life, and the simple Palestine we once
knew. I never wanted to let it go. With him I lost my past life and love.
When I married I took my husband's name. That is something not practiced
in the Muslim world. You do not take your husband's name, you keep your
own. But Reem gave up her relationship with Ali Ashmawi so she could live
for me and me alone and care for me. I took my husband's name because he
was the last reminder of my life in our village.
I continued activism and worked for a Palestinian news organization
The job didn't last long. I kept on in activist work on a small income
while working in a shop. I quit work at the age of 60 because I fell down
a hill in Nablus and had a small concussion. I was unconscious for three
days. While I was in the hospital they discovered that I have colon cancer.
The doctors gave me one more year, hopefully. My niece in London wanted
me to go there for treatment. I didn't want to go. I have had enough of
this terrible life.
I cannot continue my work in the Gaza Strip, Hebron or the West Bank.
I have been a Palestinian activist for thirty five years...and just
recently, in July of 2003, I built a website called Save
Palestine. It is not as nice as yours but it is okay. I would just
like it if someone would keep me alive.
My niece also named one of her pages after me.
I have been awaiting death, unable to do much but run my website.
I am dying, but I don't want my memory to die with me.
Please help me.
Make sure I am remembered.
You seem like the most trustworthy person.
You don't have to do this for me but if you could find it in your heart
to name a page in your site after me or something of the sort I would be
eternally grateful.
To Felloula
The sky is glorious again tonight, dear --
high clouds glowing pink and yellow, the sun
a huge vivid orb, blood-red almost
against the purplish sky --
and my mind wanders again to you.
The purples are deeper now, dear --
you really should see them --
and I can't keep from thinking
that your dust and the desert dust
we've blown sky-high
have somehow given us this great beauty.
Nancy Horn
December, 2003 Felloula
Come Laughing
by Bob Cork
In my creek, you found a starfish.
By my sea, you found a mushroom.
You rode your camel through my corn.
In olive groves you chased your dog.
We ran together on dirt roads.
We fell, scraping our hands and knees.
We laughed in cool and gentle rain.
We were both afraid of lightning
We looked at the full silver moon
at the same time, across the sea.
It smiled at us but never spoke,
so every smile was welcome news
I walked on Sunday to our church
I walked to market in Haifa.
I walked to the store with Mother
My father walked alone to mosque.
I was reckless while growing up,
then married young and moved away
Now all six kids are grown and gone
and doing well. I'm very proud.
While other village boys threw stones,
my friend who was like a brother
chose to wear his Star of David,
while I brought hope to refugees.
Living under my Unce Sam,
we struggled but came out on top,
thankful for opportunies
and second chances everywhere.
Reem, my cousin who inspired me,
and died by bullet in her head,
said recognition ruins all
you work for, so I took Reem's name.
I am free to take any trip,
to own a house, to drive my car,
to slip downriver by canoe,
to serve my God who blessed our home.
When I was young he pestered me.
When he became the only man
who was left from our small village
I married him, clutching my past.
Late in my life I found you, Reem,
your people wanting to be free.
Like you are, and you now have touched
our cactus, patience, dignity.
Boys and girls from camps you served
wore bombs to town and died in blood.
'Tis easier to die for cause
in Palestine than live for one.
My eagle flies, but not so high,
compass confused, wings weaker now.
I never found a place to live
among the chosen and the saved.
Come and wade in my little creek.
Come and swim in my rolling sea
and we'll press olives from my tree.
Laughing, we'll shuck my cobs of corn.
* * *
Cactus48