THE HANDSTAND

MAY 2002
FROM JENIN ASHES SHALL FREEDOM RING
by Mohamed Khodr, MD.

I grew up hearing of God's love for me and for all people. My grandmother used to tell me as a child that she "loved" me more than life itself. Growing up I loved reading books, especially books that spoke of freedom, of passion, of patient suffering, of unrequited love, of giving your life to your family, the woman you loved, and to the land of your birth and the birth of your lineage.

Although I loved reading books, the Israeli army would only allow us very few books during our entire school year, old dusty books that caused me to cough and sneeze due to my Asthma. It was difficult for me to just walk to school along dirt roads with either the flying dust of Israeli trucks and tanks pushing me off the road or trying to skip the potholes of sewage that filled the street.

I got used to the sewage, it was the sewage of our people, but the dust that crippled my lungs was thrown in my face by a foreign power intent on crippling my people. Walking behind those tanks I would always see the sign "Made in America".

As I stopped to catch my breath and sparingly use my inhaler I could hear the laughter of the soldiers drift off into the distance. I was always late for school. At school, I didn't have the strength of the other children to go out and play with a sock ball in the dusty playground. I felt ashamed of my weakness when my friends would shout and taunt the Israeli soldiers as they passed by. My humiliation was doubly measured by the Israeli tanks and weak lungs.

One day during recess with my hands covering my face I felt the warmest sweetest smelling hands, I think they smelled of Gardenia, pulling my hands away from my face. As I looked up, my eyes squinted from the brightness of the sun streaking with powerful rays through strands of wind blown hair. It was as if the sun was playing a musical instrument with that beautiful long hair. Ripples of streaming sun was hitting my face. A cool breeze was touching me despite the midday heat.

"Hi, my name is Jenin. May I sit down with you?". My mouth opened but not voice was heard.

"What's your name?", she asked me.

"Mohamed", hoping that was really my name.

"Why are you sitting alone and not playing with the others?", Jenin asked me with such a beautiful
voice as she pushed her hair off her eyes. Oh, my God, and what big beautiful hazel eyes. I could swear it took her lashes minutes to blink and I loved that.

"I'm sick with Asthma and playing makes me wheeze and cough", I said.

"My cousin has Asthma. He's always coughing because he can't get medicine, you know with the Israeli siege all around us."

For me it seemed time stood still and, yet, went too fast at the same time when we heard the bell ring to return to class. For the rest of time I shall never forget the sweetness and caring touch of my Jenin. Wow, my Jenin, my Jenin, my Jenin, Mohamed and Jenin, that's all I heard in my head all day and all night. The sun couldn't come up fast enough for me. Today and for the first time I don't think I heard myself wheeze or cough. I beat the Israeli tanks to school. I saw her come into school with her bright yellow dress and felt as if a second sun, a sun with hazel eyes and a smile that took my breath away.

For the next five years, our love grew into a shield from the war and death around us. We didn't need much food, water, medicine, clothes, shoes, or anything else but each other's company and holding of hands.

We would plan our lives, plan our family, swear to never leave our Palestine no matter if Israel ripped every inch of soil from beneath our feet. Palestine now was the soil where our love was planted and we will struggle with our education, our money, and our lives to cleanse it of soldiers and tanks so that our children will always have a country, a home, even if the whole world denied it to us.

Jenin wanted to be a journalist and writer, a voice for all the Palestinians killed without proper burials, obituaries, or memories. Her pen will not let them die in vain. She, Jenin, wanted to etch in humanity's memory the suffering of her people long ignored and neglected by a western and Arab world. I wanted to be a physician, a healer of Israeli wounds inflicted upon my people.

I planned to go to America and learn the best medicine America can offer so that I can return to Palestine, be with my Jenin, and remove the American bullets and shrapnels delivered by Israeli soldiers with "Made in America" weapons like the tanks that dusted my face every morning. Oh, the joy of planning and sharing our life, love, and passion for each other, our people, and our land.

On Jenin's eighteenth birthday I had saved some money from odd jobs to buy her a PEN. The PEN had the colors of the Palestinian Flag and the carvings of: FREEDOM on one side and I LOVE YOU on the other side.

