Flippant

One morning, our Palestinian host gave us a tour of his Bethlehem. I apply ownership because his reality of the city differs starkly from a tourist's or an Israeli's. He took us to a spot where he watched a German doctor explode into pieces from an Israeli bomb. He showed us the bullet holes in the concrete wall behind and pointed two feet away to where he had hidden and filmed, waiting for more than five hours for the shooting to stop so he could collect the parts of his friend. We looked up at the encroaching Israeli settlement. He explained that the hills they are built on are strategic for waging war or imposing psychological intimidation. He drove us to the wall. We passed the remnants of crumbling buildings and he named those who had died inside and how.

Our last stop was a new cemetery. Only martyrs are buried there. For many Palestinians, it is a coveted honor to rest under the dirt in the raised, concrete beds. Several are left empty and open, waiting. We were led to three graves in the back and listened to a story. A few years ago, when fighting broke out, a young man dug the grave of his friend. The next day another died and the same young man was back with a shovel. After he finished, he dug one more because he knew that peace would not come. He was killed the following day. His image graces the wall of Ibdaa. Immortalized with his arm raised, swinging a Molotov cocktail. The picture is in my previous post. As we left the cemetery, our gaze was drawn to a house on the horizon, waving a Palestinian flag and overlooking the dead. The distraught boy's mother moved there so that she could see her son everyday.

Later that evening, we gathered and lounged in the dining room. My companion made a joke, perhaps related to me doing domestic chores. I can't remember exactly but it elicited my teasing response of: You dug your own grave. I cringed as the phrase took on new meaning.

*Pictures soon to come