伊克利特的故事:我們會回來的

　　來源:Palestine chronicle 作者:阿伊莎 譯

　　(伊克利特的圣母教堂)

　　“我不想揭開所有傷口……”Maher Daoud說。他是伊克利特難民后裔。我們正驅車前往他父母曾駐足的村莊。我的心被他的話刺痛，我向他道歉，我知道這個話題對他來說有多艱難。

　　1948年，約350個巴勒斯坦人村莊慘遭種族清洗，完全被毀，伊克利特是其中之一。那里的居民被禁止回家，只好連夜進入建在他們自己國家中的難民營。

　　43歲的Maher和我表姐Njoud結婚，他們住在加利利的Mi’ilya村。他們經常開車到伊克利特，這里的教堂是目前唯一幸存的，用來作圣誕節和復活節的宗教慶典，方便人們到伊克利特墓地看望死去的親屬。我們此行的目的是讓人憂傷的：Maher的母親兩年前過世，我們借耶穌受難日來看看她，這是巴勒斯坦基督徒的習俗。

　　(逝者墳墓上的花，Ismail Shammout)

　　從我的村子Fassouta開車到伊克利特只要20分鐘。兩個村子都在加利利，位于曾經的巴勒斯坦的北部，距離黎巴嫩邊界幾公里。1948年，在以色列的 “獨立戰爭”、巴勒斯坦人的大災難(Nakba)中，伊克利特和附近的Biram的居民因“安全原因”——可能是以色列為了保護其北部邊境——被趕出家園。伊克利特的居民被用車子拉到20公里外的加利利南部的Rama村，被告知要待上幾個星期，等情況安全穩定就能回家。但他們再沒能回家。

　　1950年圣誕夜，以軍炸了伊克利特的所有房子，給遭他們驅趕的基督徒居民一個及時的“圣誕禮物”。我的父親當時12歲，從遠處看到濃煙從村中升起，他驚恐地慌忙告訴一個同樣來自伊克利特的名叫Tu’meh的人，他在Fassouta避難。Tu’meh的眼中噙滿淚水。

　　1951年，以色列高等法院作出裁決，村民可以回家，“只要沒有緊急法令”反對。和冰冷的預想相同，政府很快發布了反對法令。1953年，以軍又炸了 Biram的房子，兩個村子只有教堂被剩下。兩年后，盜竊成功：伊克利特16000德南(4000英畝)的土地、Biram12000德南(3000英畝)的土地被沒收，用來建猶太人定居點，就是現在的Even Menahem，Shlomi和Shtula。

　　我過去讀過這些故事：在大災難(Nakba)期間，以色列殘忍無情地摧毀了350個巴勒斯坦村莊，讓70萬巴勒斯坦人變成無家可歸的難民。我曾參觀過一個叫Suhmata的村子，所以對即將展現眼前的一切有所準備。

　　盡管如此，此情此景，還是驚恐萬分。這時，我表姐小聲說：“就在這里。村子從這里開始的。”

　　她所說的“村子”“開始”的地方，是路邊的一堆亂石。Maher很快又指著遠處山上的教堂說：“那是伊克利特。”

　　(伊克利特)

　　同樣的難以置信，我曾經經歷過。當時一個老親戚指著長滿樹的山告訴我：“就是這里。這就是Suhmata。”

　　事實上，完全是一幅超現實主義畫：你看到的凈是灌木、樹叢，厚厚的綠色帶著加利利的野性。唯一讓你感覺說話者沒有神經錯亂的，是偶爾點綴其間的幾堆亂石。

　　Maher開著車，蜿蜒上山。我看到旁邊有幾堆新鮮的亂石。他說：“幾年前，我們在路上鋪上瀝青，只是為了能開車到墓地——老人走不了這么遠。但猶太定居者來到后，毀了路。隔幾米你就能看到一堆亂石。”這就是以色列的拒絕和恐懼——巴勒斯坦人可能行使他們返回被竊取的家園的權利：就算是一條通往墓地的路也要毀掉，以免他們成功。

　　(伊克利特的墓地)

