Two stories from the West Bank
White, Patrick
TWO STORIES FROM THE PATRICK WHITE WEST BANK AFTER THE GULF WAR The effects of the Gulf War have been devastating for many people, but for the Palestinians the tragedy is a continuous one. Of...
...George answered Kuwait...
...At seven the next morning there was an impatient ringing of the doorbell...
...The vice-consul could not issue a visa...
...The Jordanian bus driver charged $380 for the ride to Amman, far higher than the cost of the trip by air...
...The great majority of Palestinians were not because they had left the West Bank before 1967, or had not returned at the required intervals, or had lost their permits...
...Yet we were lucky: we had very good jobs, colleagues, and friends...
...They both continued their studies...
...The Palestinians argued that they had relatives and accommodation in Amman...
...Family pressure and their own attachments persuaded them to return to the Middle East...
...24: 31 January 1992 Commonweal...
...On July 31 we arrived in Limassol, Cyprus...
...The plight of the Araj family is just one example of the unfortunate situation of many thousands of Palestinians who became inadvertent victims of the invasion and war...
...No one would accept credit cards from Kuwait and the airlines stopped functioning, so many people were stranded...
...When the Americans were asked about the change, they answered that the Araj family did not have strong ties with the West Bank because they had been working in Kuwait...
...You don't need dresses for the beach...
...Palestinians had been in Kuwait since their diaspora in 1948 and had made major contributions in building the infrastructure of the country...
...But where to...
...The situation is hardly better on the West Bank where other Palestinian refugees from Kuwait now find themselves...
...I don't know what happened to him...
...An Indian ophthalmologist who lived next door came to ask her about these attacks...
...Araj's father is the mayor of Beit Jala on the West Bank...
...Many of those who escaped from Kuwait after the invasion were exposed to a multitude of painful events on their journeys...
...Fortunately they were allowed back...
...When her husband went down to the office she could tell that something serious had happened...
...She went on to note that four days later the Kuwaiti press started attacking Saddam...
...Then came the summer of 1990...
...We did not tell them that we had no money...
...I was born in 1948 and since then we have had no peace of mind at all...
...Saud reassured her that nothing would happen since the papers had changed opinions like this before...
...Then the consul's assistant looked at their passports and asked from where they had come...
...Everybody contributed though Hani wondered if it wasn't a rash thing to do, since they might be there for several days themselves...
...They almost missed what proved to be the last plane from Kuwait to Cyprus...
...Dr...
...When you are living here, you always have a problem...
...We weren't able to contact anybody we knew in Kuwait, not even my boss...
...In Kuwait, Christians were a minority...
...Finally one bank agreed and they were able to pay the rent...
...I remember very well, for my husband was away at a conference and lecture tour in Canada...
...They decided on Kuwait, where Dr...
...The family had permits but these were in Kuwait...
...Mrs...
...We unpacked in our rented apartment and took a stroll on the beach...
...Suad's first thought was that this meant clashes at the border, but the woman reported that Kuwait City and the Amir Palace were occupied...
...But the little girl insisted and "she packed the most...
...Red dust covered everything and the heat was intolerable, especially for several mothers with their babies...
...Examining their documents, he saw no problem in their returning to the U.S...
...Hani said they were almost ready to give up...
...Consulate...
...his sister worked for British Airways...
...Shortly after this her husband returned from Canada and insisted they go on a vacation to relax...
...he scribbled over his approval and signature...
...As Christian Palestinians, they were educated in schools near Bethlehem before 1967 and went on to Bir Zeit University near Ramallah...
...Araj interfered with the packing...
...From there they went to the American University of Beirut where George Araj earned a master's degree in medical parasitology...
...The Arajs, now with three children, lived for nine years in Kuwait...
...At that point, their bus driver tried again to get them off the bus so that he could return to Kuwait and make another lucrative journey: He drove around the desert, facing the bus into the sun in order to expose the passengers to the full impact of the afternoon rays...
...The passengers from different religious denominations sang and prayed that God would deliver them...
...The attitude suddenly changed...
...Suad Araj: "The invasion of Saddam Hussein came as a surprise in every way...
...Suad Araj: "I left all my jewelry at home...
...Araj held a series of posts at medical centers in Toledo, Richmond, and Houston...
...He later earned his doctorate in medical microbiology and did postdoctoral clinical microbiology in the United States...
...In fact, July 17 is Revolution Day in Iraq...
...Later the dean of the medical school in Kuwait did get in touch with my husband...
...Araj had been offered a post at the medical school...
...We did not have telephone numbers, addresses, bank account numbers...
...Five minutes later, after the passengers had given their food away, Jordanian officials arrived to say that the entire bus load had received clearance to enter Jordan...
...We were stunned...
...It began to get dark...
...Understandably Suad was furious...
...Suad Araj: "Coming back from the U.S., we found Kuwait a completely different society...
...He also said that the consulate would have to cancel the existing five-year multiple entry visas that had been issued before the invasion...
...Hani's sister said she had guarantees from British Airways to fly out the people on the bus within twenty-four hours of their arrival in Amman...
...The latest, sad chapter in the Arajs ' story is this: George Araj was offered a visiting professorship at the Medical College of Virginia...
...This continued for four hours...
