Living Stones (15 page)

“So what happened?” Ashley asked as she scooped out another spoonful of the colorful red pomegranate seeds.

“We had some fighters with guns. Most of them died. Others threw stones and were shot. Israeli snipers shot anyone walking out on the street. Several priests and nuns died from bullets fired into churches. Bethlehem was surrounded. Israeli soldiers blocked ambulances from getting to the wounded, even women and children.”

Ashley had never even heard of this war before Marie had mentioned it. “How long did this last, Fatima?”

“Father survived somehow in the church for over one hundred twenty days. They killed some of the men. The Israelis finally deported several of the men they called terrorists to Cyprus or elsewhere. Others were released. We didn’t dare go out for many days. We lost count how many. Then they built the wall and our people lost their jobs in Jerusalem. It separates us from Israel, but also from each other in many places.”

The family kept urging Ashley to eat. She didn’t fear missing lunch at the hotel but realized she needed to get back in time for the bus trip to Galilee. Her head swam with impressions of life in
Bethlehem. She tried to answer their questions about her life in Oklahoma—for them a world away. She remembered the words again: “Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.” Not anymore.

Fatima’s father presented Ashley with a carved wooden replica of the Church of the Nativity and drove her back to the hotel. She wished she had brought a gift for the family. He took her on a short tour with Fatima explaining the sights. Just prior to a checkpoint with an Israeli armed soldier blocking the way, Saleh turned off to a back road, bumpy and with twists and turns that made the journey interesting for Ashley.

Fatima apologized. “We are not allowed to drive on the highways reserved for Israelis.”

After saying goodbye at the hotel, Ashley stopped in the lobby, staring blankly, shaking her head, having no idea how to put what she had just learned into the context of her belief system.

On the small bus traveling north to Galilee and its largest city, Nazareth, Ashley leaned her head back and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. She opened her eyes at a checkpoint, reentering Israel from the West Bank. The green countryside of hills and valleys with farms of olive groves and various citrus trees flew by out the window. She turned to Marie.

“My brain won’t slow down. I’ve had so many experiences in Bethlehem that I didn’t expect. They don’t fit with the mindset I’ve always had.”

“What doesn’t fit, Ashley?”

“Well, for example, Palestinians and Muslims as our enemies.” She paused. She had forgotten momentarily about her experiences on Herodian and at the wall. “I met a beautiful student, Marie. She and others follow Jesus without leaving their Muslim culture.”

“That sounds pretty controversial. I think many converts close the door to their past when they become Christians.”

“I suppose,” Ashley said. “But Fatima enjoys such a great relationship with her Muslim family. She wears the hijab when out and about to not offend her parents. She doesn’t take on the culture of ‘Western
Christianity.’ The family expressed such hospitality, such gentleness, such kindness.”

“What else doesn’t fit your usual thinking?”

Ashley paused and shook her head, gazing out the front window of the bus. “Demolitions of houses. No water for weeks. Curfews. Arresting young men. Soldiers shooting civilians.”

“I remember your saying you had not heard about Israel’s incursion to find terrorists in 2002.”

“No, I hadn’t, Marie, and certainly not from the Palestinian point of view. I’ve only read and heard of ‘Palestinian terrorists,’ rockets that Israel’s Arab enemies shoot from Lebanon and Gaza, suicide bombers of a decade ago. They claim they built the wall to stop them. Perhaps, but it seems to be incomplete. And now Palestinians promote non-violent resistance to the military occupation. What really stopped the bombers from Gaza?”

Ashley paused to ponder and visualize the city they had just left. She felt sickened by the contrast between the partially destroyed buildings they called refugee camps and the spectacular Israeli settlements on the top of the hills. And roads on the Palestinian land reserved for the exclusive use of Israelis. And demolitions and curfews. “So much is new to me. We never hear any of this in our church . . . or in our news media for that matter.”

“You have a lot to process, Ashley.”

“I do. Do you suppose we’ll have a chance to hear what the Israelis think of all this? I hope we can make some Jewish friends and learn what they are thinking.”

Ashley used her cell phone with the new SIM card for Israel to call Najid’s family from the Nazareth Tourist Hotel.

“Hallo,” a man’s voice answered.

“Hello, this is Ashley Wells, Najid’s friend—”

“Ah! Moment.” Then Ashley heard a shout: “Sami!”

After a few seconds and sounds of footsteps, a male voice came on the line.

“Hello. This is Sami. Welcome, Ashley.” He spoke just like Najid and even sounded like him. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the Nazareth Tourist Hotel. It’s so good to hear your voice. You are Najid’s brother, right?”

“Yes, he’s number one; I’m number two. My English used to be better than his, but not anymore. Can you come visit us?”

“I’d love to, Sami. Maybe tomorrow. Najid said he arranged for you to come pick me up. Is that correct?”

“That’s right, Ashley. We have a car and I will come and pick you up after church tomorrow. How about at eleven? We have early morning mass.”

Ashley joined the team in a room off the lobby. The planning discussion faded in and out of her head as she thought of connecting with Najid’s family. She did hear a bit about Tiberius and Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, and the mountain where Jesus preached his famous sermon. She chatted with Marie about seeing some of the sites. “I’ll miss visiting some of them, but it will be worth it. I’m not sure how long I should stay in Najid’s home. They didn’t say. I’ll have to play it by ear.” She thought how good it would be to be safe in a home of friends, in a totally different area of the Holy Land, far from any crazies.