　　我們到了墓地，帶著鮮花和蠟燭，獻上我們的敬意。我注意到在入口處有一個很大的石頭，上面寫道：“我們記住并永不忘記——此石為紀念我們在伊克利特教堂靜坐抗議的父輩們而立。如國家最高司法機關的判決，他們渴望活著返家，重建決策者毀掉的家園。但濫用權力和沒收土地的政策不允許他們回家，他們在自己的土地上，作為難民死去。”

　　(參加伊克利特“返家”靜坐者的紀念石)

　　我讀著下面的名字……Elias Yousef Daoud, Atallah Mousa Atallah, Elias Diab Sbeit, Najib Jiryis Khayyat……18個人名絕望地試圖擺脫以色列人帶給他們的殘酷命運返回家園，但只是徒勞，死后才得以返家，被葬在自己的村莊。

　　即便這也未必能實現：從1948年伊克利特遭到種族清洗到1972年，分散各地的居民甚至不能夠被葬在村里。這是個嚴重的問題，他們不得不寄望于Rama 居民的善意，給他們勻出一點墓地。突然間，死亡不僅僅是種悼念，也是種擔心。Maher給我講了一個悲慘的故事，一群年輕人曾決心打破慣例，帶著逝者的尸體連夜葬在伊克利特。以色列士兵聽聞后，跟蹤他們，然后強迫他們挖開墳墓，拿出靈柩到別的地方埋掉。

　　生者的生活也不容易。伊克利特人在Rama的生活很艱難。突然流入的難民，令每日的生活擁擠而困難，很難找到工作。一夜之間失去一切的痛苦和新的現實艱難交織在一起。比如Maher，他是伊克利特村首領(mukhatar)的孫子。他的祖父非常富裕，擁有一家商店、一個橄欖油壓榨廠，還做煙草生意。轉眼間，失去家園、土地、生意變成無家可歸、身無分文的難民，這種震驚讓人難以承受。Maher的父親不肯接受現實。“多年來，我漸漸長大，父親卻拒絕油漆房子，或者進行任何必須的修繕。為什么?因為他害怕這樣做，會被認為適應了新家，忘記了伊克利特，忘記了回家的希望。”

　　伊克利特人在Rama證明了自己——從事卑微的工作，忍受艱難困境養家。終于，后輩們可以搬到海法或者別的地方尋找工作。

　　他們現在感到與Rama的聯系了嗎?把它作為替代的家鄉了嗎?我問Maher這個問題，他說：“當然，我是在Rama出生長大的，我有那里的回憶，有種歸屬感。但我不是Rama人，我是伊克利特人。”他告訴我，Rama人也增加了他這種感受：比如當他向人問路的時候，人們總會在指路前回答：“哦!那個伊克利特人……”而“那個伊克利特人”已經在Rama住了60多年。

　　當Maher要為自己和家人建座房子的時候，他再次感受了不適。Maher結婚后，在Kfar Veradim租了套公寓，位于他工作的巴勒斯坦人村莊Tarshiha附近的猶太人的地方，他在那里住了很多年。后來租金太貴，他搬到了附近的另一個阿拉伯村莊Mi’ilya，在那里買地建房。接著，他遇到了從未想過的麻煩：Mi’ilya的一些居民不歡迎他。他是個陌生人，他擁有村里的土地引起了騷動，包括對他的恐嚇和誹謗。Maher痛苦地說：“如果我還在伊克利特，祖父的土地足夠用了。我就不必乞求別人，借個角落給我的家人居住!”

