N, Na, Nak, Nakba!

Part 1 in the "Making Up For Lost Blogging" Series.

So, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to work on Thursday. Thursday (for the information of those Shabak operatives who might be tracking my every move) is usually an East Jerusalem workday. However, THIS Thursday is when the Palestinians have chosen to mark the 60 Year Nakba (literally translated as "catastrophe"- and pertaining to the creation of Israel) Anniversary. So there'll be a siren in Ramallah, and standing in silence everywhere else (lasting 3 minutes, apparently. Just to show the Israelis that our 2-minute remembrance siren is pathetic potatoes in comparison.)

This time of year always gets particularly hairy for me. Last year, I was almost in the EJ office for Holocaust Remembrance Day. As I left home that morning, I impulsively decided to call in "late" and get my car washed instead (a mighty and time-consuming detour indeed) as I realised that I didn't want to be there for when they would likely ignore the wailing siren, and I'd feel uncomfortable standing alone in the office. The years have taught me that it would be too much to expect the Palestinian street to stand for a minute to remember the victims of the greatest human atrocity of our time (especially being as they don't consider it as such, and in fact blame it squarely for creating what they believe to be the greatest atrocity of their time.) Ah well. I figured I'd skip the potential uncomfortable silence (sic) in my office and leave any disgruntled colleagues to take up their ongoing grievances vis-a-vis problematic Holocaust-Israel associations with all the German funders which keep their corner of the Palestinian NGO sector alive, should they so wish.

Back to Nakba Day. So, it's this coming Thursday: Not, as many people believed, last week when Israel celebrated Independence Day. (That was another rum day for yours truly. In fact, quite a few amused folks even sent me "Happy Nakba" smses in the morning, which all blended nicely in the midday hangover sun. I tried to write back to one such comedian saying that a) it wasn't the right day, and b) "Happy" and "Nakba" in a sentence doesn't really work -unless maybe you're Joe Settler- but that wasn't entirely successful- I had nobody to blame but myself for attending a party with paintstripper vodka and no mixers.)

So unless reading the "This Week In Palestine" Nakba Special counts, I've admittedly been avoiding the whole shebang. Not that it was any easier than usual, celebrating 60 Years of Israel on my side of the fence: I attended my old haunt, the Alternative Independence Day Torch-lighting Ceremony, and felt very far removed from quite a substantial portion of the rhetoric spewed forth (although those adorable Marxists were still there... in fact, I'm sure that even after the nuclear Armageddon they'll still be there, waving their red flags and entreating the all new, mutated rat-human race to form communes.) Seriously, some of the organizations represented at the ceremony this year do fine work. But while those folks spoke beautifully and to the point, they weren’t in the majority, and there was only so much Israeli intolerance/ignorance of the "other" that I could listen to. It was when one of the esteemed lighters told the audience that "all settlers" were "parasitic murderers," that I snapped, with a not-quiet "Enough of this B******t! I'm outta here!" And walked rather ostentatiously away from the crowd. As we were leaving, one of my (Jewish Israeli) friends got a call from a colleague, a woman to the right of her politically, who among other things sarcastically asked her how she was marking her "Day Of Mourning." And so it goes... it looks like the Israeli Right Wing have as much narrative reconciliation ahead of them opposite the Israeli Left Wing as the Israelis and Palestinians do: I only hope that such a feat can come to pass before we mark the next 60 years of whatever we’re marking.

UPDATE- I just spoke to one EJ colleague to ask what the deal was re Thursday. "Will the office be open?" I asked her. "And if it is, is it going to make things uncomfortable for everyone* if I'm there when they're marking Nakba?"

"Sweetie," she laughed at me, "You know us better than that by now... For those who'll be marking Nakba, every day is Nakba! Thursday will be just another day, with heightened security at the checkpoints. You? You do whatever you like."

* me!