On the Hills of God (12 page)

As soon as they were away from the heavy traffic, Yousif handed Amin one newspaper, put one under his arm, and began to read the third. Both read in silence, then aloud to each other.

Everything in the papers stirred their blood. The reports of the Jews singing and dancing throughout Palestine the night before infuriated them. Then there was the battle cry. It had been sounded from Yemen to Iraq, from Kuwait to Morocco. Much of it was Arab rhetoric; that Yousif knew. But the neighboring Arab states did seem eager to deliver on their promise to save Palestine from the aggressors who were converging on them like waves of locusts bent on swallowing everything in sight.

On top of a high hill that overlooked Jaffa and the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, Yousif stopped and stared. The distant, brown, rolling hills were clustered and elongated. They looked like a basket full of Easter eggs, dyed the color of onion skin. To his left was the hill on which they had often caught birds; to his right was the slope where they had followed the Jewish spies and Amin had fallen. Below them was a deep valley already engulfed in darkness.

“We’re not too far from the Zionists,” Yousif said, thoughtful. “Tel Aviv itself is less than twenty-five miles away. They just might make a grab at Ardallah.”

Amin stared at him, shaking his head. “Not a chance,” he said.

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Yousif said.

“They could try but they would fail.”

“What if they didn’t? What if Ardallah fell into their hands.”

In his wildest dreams, Amin had never considered the possibility. “If that happened,” he said, looking astonished, “then it’s something bigger than all of us. Something we couldn’t help.”

“But we can stop it.”

“If it can be stopped, it’s going to take Arab armies to do it.”

“But you and I can help.”

“How?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Yousif said, kicking a pebble with his foot. “Who are the people making decisions on our behalf? Where do they come from? Who elected them? No one I know has ever been consulted about what’s going on. You and I don’t want war. Isaac and his parents don’t want war. So why are we all being ignored? I feel trapped, left out, condemned without a trial. The destiny of Palestine belongs—or should belong—to the people. So why—”

“It’s politics,” Amin interrupted. “That’s how it’s done.”

“Well, look where it’s taking us. We need to get involved. There must be thousands of Arabs and Jews living beyond these hills who share our feelings. Why can’t we all get together and tell the politicians to go to hell?”

They walked in silence. “Everyone we passed today had a long face,” Yousif said. “Well, damn it, long faces don’t save the country.”

“What do you expect them to do?”

Yousif got angry. “They can get off their butts for a change. The country is going to be torn apart while they’re swatting flies.”

“Oh, Yousif, the Arab regimes are not going to sit back and let a bunch of Zionists steal our land. If that ever happens there’ll be hell to pay. Every Arab king and president would be scared to death of his own people. The masses would turn on every one of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a revolution.”

From the depth of his heart, Yousif wanted to believe Amin. But he couldn’t. It sounded like wishful thinking more than anything else.

“I don’t care what happens afterwards,” Yousif said. “The main thing is to prevent the Jewish state from getting established. They must not get a foothold here at all. If we lose one Arab village now, it will take us a generation to get it back. Father says we Arabs have too many so-called governments, too many factions within each country. The West can play us one against the other. For them it would be like splitting wood. It’s true.”

Amin looked at him quizzically. “Since when are you so cynical?”

“Basim is right,” Yousif answered. “Now is the time to stop the Zionist takeover or we’ll be lost.”

A shepherd passed behind them with his flock of sheep. Again Yousif was reminded of the simple life on these hills that Jamal had called the hills of God. But now Yousif was worried about the future. When they reached the flour-mill, they parted. It was already dusk.

On Monday, Arab Palestine went on strike. The doctor stayed home as did Yousif. They read newspapers, listened to the news, and spoke of nothing except the impending crisis.

While the Jews danced and blew their shofars in the streets, the Arabs rioted, especially in large cities such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa. Multitudes of angry citizens rioted in the Arab capitals of Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, and Cairo. They turned their vengeance on foreign embassies, especially those of the United States. They shouted “Down with America” and “Down with Truman.” They burned British vehicles and looted Jewish stores.