　　(希望，Ismail Shammout繪)

　　“每一天，我都覺得，自己見證著對我們的不義。”他說。我問他如何平衡自己的內心——和搶走他村莊、造成不義的人一起生活在以色列。“這太矛盾了。”他痛苦地說。“他們對我做了這一切，又是我鷹嘴豆沙(Hummus)店的顧客;我需要他們來生活。”他發現，從情感上很難將公私分開。有時，他和以色列顧客討論政治，但感覺沮喪——他不能暢所欲言。他講述了住在Kefar Veradim時的一個故事。一個鄰居來他的店里買東西，“那么，在我們這兒住感覺怎么樣?”Maher快速掃了她一眼回答：“事實上，是你們住在我的地方。你們是這個國家的客人，是不受歡迎的。”這個顧客再也沒有光顧。

　　對于返家的決心，伊克利特人異常團結、堅忍。被驅逐出家園60年來，他們仍在自己的教堂祈禱，把逝者葬在伊克利特，每年在伊克利特為孩子們舉行夏令營，給他們講述自己村莊的故事。Aouni Sbeit是位著名的伊克利特詩人，一次伊克利特人在以色列總理辦公室前示威時，他告訴記者：“如果你把耳朵放到伊克利特孕婦的肚子上，你會聽到胎兒在說，我們會回家的!”

　　(伊克利特人修繕伊克利特教堂，伊克利特社區聯合會2010)

　　多么鏗鏘有力的言辭。但這些難民何時才能返家?沒人知道。盡管一直在進行合法抗爭，以色列仍不允許他們返回——這會開巴勒斯坦難民返家的先河。1998 年，當時的司法部長Tzachi Hanegbi建議內塔尼亞胡政府，“不該為被疏散者返家設置任何障礙”。1995和1996年給他們的最終解決方案是，依據長期土地租約，伊克利特和 Biram重建為共有定居點。換言之，居民們不得不從國家那里“租用”自己的土地。正如所料，他們拒絕了。事情就此陷入僵局。Maher痛苦地說：“關于伊克利特的文章有多少啊……送去了多少材料啊……我們還是不能回家。”

　　伊克利特的故事講述了家的力量，歸屬感。沒人能夠把這拿走——就算是以色列。巴勒斯坦人世世代代居住在這片土地上;這種關系切不斷、無法取代的。他們沒有別的家，只要求最基本的人權：回到被殘忍驅逐出的家園。“我的父親64年來一直處于臨時生活狀態。”Maher說，“64年來，他一直坐在自己的行李箱上，等著回家。”

　　(伊克利特標識牌)

　　關于作者：

　　Fida Jiryis，巴勒斯坦作家，來自加利利的阿拉伯村莊Fassuta。她的新書《重返加利利》即將出版，該書記錄了她從離散地(Diaspora)返回以色列的過程。

　　http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19275

　　By Fida Jiryis

　　'I don't want to open all my wounds…,' says Maher Daoud, a descendent of Iqrit refugees, as we drive to the site where the village of his parents once stood. I wince and apologize, aware of how difficult the subject must be for him.

　　Iqrit is one of the 350 or so Palestinian villages that were completely destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948, its residents barred from returning but turned, overnight, into internal refugees in their own country.

　　Maher, 43, is married to my cousin, Njoud, and they live in Mi’ilya, a village in the Galilee. They regularly drive up to Iqrit, whose church is all that remains today, to partake in religious celebrations at Christmas and Easter and to visit dead relatives in Iqrit’s cemetery. The occasion of our visit now is sombre: Maher’s mother passed away two years ago, and we are here to visit her grave on the occasion of Good Friday, as is the custom among Palestinian Christians.

　　The drive to Iqrit takes a mere twenty minutes from my village, Fassouta. Both are in the Galilee: the north of historical Palestine, a few kilometres from the Lebanese border. During Israel’s “War of Independence” in 1948, or the Nakba (Catastrophe) as Palestinians refer to it, the residents of Iqrit and Biram, another nearby village, were uprooted from their homes on “security grounds,” presumably for Israel to protect its northern border. The residents of Iqrit were bussed to Rama village, twenty kilometers south in the Galilee, and told it would be for a few weeks, until the security situation was calm and they could return. But they never did.

　　On Christmas Eve, 1950, the Israeli army blew up all the houses of Iqrit, in a timely “Christmas gift” to its expelled Christian residents. My father, a boy of 12 at the time, saw the smoke rising above the village in the distance, and, in panic and haste, told a man named Tu’meh from Iqrit, who had taken refuge in Fassouta. Tu’meh’s eyes filled with tears.

