Cafe 42 Blog

My mother was a born-again Jew — her response to my brother’s conversion to Christianity, and my unwavering commitment to Atheism. In her continual effort to have me marry a Jewish man, towards the end of my vagabond years in the late 1980s, she suggested I go see Israel. She said it was the most beautiful place on earth, an oasis Jews had turned from desert wasteland into paradise. She had taken the guided Hilton Tour. My mother never really saw Israel.

The moment I got off the plane I knew it wasn’t the place my mother had claimed it to be. Bullet holes riddled the walls of Ben Yehuda airport, which had plaques commemorating this or that war or terrorist attack. I had traveled much of the developed world by then but had never seen anything like this. Military men and women, some no older than teens were armed with Uzi’s; grenades hung off breast belts lined with bullets. The public bus was packed with soldiers on the ride to Tel Aviv. The French girl sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “Are those guns real?” Clearly, even she thought it odd.

I rented a flat in the heart of the city for a couple of months and used it as a base to travel from. Using public transport and walking, I spent hours on buses and in cafes watching, listening, and talking to locals. A lone female traveler, I was often invited to join diners, and occasionally even into people’s homes to partake in authentic meals and enlightening conversations. Most everyone spoke English, and after a while I began to glean a hazy understanding of the conflict between the Israelis, Palestinians, and the surrounding Arab nations. However, it wasn’t until my last full day exploring Israel and Egypt that a strange encounter with an Arab man brought into sharp focus the plight of the Middle East.

Two months in Israel, and the day before flying home, I took a bus north to visit the beach town of Nahariya. I felt him staring at me from where he sat a few rows back. He was likely in his 20’s with striking green eyes, swarthy, handsome. He was dressed in jeans and a Hard Rock Café t-shirt, but wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress with a double black cord headband crowning the white cloth over his head and cascading over his broad shoulders and down his back. The intensity of his gaze unnerved me. I assumed he was on his way to Lebanon, the West Bank, or maybe Jordan, but when the bus finally got to Nahariya, he got off right after I did. And I got scared.

I tried to convince myself he wasn’t following me. I window-shopped and then got some lunch in a very public café. I saw him meandering around town, often stopping to chat with small groups of men, most dressed in mid-calf robes and head garbs, but almost every time I caught sight of him he looked over at me. Eventually, he went into a shop and I ran across the street and tried to disappear into some woods.

The low pine forest was only a few hundred meters thick. The blue/green Mediterranean glimmered beyond the trees. When I finally sat down on a log at the edge of the forest I was sure I’d lost him. I dug my toes into the warm sand and looked out at the dazzling sea. The deserted beach was silent. Then I heard twigs breaking underfoot behind me.

I stood and spun back towards the forest as the Arab man came out of the woods a few yards from me. I’m screwed, I thought, pretty sure I was about to get raped on that empty, isolated beach. The thought of running seemed absurd. He could have caught me in a flat second. I tried to make myself as tall as possible. Then I looked him straight in the eye and said in my harshest tone, “What the fuck do you want?” Cussing, speaking before spoken to, and looking a man in the eyes are things I’d been told Islamic women do not do.

He stared at me, startled, but didn’t respond. He probably didn’t speak English. And I didn’t speak anything but.

“Leave! Or I will.” I pointed back through the forest. He didn’t move so I started to walk away. I was scared out of my mind.

“Please don’t go.” He spoke softly, his voice deep and throaty. “You’re an American, right? I just want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“I’ve just come back from the States.” His accent was English, but richer, more sultry. “I was two years in Boston, at university there for my MBA. I’ve been back here three weeks now, and I am missing the hell out of good conversation.” He smiled then, his thick ruby lips curved into a gentle smile.

I don’t know if it was his tone, his easy manner, or his striking green eyes that made me stay. He kept distance between us, and slowly sat cross-legged on the sand in the spot where he’d been standing. Curiosity overrode every other feeling. I’d never spoken at length with an Arab. An opportunity to speak freely without the prying eyes of others could be educational, to say the least.

“I live here in Israel now,” he said. “I’m originally from Jordan, but in my heart, I’m a traveler, an explorer of places and people. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles. Hollywood,” I clarified since many outside of the States had no clue where L.A. was, but everyone knew Hollywood.

A huge white smile spread across his chiseled face. “Ah. Movie stars and Disneyland.” He pushed back his keffiyeh and locks of thick, dark wavy hair peeked out from under the white cloth. “I’m Hashim.” He brought his hand to his chest and bowed his head slightly then smiled that great smile again.

I introduced myself, shared why I’d come, and that I’d be going home in the morning.

He asked me about places I’d visited on my trip, and what I thought of them.

I told him I’d traveled most of Israel, and explored Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. I did not give him an assessment of my impressions along the way, instead turning the tables, I asked him some questions. The conversation spun from there, unraveling like a well-worn sweater, venturing down the road of trust, slowly revealing ourselves.

He’d recently graduated from Harvard, not just for the prestigious degree, and the connections to society’s elite, but also to study Western culture. He’d returned home to take his place beside his father, a wealthy statesman of some note.

“My father insists it’s business as usual — finance the current regime and whoever replaces it. But I cannot support tyrannical militant extremists and sleep at night.” It was going to be his job to advise on how best to “work with infidels,” meaning anyone who isn’t Muslim, according to Dad, and the rhetoric of many of their religious leaders.

