| Tomorrow
will be worse |
|
Catherine Cornet |
 |
Amira Hass’
gaze is penetrating, both tired and
decisive. Behind her small round
glasses, her eyes move rapidly looking
anxiously for information and images
that can help her to reply to the
question in the most concise way
possible. You get the impression that
here, in this Conference room in Rome,
she is behaving exactly as she does
everyday, going out of her house in
Ramallah, the Administrative Capital of
Palestine. There, nothing escapes her,
some interesting comment made by her
neighbour or a Romeo and Juliet like
couple in her neighborhood. She has the
look of a journalist who is not scared
of displeasing when she recounts what
she sees, what she hears, what she
thinks. Amira is Jewish, Israeli,
correspondent for the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz and the only journalist in her
country who speaks about her neighbours,
from the inside. The new Italian
publishing house, “Fusi Orari” part of
the Italian newspaper “Internazionale”
will, this month, publish her letters
from Palestine and Israel, written
between 2001 and 2005. Its title is
clear: “Tomorrow will be worse”.
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A “Down to Earth”
Diary
Amira Hass’ letters are addressed to the
Italian editorial team for whom she
writes her diary each week. In less than
a page and with incredible concision,
she deconstructs nearly all the
political framework of standard media,
be it Israeli, Palestinian or
international. The analysis is carried
out on the ground, in its more political
sense. For Amira the earth is the main
explanation for the conflict. The «
situation », as Israelis call it, is
essentially a question of territorial
occupation .The biggest strategic
mistake made by the Palestinian
Authority during the negotiations was to
request political autonomy prior to a
fair territorial division: «Of what use
is a government “she asks, “if it has no
clear territory to administrate?». Above
all, her writing is “down to earth” in
the most positive sense of the word.
Starting with the territory: by
reporting conversations with her
neighbours, a young Israeli soldier at a
check-point, a Fatah Militant, a
Jordanian artist looking for his roots,
friends in Jerusalem or taxi drivers
from both sides, she draws the map of a
human conflict, an occupation she lives
through in her daily life. Finally,
Amira knows Israeli and Palestinian
territories well: from where she lives
in Ramallah she goes to Gaza, Rafah or
Betlehem crossing all of Cisjordania.
With her Israeli passport she can also
go back to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,
getting the atmosphere from the
“other”side…
The taste of
privilege is disgusting
The first letter from the book, dated
the 9th of February 2001, concludes as
follows «Freedom of movement is a right
that is denied to Palestinians not only
since this Intifada but since 1991.
Movements are only allowed with an
Israeli permit. Even if I live in a
Palestinian city, I’m an Israeli citizen
and I’m free to enter and go when I
want. After all, I’m a Jew and the taste
of privilege is disgusting”. This phrase
demonstrates the need for her presence
in the Occupied Territories. Her disgust
for the application of apartheid in her
country provides her with all the energy
needed to take advantage of her special
status. She has to report everything,
since she has, like few like her, the
possibility to do this. All her moral
and political standing is based on this
attitude; even if privilege is what she
hates most.... |
She does
not please a lot of people, and it does
not seem to disturb her in the least. In
her letter of the 6th of April 2001, she
writes about one of her article for
Haaretz, in which she criticised the
behaviour of some members of the
Palestinian Authority, still attached to
their privileges, to luxury and to
corruption while the Gaza strip was
under Israeli punitive measures. A PLO
civil servant phones her to inform her
of his disappointment. Two days later an
Israeli civil servant blesses her
article and her conclusions. A day
later, a Palestinian activist from
Ramallah congratulates her for her
position. What conclusions can a
journalist draw from this? An opponent
of Israeli’s current policies, she does
not blindly follow the occupied: « My
objective ? Describe what I feel and
what I see”. To speak freely is
certainly the privilege she likes to
abuse of the most. In this article, for
example, she also wanted to explain
“what Palestinians talk about between
themselves, within the framework of an
oral democratic system that
unfortunately is rarely reported in the
press ».
When Lili Gruber, the Italian journalist
who presented the book at the Foreign
Press Headquarters in Rome, asked her if
it wasn’t too difficult to live as if
she was a traitor in her own country,
Amira spoke again about privileges,
those that disgust her but that she uses
a lot. The first one she quotes is «
freedom of movement », one of the most
fundamental and most symbolical rights
in Palestinian daily life. Indeed, she
crosses borders that few can cross - or
that the majority simply do not want to
see. When an Israeli soldier asks her at
a check point « What are you doing here
? » she simply replies « What are you
doing here ? ». In other letters, she
describes the wall of misunderstanding
between both countries. In West
Jerusalem, when she goes to visit some
friends, she never hears about Israeli
agressions. In Ramallah, she can’t avoid
seeing them. She is surprised how in
Israel, restaurants and cafés are full
of people, in peace. Everyday though,
she writes to remind them.
« Tomorrow will be worse ». This kind of
title provokes questions. Lili Gruber
asks Amira if this choice of title was
influenced by her own personal pessimism
or from her analysis of the current
situation. Amira replies simply: « I
believe that this sentence is right, and
hope it will become untrue ». Amira Hass
is an optimist. |
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Catherine
Cornet |
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