CPTnet
November 18, 2004

HEBRON/BETHANY: "All of Palestine loves Arafat"

by Dianne Roe

I visited my friend Shefa at her home in Bethany (behind the Mount of Olives
in Jerusalem) two days after the funeral of Yasser Arafat. As she sat on the
floor of the patio making waraq dawali (stuffed grape leaves), I handed her
chocolate that I bought in Jerusalem for the family celebration of the feast
which occurs at the end of Ramadan.

I told her I went to Arafat's funeral Friday in Ramallah. Her face lit up.
"No one from here could go," she said. "All roads were closed." Earlier in
the morning a Palestinian Christian friend told me the same thing about
Bethlehem. "We wanted to go to pay our respects but the Israeli army kept
people away."

Yet in spite of all of the checkpoints and barriers, tens of thousands of
Palestinians crowded into the Muqata. Young men climbed trees and telephone
poles and amassed on rooftops to get a good view. As I related to Shefa my
time in Ramallah, she told me everyone watched on television. "I cried and
cried," she said. "Everyone in Bethany cried."

"We won't ever have a man like Arafat," added her daughter Kefah. "I was
surprised that we cried so much. I did not even know I loved Arafat that
much."

They felt that the man who had given them hope was gone. They did not talk
of their disappointments and disillusionments of the past few years. They
remembered instead a man they had seen as giving his life for the
Palestinian cause.

Alex Awad, pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church said the Palestinian
Christians will miss Arafat deeply. "He spent the last two years of his
life imprisoned in the Muqata. He could have lived a life of luxury in
France or another country, but he refused."

Shefa told me their feast days were quiet. "Arafat died so we don't
celebrate the feast like most years. We don't eat chocolate; we don't have
a party. We pray and have small visits."

I was embarrassed about my gift of chocolate, but Shefa will put it aside
for a day when Palestinians can feast again. I asked Shefa if the feast was
subdued only in Bethany. "All of Palestine," she responded.

What will be the future? With or without Arafat the wall that Israel has
built surrounds Shefa and imprisons her family. The Israeli army harasses
Kefah as she tries to go to Jerusalem to get medicine for her mother.
Arafat did not succeed in ending the Israeli occupation, but Shefa's family
loves him for not giving up.