Ashley watched the red Ford Pinto station wagon pull to a stop in front of the hotel. It was just like her grandfather’s 1980 Pinto, which collected rust behind the barn at home. Najid’s father, behind the wheel, smiled as Sami jumped out to greet Ashley and grab her carry-on bag.

“This is my father, Rafiq.” Ashley nodded and smiled. She climbed in the back while Najid’s father said slowly, “Welcome. How are you?” She realized he probably spoke most of the English he knew. He beamed.

She used about all of the Arabic she knew. “Asalam alekum.”

“I’ll be your translator,” Sami offered as he slid into the front passenger seat.

They passed a number of shops and apartment buildings on the narrow streets of Nazareth as they drove. Ashley noted the light tan buildings with houses and apartments extending up a large hill. “You look and sound very much like Najid, Sami. Have you been in touch with him? And how is your family?”

“We are well. Yes, we talked with Najid on Skype early this morning and told him you will come today. He said the tea at school doesn’t taste as good without you. I didn’t understand what he meant.”

Ashley smiled. They began passing orchards out of the city. “What are those trees?” They were not large, but had thick trunks, with heavy foliage of small gray-green leaves. They looked old.

”Those are olive trees. Some hundreds of years old. We grow mostly olives.”

Ashley smiled. She remembered singing
Wind Through the Olive Trees
as a child at Christmas time, but they were around little Bethlehem. “Sami, say your father’s name again so I get it right. And I don’t know your mother’s name.”

“His name is Rafiq. He understands a bit of English.”

Rafiq smiled and looked at Ashley in the rearview mirror.

“Tell him that he smiles just like Najid.”

Sami laughed and translated for Rafiq. “And my mother’s name is Farah.”

“Oh I like that name. I can hardly wait to meet her. She has done such a good job in raising Najid. And I understand you have other brothers and two sisters.”

“Yes, three younger brothers, Talib, Waleed, and Hassan. My sisters are Hana’ and Jamilah.”

Rafiq peppered Ashley with questions about Najid and his life in America and about Ashley and her family in Oklahoma. He wanted to know about her studies, and then approached the bombing with hesitation.

“We were so sorry to hear about your injury and operation. But you look fine now. Have they caught the terrorist who did the bombing?”

“Thank you, Rafiq. No, he must be very clever to escape the police net they say covers the entire United States . . . and the world. We haven’t kept terrorists out.”

“We haven’t either,” Rafiq said. He explained first Jewish terrorism: “Menachim began bombing the King David Hotel, killing ninety British soldiers. Then Israeli soldiers terrorized over five hundred Palestinian villages, even now in East Jerusalem. And now Palestinians, crazy guys mostly from Gaza, fire an occasional rocket. We believe in nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. We have many friends here in Israel—Jews, Muslims, Druze. It doesn’t matter. There is room for all religious groups. Not one exclusively. We are Christians, a minority, and just want to live in peace.”

Ashley smiled. Who doesn’t want to live in peace? She tried to speak slowly so Rafiq could understand directly. “I would love to hear
your family story. And I want to learn more about your church. Najid tells me it is very old. But he wouldn’t tell me what happened to cause you to leave your home of many generations. I understand your home and orchards were beautiful.”

“Yes,” Rafiq replied, “they were. I will tell you what you want to know, Ashley, after some tea.”

The house seemed too small to contain the energy of so many children. The living room had only a table set up with several chairs and benches on a small colorful rug. A door led to a hall leading to bath and bedrooms. The smell of naan, the delicious flat bread, wafted in from the kitchen. Through that door, Ashley met Farah and the two girls. Sami introduced everyone. He called the boys in from their soccer game. The boys nodded to Ashley and tried out their English, while Hana’ and Jamilah smiled shyly and wide-eyed, watching Ashley’s every move.

Ashley inquired about Farah. She listened as the soft-spoken woman shared how her family had fled their home to Jordan in 1948 but were not welcome there. The term “dirty Palestinians,” used even by fellow Arabs, revealed the attitudes that made life difficult. “So we lived in a refugee camp provided by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, in southern Lebanon for many years. We survived the bloody Shatila massacre of 1982 by Phalangists, aided by Israeli soldiers.”

Farah paused with a wistful shake of her head. “Now we just want our children to have a normal life and a good education. We’d like to have freedom. Particularly for our relatives and friends in the West Bank. They live one hour’s drive from the ocean but have never seen it.”

“Why not?”

“Because they are not allowed to. No Palestinians in the West Bank can travel into Israel.”

The girls brought two plates of fruit, melons, grapes, and flat bread with hummus, insisting Ashley begin eating. “My father found a job near their home in Israel. We were allowed to return, but not
to our home or farm. The Israeli government had sold our property to an immigrant family from Poland. They lived in town and didn’t know how to farm. So my father worked as a laborer in the orchard we once owned. I met Rafiq, married, and now we are happy to have work near Genigar.”

Throughout the meal the children tried out a few English words, encouraged by Ashley, who asked them about their classes at school. They tried to answer in English and then would look to Sami for translation. They whispered to Sami in Arabic asking if most women in America were beautiful. He laughed as he translated when Ashley blushed. Hana wanted to know what it was like for a girl to grow up in America and whether girls actually wore jeans to school. Ashley nodded, having seen pictures of the girls in their school uniforms.