A child is born in Bethlehem
By Danny Rubinstein
Haaretz, December 29, 2003
About two weeks ago there was an amazing incident in Bethlehem. A baby son was born to one of the Muslim families in the city, and on his cheek was a reddish inscription, a kind of birthmark, with the name "Ala." The members of the family and all their neighbors and friends were astonished not only by the phenomenon itself, but also - and mainly - because of the fact that the baby's uncle, who a short time earlier had been killed by Israel Defense Forces gunfire, was called Ala.
There were those who greeted this fantastic story dismissively and scornfully. Many people took it seriously. Among them was Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who held a reception at his bureau in Ramallah for the baby's grandfather, who came to present him to the leader. On the first pages of the Palestinian newspapers (for example, Al Quds, December 11), there was a large picture of Arafat and the grandfather holding the baby on whose cheek the letters of the name Ala can clearly be seen. "The baby has been named after his uncle the martyr," says the caption of the photograph.
This story could serve as just one example of the atmosphere of struggle and sacrifice that prevails in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The unending bloodshed (23 Palestinian dead last week) and the travails of everyday life are creating an atmosphere of great loathing for Israel and an unwillingness to compromise.
Last week there was extensive reportage of the new trend in the regimes of Libya, Iran and Syria - of taking steps toward rapprochement with the West and the Americans - and this policy is obviously a result of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. In the Palestinian street, however, and perhaps also at the popular levels of other Arab states, this trend is not felt. The hostility toward the Americans (and of course Israel) remains as it has always been and has perhaps even increased.
The Palestinian media, which reports extensively on the details of the struggle of the resistance to the American occupation in Iraq, does this with an obvious tone of support. From time to time, they add a collection of items in support of Saddam Hussein.
Last Saturday, for example, there was a report about Saddam Hussein's daily schedule in jail. For breakfast he eats cheese and honey, for lunch vegetables and meat and for dinner fruits and juice, and he is threatening his interrogators that at his trial he will reveal to the world very embarrassing secrets about the role the Americans played in the development of the crisis in the Gulf 12 years ago.
Palestinian spokesmen have been warning that the atmosphere of hostility toward Israel will increase once the separation fence is completed, because it will make life in a considerable part of the territories completely impossible. This is pretty much a sure recipe for the weakening of the Palestinian Authority and the strengthening of Hamas. In pictures from last week's celebrations of the anniversary of the founding of Hamas, parades of units that look almost like a regular army and not like a small terror organization were clearly visible (especially in Gaza).
The only ones who are trying to deal, at least in the media, with the difficult atmosphere among the Palestinian public, are the initiators of the Geneva Accord. Last week large, full-page advertisements were published in the Palestinian newspapers attacking in harsh language the "disengagement" plan proposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Herzliya Conference. The headline of the advertisements says: "Stand up against the racist solution plan, the siege and annexation plan - Resist a second Nakba" (referring to the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948).
The initiators of the Geneva document, who are publishing other advertisements in Arabic with maps and details of the accords, are trying in direct language to tell the Palestinian public that it doesn't have many alternatives: If you don't accept what we agreed to in Geneva, you will be left with Sharon's terrible plan that will bring a second Nakba down on you.
It is difficult to say whether the masses in the West Bank and Gaza are impressed by these warnings. These days, the Palestinian territories are charged with a heavy load of hatred that overshadows everything else.