She was so excited when I gave it to her and in her happiness she hugged me and we kissed for the first time. God, how I didn't want to let go of her. I was intoxicated by the look in her eyes and the smell of her hair. She finally pulled away and spoke: "Mohamed, this will be my Liberation Pen. From this pen I shall tell the world the story of our suffering, of a life with no freedom to move, to speak, to build homes for growing families, for the humiliation of seeing our mothers be maids to Jewish Settlers and our fathers work as cheap laborers on their own farms taken away by force. I will tell of little boys and girls not knowing if they'll eat again that day or if they'll get sick drinking the sewage dumped on us from the settlements on top of the hill, from being afraid, always afraid of a soldier's tank, knock, or a settler's bullet. I will tell of how we endured no matter what, of how we buried our grandparents in mass graves because they wouldn't even give us land for a cemetery, of seeing our mosques and churches destroyed or converted to offices for their soldiers, of being prisoners and captives in our own land. You'll see, this PEN will bring us freedom someday. Somehow I will let the Americans know the truth of what they and Israel are doing to us. They're good people, you'll see, they'll eventually help us."

I loved her dreams and her energy. If anyone could liberate Palestine, Jenin, my Jenin could. I had to hug her again and hold her for dear life, for she is my life, my constant thought and joy. She made believe there must be a tomorrow where the Sun will rise on Palestine, our country, our land, our homes, our farms without an Israeli dusty tank in site.

As I let her go, her brother called and said her mother fainted. She ran like the wind cutting a beautiful silhouette through the air, thank you God for my Jenin. She stopped suddenly turned around and shouted to me, "Mohamed, go home, the dusty tanks are coming quickly.". Just like her beautiful heart to think of me even under stress. I walked home quickly.

Thirty minutes later, I heard shots coming from the area of the checkpoint outside of our village. We've heard shots there many times but something told me to go there. I ran forgetting about my Asthma.

As I reached the checkpoint I saw a crowd forming with the Israeli soldiers shooting into the air telling the people and journalists to move out. They beat old women who were wailing to get away. A Palestinian ambulance was coming but it was stopped by the dusty tanks and not allowed to approach the checkpoint. I froze when I saw Jenin's brother. He was crying uncontrollably. I shook him and asked him what's the matter. He said the soldiers wouldn't let my father and Jenin take my mother to the hospital and Jenin started yelling and screaming and the next thing he knew she, my father, and my mother were all shot.

I pushed my way through the crowed. An Israeli soldier tried to stop me but no one was going to stop me. When I reached the checkpoint I saw Jenin's parents both dead inside the car. My God, where is Jenin I shouted. I heard a voice call me from the other side of the car. It was Jenin.

"My God, my God, what have they done to you", I trembled holding her in my arms stroking the blood tinged hair I've always loved.

"Mohamed, listen, don't have much time. Here take the PEN, use it for its purpose, tell the world about me and about Palestine....I'll wait for you and I Love............."

I took the PEN in my clinched hand and sobbed as I held my bleeding Jenin. I felt her life leave her body. My Asthma returned with a vengeance and I passed out.

I awoke in a Palestinian hospital intubated. A doctor came to see me telling me how lucky I was the soldiers allowed the ambulance to bring me to the hospital. He held my hand and said how sorry he was about the death of Jenin and how the world will never know of her courage. He told me that if only the soldiers would have allowed the ambulance in they probably could have saved her but not her parents. Tears were choking me and I had to be suctioned.

He reached over to the desk and handed me the PEN. He said they had a hard time getting it out of my fist.

I held it and brought it to my mouth to kiss it.

Suddenly, I noticed another word was carved into the PEN.

"I Love you, Mohamed", it read. And I love you too my Jenin, wait for me, but first I will get better and become your journalist and writer and I swear to you my Jenin I will Liberate Palestine with this PEN if it takes me the rest of my life. Rest in Allah's mercy and blessing, my Jenin.

[The date Jenin died was April 9, 2002.  April 9, a date Jenin always talked about. She always told me of how her Great Grandparents were massacred on April 9, 1948 by Jewish soldiers in their village of Deir Yassin. The irony of inhumanity.

From your death, my Jenin, shall ring the call of Freedom for Palestine, I promise. Amen.