David Grossman - Sleeping on a Wire - Conversations with Palestinians in Israel

“Ah…with regard to that question, you formulated it in a very difficult way.”

“I did not!” Jojo cried. “That’s a question from the gut, not from the head!”

“Look, Jojo,” Mohammed said, getting a little more serious. “Before you came from Morocco, I was here.”

“I’m not kicking you out!”

“One second, give me a second. This pretty, sparkling Ashdod of yours, just for your information, even after the country was established in 1948, there were still Arabs here and in Ashkelon, and Israel expelled them in accordance with the infamous Plan D. *Now you’re alive and you exist, and you have this country, and I’m not challenging your right to a country, but according to what you say, ‘I’m here, I don’t have anywhere else to go,’ ditto as regards the Palestinians — they have nowhere else to go—”

“I agree with you,” Jojo cut him off. “But just a minute! I can help you with something that I don’t know if you know. I say that having the Law of Return only for Jews — that’s racist! I’m not hiding that! But I ask you, Mohammed, you have the option of getting up tomorrow and moving to Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon — all those are Arab countries. But here I’m saying to you, in addition to all twenty-two of those countries, I’m saying to you, here I’m going to build another country for you, completely Palestinian, in Gaza and the West Bank. Wait a minute! You don’t have to take your things and move there. Understand! As far as I’m concerned, you are a citizen of the State of Israel, with all your rights! But by this act that I’m making, do you accept that Israel is my country? You can live in it, but under my conditions, my government, my laws. And if I should want to live in your country, it will be under your laws and your government and your conditions. Can you live with that?”

“You and I, Jojo, when we’re aware of those discriminatory, racist laws, and we both fight for their repeal by the legislature…”

Jojo: “You’re not answering me! Say yes or no!”

Mohammed breathes deeply: “If you don’t recognize my right to full equality here, I won’t recognize your right.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” Jojo smiles uncomfortably. “I’m saying this: you and I want a divorce. You’ve been married to me for forty-three years. I love you, you’re my soul, everything. I don’t want to live with you! Let’s get divorced. What do you want as a dowry?”

“I’m not asking for a dowry. We really married against our wills. Not out of love. But today we’re sailing on this sea in the same boat.”

“And I own the sea.”

“I don’t agree that you own the sea!”

“But I’m the strong one! If I want, I can come today as Prime Minister Jojo and make a law — Whoever doesn’t accept Israeli citizenship in the Jewish state — the Jewish state! — gets put in a car and taken away. Can you do anything to stop me? Nothing. Cry, scream until tomorrow!”

It’s only Mohammed’s mouth that is smiling at Jojo now. “First, Jojo, my friend, inside, in my heart, I don’t feel that you are in control and that you have power. I don’t feel that I’m inferior to you. True, you now have strength and power, but I am among those who believe that power changes hands. I’m a minority under you, but you are a minority under me, in the Arab Middle East. I have no feelings of inferiority with regard to you. I was born here. I have the strongest possible links with this homeland. I don’t feel that I’m a guest of yours. I sometimes feel, if I may be presumptuous, that you are a guest of mine, and that I accept you because I want to be realistic. That is, the Jewish people’s starting point, that they’re doing me a favor when they let me live in Um Elfahm, is mistaken. Look, in Um Elfahm we had 140,000 dunams of land before Israel was established, and then the Knesset came and made all kinds of laws and confiscated from Israel’s Arab citizens 1,200,000 dunams all at once. Today two kibbutzim and a moshav sit on Um Elfahm’s land. On our land! Another thing, 92 percent of Israel’s land is state land. If this country really recognizes me as part of it, then I should have a proportional part of that 92 percent of the country. Do you understand why I’m shouting? Because when you tell me that you’re doing me a favor by accepting me here, you have to look at things from my point of view, and then you’ll begin to understand what kinds of huge concessions Palestinians are making today when they offer two states side by side. But if after the Palestinian state comes into being you come and rescind the discriminatory laws, if with regard to the Law of Return, for instance—”

“But here I’m not arguing with you,” Jojo stops him. “The Law of Return has to apply to everyone.”

Mohammed raises a finger. “In other words, you agree that the Arabs who were expelled from Ashdod can come back to live in Ashdod?”

“Yes! They can buy a house the way I do! I’m not giving them any privileges!”

Mohammed: “Allow me! You’re saying that this country, this future country of ours, will agree that every man in the world who wants to live in it can?”

Jojo: “Suits me!”

“Even if some miserable Kurd from Iraq or Turkey wants to live with you in Ashdod?”

“I’ve got no problem with that. If, if, if . If he promises to serve in my army, to be loyal to the Jewish state and not betray it. To fight together with me against whoever wants to take this country from the both of us, even to fight against Syria with me!”

“But it should be clear to you,” Kiwan says, “that if there’s total equality here, the country won’t have its Jewish character anymore.”

“Why won’t it?” Jojo asks in horror. “It has to have! There’ll be maximum equality, as much as possible! But subject to this being a Jewish country!”

“Then it’s not real equality! Then the Jews have extra rights because of their Jewish birth! Then it’s no longer Mohammed’s country!”

“Just like in Syria there are extra rights for Arabs, as opposed to Jews!”

“Look, if you come at me with something like that”—Mohammed raised his thick, hoarse voice for the first time—“let me tell you that my counter demand is just as purely racist — have the Palestinian state include all parts of Israel in which there are Palestinians! Give me the Galilee and the Triangle!”

“I’m ready to! I’m ready to give them to you, if —if you give me Nablus and Hebron, where I once lived!”

“Hey!”

“Why ‘hey’? Why not? Don’t you see you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth? Do Jews live in Hebron today? They do! Abraham lived there two thousand years ago? He did! Listen to me, Mohammed.” Jojo sat back in his chair, lit two cigarettes in his mouth, pulled on both, and passed one over to Mohammed. “For years you butchered and exiled us, and for years we’ve butchered and exiled you. What I’m saying is this: we have two possibilities. Either we can talk nice and act bad, or talk bad and act nice. In other words, I, according to the way I see things, I prefer to get the dirt out of my mouth. Let’s sit in a room and argue for twenty hours; I’ll tell you you’re garbage, you’re crap, and you tell me the same thing, but in the end you and I get up with a clean heart, and we have no more demands, and we’ve divided up all the property between us, but for always! Finished!”

“I agree with you on that. But understand one thing, that the minute we repeal all the privileges Jews get here, this country will stop being a Jewish country and will become the country of the people who live in it.”

“People, what people?” Jojo slaps his forehead with an open palm. “Is England a country of its people? Is Syria a country of its people? England is the country of the English, and Syria is the country of the Syrians. And you, if you live in Israel, will live in the country of the Israelis, as an Arab minority in the country of the Jews!”