　　In 1951, the Israeli High Court ruled that the villagers be allowed to return “as long as no emergency decree” existed against the village. With cold predictability, the government was quick to issue such a decree against the Iqrit evacuees. In 1953, it blew up the houses of Biram, too, leaving only the churches of the two villages standing. Two years later, the theft was completed: the land of the two villages - 16,000 dunams (4,000 acres) in Iqrit and 12,000 dunams (3000 acres) in Biram - was expropriated for establishing Jewish settlements, which are there today: Even Menahem, Shlomi, and Shtula.

　　I’d read about this before; Israel coldly and ruthlessly destroyed about 350 Palestinian villages and turned close to 700,000 Palestinians into homeless refugees during the Nakba. I had visited Suhmata, another such village, already, so I was prepared for what I expected to see.

　　Nothing stopped the flood of goose bumps, though, when my cousin whispered: “Here it is. The village starts here.”

　　“The village” that she was referring to “started” as a small pile of rubble by the roadside. Maher was quick to point to the church atop a hill in the distance. “That’s Iqrit,” he said.

　　I experienced the same sickening disbelief I’d felt when an old relative had pointed to a tree-covered hill and told me: “Here it is. This is Suhmata.”

　　In fact, it is completely surreal: all you see are shrubs and trees, thick greenery as is characteristic of the wilderness of Galilee. The small piles of rubble dotted periodically around are the only small reason to believe that those speaking to you are not deranged or delusional.

　　As we climb up the winding road in Maher’s car, I notice piles of fresh rubble by the side. He says: “We put asphalt on the road a few years ago, just to be able to drive up to the cemetery because the old people can’t walk up this far. But the Jewish settlers came and tore up the road. You can see the piles every few meters.” Such is the refusal and phobia of Israel that Palestinians may exercise their right of return to their stolen homes: even a simple road to get to a cemetery is torn apart, lest it become a precedent

　　We reach the cemetery and walk in with flowers and candles to pay our respects. I notice a large stone at the entrance with these words on it: “We remember and will not forget - This stone was erected in memory of our fathers and mothers who staged a sit-in in Iqrit Church, in the hope of returning alive, as the highest judicial authority in the country deemed, to rebuild what the hands of decision makers have destroyed. But the policy of rights abuses and land confiscation did not allow them to do so, and they died refugees in their own land.”

　　I start to read the names that follow… Elias Yousef Daoud, Atallah Mousa Atallah, Elias Diab Sbeit, Najib Jiryis Khayyat, and on it goes… Eighteen names of people who tried desperately to undo the cruel fate that they had been dealt by Israel and return to their homes, but whose efforts were in vain, until they could only return as dead to be buried in their village.

　　In fact, such was not even the case: from the time Iqrit was ethnically cleansed in 1948 until 1972, its scattered residents were not even allowed to bury their dead in the village. This posed a serious problem, for they had to rely on the kindness of the people of Rama to give them a space in its cemetery. Suddenly, a death was not only cause for mourning but for logistical worry as well. In a sad story that Maher told me, a group of young men once decided to break the rule and took the body of one of their dead for burial at night in Iqrit. Israeli soldiers heard of the matter and followed them, then forced them to dig the ground again, retrieve the coffin and take it to be buried elsewhere.

　　Life for the living wasn’t much easier. The people of Iqrit settled in Rama in harsh conditions. With the sudden influx of refugees, daily living was crowded and difficult, and jobs were scarce. The pain of having just lost, overnight, everything that they owned was compounded by this new and harsh reality. Maher, for example, was the grandson of the mukhtar, or head of the village, of Iqrit. His grandfather was very well off, owned a shop and an olive oil press, and traded in tobacco. The shock of losing all that he owned - his home, lands, and businesses - and being turned into a homeless, penniless refugee overnight was overwhelming. Maher’s father lived in denial. “For years, all the time that I was growing up, my father refused to paint the house or do any badly needed renovation to it. Why? Because he feared that in doing so, he would be seen as acclimatising to his new home, having forgotten Iqrit or his hope of returning.”

