Lines in the sand: Nablus and Balata

This series was written in 2012. It was published by Crikey, one of Australia’s last great independent publications. My editor was the wonderful, generous enabler, Jason Whittaker, who let me write whatever I wanted, however I wanted, long after my used-by date had come and gone. This piece remains behind the paywall there. But given recent events, and the coverage around them, I thought it might be worth republishing here. The rest of the series is available on the main page of this Substack. All have been very lightly edited.

I return to Ramallah from Taybeh, beer and wine in tow, to find Shehada, the Palestinian violin maker from Bus 18, waiting for me outside the Al-Wehdeh hotel.

He is here to take me to his home in the Old City, to share iftar, Ramadan’s daily fast-breaking meal, with his family. It is an awkward honour. Only Shehada and his father, an architect, and his incredibly bright seven-year-old sister can speak English, and my Arabic is limited to the point of non-existence. But I am welcomed with open arms nevertheless and by a seemingly endless parade of relatives. Shehada’s mother, sisters, grandmother, aunts, and cousins are all very pleased, or so I am told, that I have come to Palestine for Ramadan. Shehada’s six-year-old brother is very pleased that I’ve come, too, but mostly because he likes strutting around in my aviator sunglasses, pot-belly puffed out and hair slicked back. “Don't worry about him,” Shehada says. “He’s crazy.”

It is difficult not to notice that there is a gender imbalance around the table: women outnumber men two-to-one. This, Shehada tells me later, stems from the fact that two of his uncles are currently serving time in prison: one for killing Israeli soldiers during the second intifada and the other for belonging to a “radical organisation”. A third uncle has recently been released, on charges that aren’t mentioned, but instead of joining us for qatayef and tea he is slaving away on the second floor of a nearby building, tiling the entryway to his house, which was left to deteriorate while he was away.

“He has to tile at night,” Shehada says, “because he works as a labourer in Israel during the day.”

After dinner, fully sated, we move downstairs to Shehada’s work room, where several of his early violins hang on their scrolls from a piece of fishing line, ...