What was more important, from Yousif’s perspective, was not knowing Isaac’s whereabouts.

Next morning, Yousif and Amin did not find Isaac waiting for them by the flour-mill. Nor was he at school when Yousif, as the prefect of the senior class, rang the bell at 10:15 to end the recess. Teachers and students hurried from the playground toward the building. It was a chilly, cloudy December morning, and all were bundled in topcoats or woolen scarves. Yousif rang the bell again and again for the benefit of the tardy and those at the far end of the field.

Knowing what the country had gone through the last few days, Yousif’s class of twenty-two students did not really expect to be tested in the next period. The history test had originally been scheduled for the day before, but the school had been shut down on account of the strike. Most of the students were still cold, and sat now rubbing their hands, wondering what their teacher would do. Some buttoned their sweaters and leafed through their textbooks for a last-minute review, but most thought he would postpone the test. As prefect, Yousif stood at the head of the class and tried to keep it quiet.

Then the teacher, ustaz Rashad Hakim, opened the door briskly and closed it behind him. He moved toward his desk, energizing the whole class with his mere presence. He was short, compact, sleeveless even in the dead of winter. His gum shoes gave him an extra bounce.

“Are you ready?” Hakim asked, his clear brown eyes expecting rebellion.

“No!” several students responded.

“I didn’t think so,” Hakim said, grinning behind his desk. “By the way, where’s Isaac?”

“We don’t know,” Yousif volunteered.

There was a moment of silence.

“You don’t suppose . . .” asked Khalil, a handsome boy with short curly hair.

“There’s nothing to suppose,” the teacher said, cutting him short.

Ustaz Hakim looked at the blackboard, found it full of algebraic formulae from the previous class, then admonished Yousif with a look for having neglected one of his duties as a prefect. Yousif started to get up, but the teacher motioned for him to keep his seat.

He cleaned the blackboard meticulously. Then he opened the window to dust off the eraser on the outside wall.

“This morning,” he began, “I intend to depart from our text and speak on the crisis at hand.”

The students breathed satisfaction and seemed eager to hear him out.

“The Manchurian War of 1905 is good to know about,” ustaz Hakim said, “but the UN resolution to partition Palestine is more urgent, more relevant. It’s imperative that you should be well-informed.”

Silence filled the room.

“If you read the newspapers and listen to the news,” the ustaz added, sitting on the edge of his desk and wiping his hands off with his handkerchief, “you’d know that the situation here in Palestine is rapidly deteriorating. Both sides are stubbornly opposed to a compromise, and the world’s attempted help seems to be nothing but an irresponsible meddling that will help hasten the eruption.”

The students cleared the tops of their desks, folded their arms, and sat soaking up every word uttered by their favorite ustaz.

“Because man has not yet learned how to live with his fellow man,” ustaz Hakim continued, “wars are usually expected to occur, but the world never knows when or where.
The Arab-Zionist clash is different.”

“How different?” Yousif asked.

“As soon as the partition plan was passed,” the teacher explained, “the whole world knew not only that war was going to happen, but the exact day. That day is steadily approaching and no one is able to stop it.”

“The UN could’ve stopped it last Friday when it passed that damn resolution,” Amin blurted.

“Watch your language,” the teacher said.

“I’m sorry,” Amin apologized.

“But you’re right,” ustaz Hakim agreed. “The UN could’ve, but it didn’t. And now we have to deal with a new set of realities. I predict the war will start one minute after the British officially pull out of Palestine and thereby end their thirty-year mandate. This they have repeatedly promised to do. According to the UN resolution, they must leave not later than next August. That’s only nine months from now. And for once the Arabs and the Zionists agree that
that
promise isn’t going to be broken like so many promises before. The historic moment, then, will take place at midnight when the British leave and the Zionists create their Jewish state in a land owned and inhabited overwhelmingly by Arabs. Ever since 1917, when Britain—”

Mustapha interrupted. “How did the British get involved? What I don’t understand is why they’re here in the first place.”