　　The people of Iqrit proved themselves in Rama, taking menial work and enduring difficult conditions to support their families. Eventually, the next generations moved to Haifa and elsewhere in search of work.

　　Do they feel a connection to Rama, now, as their surrogate home? I pose the question to Maher and he says, “Sure, I was born in Rama and grew up there, I have memories there and feel some belonging. But I’m not from Rama. I’m from Iqrit.” He tells me that the people of Rama also add to this feeling; when he asked for directions to someone’s house, for example, the man in the street responded with: “Oh! The man from Iqrit…” before giving him directions. This was despite the man in question having lived in Rama for more than sixty years.

　　Maher was sorely reminded of this misfit when he decided to build a house for himself and his family. His father had no land in Rama. When Maher got married, he rented a flat in Kfar Veradim, a Jewish locale near the Palestinian village of Tarshiha where he works, and lived there for a number of years. Then, with rent becoming too high for him, he moved to Mi’ilya, another nearby Arab village, where he bought land to buy a house. He then faced a problem that he had never thought of: some residents of Mi’ilya did not want him. He was labelled a stranger, and an uproar ensued on his owning land in the village, including threats and slander against him. Maher comments bitterly: “If I were still in Iqrit, my grandfather’s land would have been more than enough. I would not have needed to beg anyone for a corner to live in with my family!”

　　“Every day, I feel that I’m a living testimony to the injustice that was done to us,” he continues. I ask him how he reconciles, internally, living in Israel, alongside the people who took away his village and committed this injustice. “It’s a huge contradiction,” he says painfully. “They are the ones who did this to me, to us, yet they are my customers in my hummus shop; I need them to survive.” He finds it emotionally difficult to separate work from the personal, though. Sometimes, he enters into political discussions with Jewish customers, but is frustrated because he can’t say everything he wants. He cites an incident that took place when he was living in Kefar Veradim. One of his neighbours had come to his shop to buy food and inquired, “So, what’s it like living in our place?” Maher quickly looked at her and replied, “Actually, you’re the ones living in my place. You’re the guests in this country, and unwanted ones at that.” The customer did not return.

　　The people of Iqrit are remarkably tight-knit and steadfast in their resolution to return to their village. Six decades after they were ousted from their homes and lands, they still pray in their church, bury their dead in Iqrit, and hold summer camps there annually for their children, to teach them about their village. A famous poet from Iqrit, Aouni Sbeit, was once quoted telling a reporter, during a demonstration of the people of Iqrit in front of the Israeli prime minister’s office: “If you put your ear to the belly of a pregnant woman from Iqrit, you will hear the baby saying that we shall return!”

　　Powerful words, but whether they will ever come true for these internal refugees is anyone’s guess. Despite an on-going legal battle, Israel will not allow them to return, lest it set a precedent for the return of other Palestinian refugees to their homes. Despite the fact that, in 1998, then-justice minister Tzachi Hanegbi recommended to the Netanyahu government that “no obstacles should be placed in the way of the return of the evacuees,” the final settlement offered to them in 1995 and 1996 was that Iqrit and Biram be re-established as community settlements on the basis of long-term land leases. In other words, the residents would have to “rent” their own lands from the state. Not surprisingly, they refused. The case has since been at a stalemate. Maher remarks bitterly: “How many articles have been written about Iqrit… How much material circulated… And we still can’t go home.”

　　The story of Iqrit, though, illustrates the power of home and belonging. No one, not even Israel, can take that away. Palestinians have been connected to this land for generations; it’s not a connection that they can sever or replace. They know no other home and ask only for their basic human right: to return to this home that they were so cruelly ousted from. “My father has lived a temporary existence for sixty-four years,” Maher says. “Because, for sixty-four years, he’s been sitting on his suitcase, waiting to go home.”

　　- Fida Jiryis is a Palestinian writer from the Arab village of Fassuta in the Galilee. She is the author of the forthcoming book, '˜My Return to Galilee,' which chronicles her return from the Diaspora to Israel. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: [email protected].

　　If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle

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