Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem in the West Bank, used to be a pretty if dull provincial town. It nestled in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean to the west and the Jordan Valley to the east. The churches and mosques scattered among its red-roofed stone houses gave it a pastoral quality enhanced by flourishing jacarandas, bougainvilleas and cypresses. Raja Shehadeh was born there in 1950, two years after the Nakba, the expulsion, flight and dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was created at the end of the British mandate. His parents were refugees from Jaffa, the country’s once vibrant port. Shehadeh was 16 in 1967 when “our unwanted, unrecognised neighbours from across the horizon came and took over our lives”, as he puts it.
Following law studies in London in the 1970s he returned to found Al-Haq, the human rights organisation that did pioneering work documenting abuses under what was then seen – from abroad – as Israel’s relatively liberal rule. His new book, Going Home, records a poignant and thought-provoking stroll around Ramallah on 5 June 2017 – the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation.
Shehadeh’s anniversary walk combines the personal and the political. Childhood memories of Jordanian rule – when local taxi drivers touted for passengers travelling to Jerusalem, Amman and Beirut – are accompanied by reflections on the universal ravages of ageing. Relations with his father, who was murdered by a collaborator in 1985, were always difficult. After the landmark Oslo agreement in 1993, Shehadeh’s dentist warned him that he was grinding his teeth. He reflects throughout on the gardens and wildlife he loves. Writing keeps him sane in a melancholy environment.
The creation of the quasi-government of the Palestinian Authority saw Palestinian policemen replace Israeli troops in patrolling Ramallah. It is no longer a backwater. Restaurants, ice-cream parlours and diplomatic missions line the streets. Branches of KFC and Pizza Hut draw crowds from nearby villages. Property prices are soaring, fuelled by foreign aid, bank loans and exiles selling their now distant homes – though without paying any local taxes. Palestinian flags – once strictly banned – flutter everywhere in “the city of our confinement”. In a hilly part of town tall buildings now block a once soothing evening breeze.
These cultural changes reflect broader shifts. Shehadeh nostalgically remembers an Italian pop group that used to perform before 1967. But these days the sound of Qur’anic readings between calls to prayer fills the air. “The defeat of the nationalist project in Palestine by Israel that followed in the wake of Oslo encouraged the rise of political Islam,” he writes. “Religion has become another weapon in the arsenal of struggle.” Many more women wear headscarves. His bleak but hardly surprising conclusion is that his own generation has not managed to challenge the “overwhelming reality” of Israel’s control. How the young are supposed to achieve that is not explained.
Israeli outposts first started appearing in the early 1970s and played a starring role in Shehadeh’s acclaimed 2007 book Palestinian Walks. Nowadays the settlers have their own access roads that are barred to Palestinians, reinforcing the argument that a form of apartheid is in place in the West Bank and that there is a distinct possibility of formal Israeli annexation of large parts it. Beit El, one of the early settlements, is clearly visible from the centre of Ramallah. Israeli army checkpoints surround it on all sides, reinforcing the sense that it is a bubble. Still, life in the West Bank is far better than elsewhere – especially the besieged Gaza Strip.
Going Home cements the author’s reputation as the best-known Palestinian writing in English. Interestingly, there is only one mention in it of a word (a concept really) that was the centrepiece of his previous books – sumoud – steadfastness in Arabic, less pompously translated as “hanging in there”. Retracing his steps he now finds little that is heroic, including the grim period of the second intifada and the return of all-out occupation. “It’s more a chronicle of repeated failures. Both we and the Israelis who were against the settlement project have failed to find a way of living together and that’s the biggest tragedy. Now time is running out.”
Walking past St George’s School, Shehadeh remembers the teenage pupil who was shot dead – live on camera – while demonstrating near an Israeli prison and army checkpoint, on a plain with a pond that was a haven for migrating birds but is no longer accessible to Palestinians. “For me and my generation the struggle has aged, become blocked, just like that road is blocked,” he laments. “I know how it used to be, but I don’t know how to unblock it and allow the life that was once there to thrive again.”
• Going Home is published by Profile (£14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