A strange mix of anger and fear welled inside me. “I’ve never considered myself an infidel as an American citizen. I thought that title was meant for Israelis, or Jews in general.”

He flashed a smile, but not like he thought it was funny. “My father means a non-believer. We have the word Kaffir to describe the sinister kind of infidel, like political authorities controlled by the wealthy.”

“Just like we have. We call them lobbyists. Big business runs the politics of the U.S.” I said and frowned at him.

“The mean, the masses, societies in general always seem to devolve to the power-hungry — the few who wish to control the many.” He frowned back, and shook his head. “Islam had a Golden Age once, way back in the 8th Century, for almost 500 years, where advances in science, mathematics, the arts, all flourished.”

“So, what happened?”

“Some scholars claim that a thriving society breeds complacency, but I think that’s bullshit.” He grinned at me, like he cussed with the purpose of ‘speaking my language.’

“What do you think?”

“That a power-hungry ruling class implemented strict laws that made the masses angry, which created enough instability for the Mongols to invade and take over.”

“Kind of like what’s happening with the Palestinians and Israel right now?” I wasn’t trying to be confrontational. It was in the middle of the First Intifada then, when Palestinians protested peacefully and violently to end Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza. I was to find out later, it was also when Shaikh Ahmed Yassin created Hamas.

He eyed me critically, like he was trying to read me, or teach me. “Yes. In 1947 the new United Nations gave Jews coastlines, seaports and agricultural lands around major cities where the majority of the populations were Palestinian Arabs. The Partition Plan, the UN called it, took over half of Palestine to create Israel. The Palestinians, controlled by the British at the time, rejected the Plan. It happened anyway, forcing Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza. Until 1967, and the Six-Day War, when Israel began occupying the remainder of Palestine.”

“Sounds like what we did to the Native Americans.”

“It’s similar. Yes.” He frowned again. “Now, over 20 years of Israeli rule restricting trade and emigration has increased material and production costs, and in turn has decimated their economy. Unemployment, poverty, disparity of wealth generated political infighting. The continued growth of Jewish settlements is taking the little land and vital natural resources they have left.”

“Then you support the Palestinian protests, regardless of the loss of lives?” It was on par with asking him, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ but I felt angry that he called out Israel alone. The party line in my family and the States had always been supportive of Israel. I’d heard countless stories of the continual barrage of terrorist attacks from Palestinian and Arab fanatics going back to the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. I knew of the Six-Day War over the Suez Canal which led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

“No. I do not support religious zealots or terrorists becoming the face of the Muslim faith.” His crystalline-green eyes filled with certainty. “But like our forefathers during the Golden Age, restrictive laws lead to economic stagnation and disparity, which fuels unrest and anger.”

“So does terrorism, or even supporting terrorists. Israel may respond aggressively when they’re attacked, but you hurt me, or someone I care about, and I want to hurt you back. It’s human nature.”

“Yes. It is. And acts of violence breeds more violence. Unquestionably. But retribution and reprisal as a response to zealots and terrorists only exacerbates anger, and instead of learning to cooperate — invent, create together — the cycle of hate and violence continues.”

The sun set as we spoke, and murky twilight cooled the day’s heat. Profound sadness filled the space between us.

Again, he shook his head. He’d become a humanist in the States, he told me, an agnostic once he’d escaped the fundamentalist environment he was raised. “How do I stay here and marry into an alliance and faith I no longer believe in? How do I raise my kids to rise above the ignorance and religious rhetoric that surrounds them here? Reason, sanity, our humanity is abandoned when fanatics will sacrifice our children, or raise them to hate, and the killing never ends.” He sighed heavily, his despair visceral.

I sat in the sand, against the log, not three feet from him, tears streaming down my face. I had no idea what to say. I was there because of my fanatical mother. She blindly believed Jews had eminent domain to Israel, had single-handedly turned a desert into a flourishing country, and chose to see only the beauty there.

“When we are on the precipice of disaster, people can and do change,” I said to him softly. “If the only sustainable path forward for our continued existence is cooperation and integration, we will get there.” I shut up then. Platitudes at best. I sounded like my Pollyanna mother. I had no idea if change was possible with political divisions and religious talons buried so deeply into the psyche of so many.

We left the beach a short while later, as it was getting dark. We both had buses to catch to take us home. He told me to leave first, walk back without him, as it wasn’t safe to be seen together. “An Arab prince alone with a White Western woman in public isn’t proper. Yet,” he said with a wink.

I knew I’d never see him or talk to him again, and I was surprised by the stab of regret as I stood to leave the beach. Only a few hours in his company, and I felt certain I could love this man. Without embracing or even a parting cheek-to-cheek kiss we said goodbye, and I ventured into the small pine forest towards town.

Unfamiliar with infatuation, I had the painfully empty sensation of missing him on the bus ride back to Tel Aviv, and still the next day on the plane home. He’d given me a view into the plight of the Palestinians, and a deeper understanding of their struggle with Israel, and ultimately the world against fundamentalist who seek to control instead of cooperate. I thought of him often in the years that followed, the memory of our interaction always evoking a profound sense of hope, knowing he was out there, personifying the best of us, the embodiment of a step forward towards our continued evolution.