Ustaz Hakim waited for a signal from the class to see if the rest wanted him to go that far back. Several students agreed with Mustapha; they, too, didn’t know.

“Well,” Ustaz Hakim said, seemingly shifting gears. “I’ll tell you, but remind me, Mustapha, to drop your ‘B’ to a ‘C’ for the course. You do well on world history but you don’t know your own.”

“It’s not my fault,” Mustapha protested.

The fog descending outside the window caught the teacher’s eyes. He stared at it, trying to sort out his thoughts. “I presume you all know,” he began, “that at one time the Arabs ruled most of the known world—from Asia in the east to Spain in the west—from the seventh century till the end of the fifteenth. Their empire-building began with the Prophet Muhammad, who in the seventh century led his followers and gave spark to the most brilliant series of conquests the world had ever seen.”

Although Yousif was a Christian Arab, he was proud of all Arab history, even when it was dominated by Islam. Like most Christian Arabs, he considered himself Arab first and Christian second. He had been raised to believe that the Arabs of old were heroes, giants, supermen. And he had the highest admiration for their accomplishments. Sitting in class now, he wondered if the spirit of old would return and save the day for his generation.

“The Arab Empire, which reached its zenith around the tenth century A. D., was the center of civilization,” ustaz Hakim continued. “Knowledge in every field flourished as never before. All history books will attest to that. But then the empire began to collapse. It was too big, too fat; both rulers and citizens grew apathetic, corrupt. It crumbled. Like everything else in life, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The end came in 1492—the same year Columbus discovered America—when the Arabs were finally driven out of Spain.”

Yousif raised his hand and waited for the teacher’s permission to speak.

“Didn’t Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain expel the Jews too?” Yousif asked.

“You’re right, Yousif,” ustaz Hakim added, smiling. “Ferdinand and Isabella did throw the Jews out. But that’s another story—really. It has to do with how abominably the West has always treated the Jews. The West, mind you—not the Arabs. The truth is, the Jews never fared better than they did under the Arabs, in Spain or anywhere else. In Spain they actually flourished, and more than a few rose to the highest ranks of government.”

“Some of them became
wazirs,”
Mustapha said. “Isn’t that true?”

“That’s true,” the teacher said. “But to get back to the events that led directly to the current crisis, let me say this: by the year 1492, when the Arabs were expelled from Spain, the Ottoman Empire—with its seat of power in Constantinople, Turkey—was rising. Soon it was able to occupy most of the Arab world and to dominate it for four hundred years.”

Here, Yousif thought, was a chance for Ustaz Hakim to answer a question that had always nagged him.

“How did that happen?” Yousif asked. “It seems incredible that those who ruled the world for eight hundred years would fall apart so quickly. Why didn’t they revolt? Didn’t they crave freedom?”

Ustaz Hakim got off the table and walked to the window. “That’s still another story. But don’t ever forget that the Ottomans were the worst thing that could’ve happened to us or to any people. They were unenlightened to say the least. Whereas the Arabs spread knowledge and light wherever they went—look at the advances they made in medicine, astronomy, philosophy, algebra, architecture, poetry—the Ottomans did the very opposite. They ruled by setting libraries on fire, closing schools, spreading fear, and creating an atmosphere of darkness and terror.”

He slid his watch with the silver elastic band off his wrist and began to wind it. “Around the turn of this century, when the Ottoman Empire was reaching its end, it allied itself with Germany for security reasons. At the same time, Britain and France were eyeing it with interest—wanting to carve it up for themselves. That’s when the British sent in an inconspicuous little officer who was stationed in Cairo. This fellow knew archaeology and some Arabic. He tried to interest the Arabs in revolting against the Turks and helping the Allies—Britain and France—win the upcoming war against the Axis—Turkey and Germany. That was around 1915. The war to come was, of course, World War I. The officer was T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.”