...There were many Arabs, including Palestinians and Kuwaitis, who could not change their Kuwaiti currency and were out on the streets...
...Kuwaiti military headquarters were nearby and there was no sign of increased activity the evening before they left, just three days before the Iraqi invasion...
...All Palestinians are obliged to have permits to return, and only those that were resident after 1967 are eligible...
...She was reluctant but agreed...
...I left everything, even my notebook with addresses and telephone numbers that I usually take with me...
...Two stories that 1 have recently heard will give some sense of the capricious and very difficult situations in which people find themselves...
...This flood of refugees would be comparable to 20 million Americans returning to the United States when the country was in a deep recession, suffering a loss of 5 percent of its GNP and with 20 percent unemployment...
...It was extraordinary, for everyone on the bus started singing...
...Both of their families had fled Jerusalem in 1948: hers went to Beit Sahour and his to Beit Jala on the West Bank...
...the Kuwaiti crisis has subsided but the suffering for Palestinians continues, a saga so far without end...
...he in the medical school, she in law...
...Araj completed her master's degree...
...Again the viceconsul was extremely helpful and said he would be prepared Commonweal 31 January 1992: 23 to make arrangements whenever she was ready to follow her husband...
...They had worked hard to build their lives and those of their three children, and were dedicated to their work, the university, and society in Kuwait...
...Of the 400,000 Palestinians in Kuwait at the time of the Iraqi invasion in August 1990, 350,000 were Jordanian citizens...
...One young Palestinian, Hani Mourat, left Kuwait by bus three weeks after the invasion, traveling with his sister, three Palestinian friends, and nearly forty Indian and Filipino passengers...
...The Arajs were stunned...
...What could we do...
...At first they were very well received, the vice-consul was most gracious...
...They went to Jerusalem to obtain a visa from the U.S...
...As they sang, one of the Indians started collecting food and drink to give to the refugees outside in the insufferable heat...
...And he'd say: 'Dresses for the beach...
...many of the group on the bus were friends or worked for the same firm...
...Many of the Palestinians caught in Kuwait had nowhere to go, not to Jordan or Egypt, Syria, the West Bank, or Gaza...
...We had to depend on others, we had to find work for ourselves and schools for the children...
...Then he took down his guitar and someone said, "Let's sings songs of praise...
...When Suad went to the door, to her surprise and annoyance, there was a woman from the renting office wanting them to come and pay the rent immediately...
...He was very helpful and considerate but could not bring my husband back to his work because of Kuwait government policy toward Palestinians...
...They would not accept it either...
...Suad Araj: "Fortunately we had a family to come back to in Beit Jala, but it was very difficult...
...When they reached the border between Iraq and Jordan, the driver tried to force them off the bus, breaking his agreement to take them to Amman...
...Suad Araj and her husband George were both university professors in Kuwait...
...On August 22: 31 January 1992 Commonweal 1 my husband told the renting office that he would pay the rent in advance the following morning...
...Nothing, nothing, nothing at all...
...At this stage he had approved and signed the forms...
...Everything looked normal...
...They were late partly because of her reluctance and because Dr...
...Since Suad had a job, she would be staying on the West Bank with the children...
...Some of the refugees shouted to the passengers warning them not to get down from the bus...
...There were between 350,000 and 400,000 Palestinians, the majority from the West Bank and Gaza...
...I followed the newspapers very carefully...
...Much of the money they earned was sent back to their families on the West Bank or Gaza...
...She laughed but continued: "He wanted to do the same for our little daughter...
...they were not going to run away...
...The Jordanian officials agreed to let the Palestinians through, but not the Indians and Filipinos...
...Their unexpected exile was not the first for either of them...
...Suad Araj ended our conversation by saying: "You know we have been living this problem from the time we were born...
...He pleaded with the Israeli military governor to check the data in their computer so that the family could return to the West Bank...
...For the Palestinians there is no peace of mind, no justice...
...The woman from the office was surprised and asked whether they hadn't heard the news about the invasion...
...Different, too, from our society in Beit Jala and Beit Sahour...
...Because of the war in Lebanon, they left for the U.S...
...On the 17th there were at least six pages about Saddam...
...Suad Araj: "They wouldn't accept Kuwaiti currency...
...I was crying and crying...
...It was a real shock, a shock, just to wake up with virtually nothing: no money, no clothes, no documents, nothing at all...
...The Palestinians would not leave unless all of the passengers went with them...
...A lot of people had heart attacks...
...a Kuwaiti newspaper with pictures of Saddam, a very fine issue in praise of him...
...The driver tried to abandon them in the middle of the desert in a makeshift refugee camp where thousands were stranded without food or water...
...I'd pack something, he would take it out...
...She need not take some new clothes just given her as a present...
...By July 15 , 1991 , 270,000 of them had fled to Jordan, marking yet another exodus of the Palestinian people...
...The Kuwaitis were actually a minority in their own society for they represented only 30 percent of the population while the Palestinians and other Arab nationals made up more than 50 percent...
...I did not want the children to know what had happened...
...Hani is a computer expert...
...We had worked so hard for so many years and we ended up with nothing...
...Frantic negotiations started with Jordanian border officials to allow the bus to continue to Amman...
...Hani and his friend believe something miraculous occurred...
...in 1977...
...They called two banks...
Vol. 119 • January 1992 • No. 2
