Asylum to Israel

My latest article in Arabic might be by far the most daring according to one of my close friends, who cautioned me about publishing it. And I was as my usual self in such situations finding a good platform to pretend a heroic action that in reality is empty.

I genuinely never wanted to be a critic of the Palestinian Authority, and I never want to be in a place where I would defend Israel. At the end of the day I am a woman who got out of two relations (not the only ones of course) (but two that lasted for quite a time) one from a schizophrenic (psychopath) and another from a troubled bulimic (who thinks he is a narcissist, and seems to understand it as a compliment). Well … yes, there is something about me and the attraction of psychotic desperate cases around me. Does this make me a psycho too? I would still say that I don’t know, and I hope I won’t. But I admit that many see me as one. And sometimes I tend not to resist the accusation.

Anyway, this is not why I am writing this. Well. Describing Israel as a bulimic case in my earlier article was what reminded me of the schizophrenic continuation to this. What I want to say is that my expertise on such mental disorder is not just a coincidence it is a kind of living a life among psychopaths.

So if Israel was bulimic, dealing with its Nazi past trauma in binging and purging on us Palestinians instead of addressing the real issue of its personal avenge. We Palestinians are on the verge of a severe schizophrenic disorder. Between protecting and preserving our own identities and rushing to obtain other identities.

In this case, I might be close to becoming one.

After Abu Mazen’s last speech in the Arab summit, I entered a real state of disbelief that was followed by real anguish and anger that made me feel cornered like a mouse. As the media was preparing us for a historic speech, it ended out with nothing but a shallow statement that started empty and ended with a real shameful disgrace.

I always find it a privilege to have Israel to blame, to criticize and to throw all the injustices that befell on us as a result of the occupation. I sincerely wanted Abu Mazen to disappoint my instincts and prove me wrong for one time only. He has been dragging us from one disappointment to another, from a failure to another, failures so hollow and dark we stopped seeing except a reflection of our own horrific deadly disappointments as a result.

As I was swearing and screaming in all directions on the night of that disgraceful summit when the Arabs sheepishly decided to unite and aim their weaponry against the people of Yemen, under the cowardice claim of a Shiite threat and expansion. I thought that I had it with this place and people, I found myself trapped in this total state of being lost inside a shadow that transformed into a horrific shade of a ghost as it continues to be tailed by a leadership that has lost all its sovereignty that once was genuinely granted by the people, despite the lack of authority that Israel allowed.

For some instances, my mind tried escaping every possible way, and somewhere I decided I would run away to Sweden and ask for a humanitarian asylum there. Why Sweden? It has this reputation of taking shelters under right conditions. I was able to overcome the extreme cold weather of Sweden; I imagined myself inside a Swedish refugee plot with my children until that image of my kids being trapped in such a mess clicked away the thought. I thought maybe I would leave this move until the kids grow. I can’t make refugees out of my children in cold Sweden. Their life is hard enough without the coldness of Sweden.

And suddenly I thought, why not take refugee in Israel… well … the point for me was the fact that I wanted an asylum. It was my way of avenging the Palestinian Authority defeats on us.

Well… it is also not a refugee. It is just an Israeli passport. Something inside me resists the word nationality about anything else that is not Palestinian. In my hallucinating thoughts of the nationalities, I never used that term. I would always say that I want to seek another passport. It could also be very relevant. After all, this passport thing is one of those seriously certain moments of feeling not belonging to anything. I walk around proudly in nay airport until I am faced with passport control people who give me that strange look of “ what the hell are you.” I wave my two temporarily documents accordingly with the situation trying to maintain a status in the opposite direction, and it never works. A reminder that we are not really fully likes others … no matter who the others are. It got so much into me to a level where I feel sometimes I got paranoid…

Well, well, well…. Paranoia is a real consequence of dealing with bulimic and schizophrenic actors.

So inside the schizophrenic Palestinian apparatus, we remain standing stretching ourselves out into two opposite directions that we eventually forgot about their differences. We in Jerusalem continue waiting for a solution to our question that Israel enjoys exterminating us systemically, and somehow, it is apparent that it became a habit; neither they nor we see the difference in the process. We enter cautiously or with full or lack of awareness to our final extermination hole.

It is true that my sense of avenging Abu Mazen’s disappointments is quite unbalanced. But I confess that there is something inside me that misses this feeling of just having a normal way of living.

A scene my imagination created in all this mess was that of a raped woman, whose choice is to voluntarily marry the rapist as a refugee from continuing to be ripped on the streets.

A choice, I no longer believe it may continue to be an opportunity in the coming future, as many Palestinians secretly and publically are choosing to go and apply for the Israeli citizenship, and as the Palestinian authority willingly gave up on the city and the people gradually and maybe within agreements that are still unveiled.

A standing point for Jerusalemites to make a decision, to decide where they want to belong. To a state that oppresses them, marginalize them, dehumanize them, but yet give them some benefits and an individual status, even under a second or third class category of a citizen. Or to a state that they dream of having, and yet almost entirely realizing it will never see the light of becoming, but continue to pray on having one day, within an authority that we are not really sure what was the bargain that concerns us. We found ourselves watching in both directions, becoming refugees not in other towns or countries but in our very own city and houses. Waiting for a solution that determines our destiny with a choice that may not be ours …