November 1992, Page 31, 64

Bethlehem Bulletin

Coming Home Isn't Easy for a Christian Born in Bethlehem

By Brother Patrick White

I first met Issam in the summer of 1992 at a Florida convention of hundreds of members of the Bethlehem Association, whose families originally came from Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Beit Jala and Jerusalem. Each year these Palestinians convene from South and Central America, Canada and all over the United States to celebrate their heritage, renew family ties, and strengthen the remaining links with those in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, particularly in the Bethlehem area.

In Miami, Issam had eagerly shown me his elaborately researched family tree, printed on several pages and bound in an impressive folder. His family went back to the 13th century in Bethlehem.

The records in the Nativity Basilica first record his family name in the case of a young man from the neighboring village of Beit Sahour who had sought sanctuary in the church after a dispute with a landlord. This was not long after the Franciscans had founded the Latin Catholic parish in Bethlehem. Thereafter his family name became a familiar entry among births, marriages and deaths recorded by the church.

Unlike many Palestinians in the diaspora, Issam could still obtain a visa from the occupying Israeli government to visit what remained of his family in the town where he was born and grew up. Now an American citizen living in the United States with his wife and children, he has a doctorate in physics, holds a position with a leading multinational corporation, and tries to visit Bethlehem whenever he travels in Europe for his company.

During the recent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington, Issam attempted to travel from Vienna for a three-week visit in Bethlehem. Tourists visiting the Holy Land can obtain visas for three months. Issam was denied a visa for even three weeks, and had to argue to get permission for a stay of seven days. His sin was being born a Christian in the Holy Land and having a heritage there dating back to the 13th century.

When Issam boarded an Austrian plane heading for Tel Aviv, he discovered it already was full of Jewish passengers who were in transit from Russia to Israel. They had been waiting on the plane for some time. They had not been allowed in the terminal, to prevent any from seeking to disembark there and apply for immigration into Europe or the U.S. Communication was difficult with the Russian Jews because they did not speak any of the four languages, Hebrew, Arabic, English and French, in which Issam is fluent.

Once the Russian Jews discovered he was a Palestinian, however, they insisted in communicating to him that they were not going to Israel to take his land but merely to obtain visas for travel to the United States. He told me he had no means of knowing whether they were sincere or merely trying not to offend him.

For Palestinians, arrival at Ben-Gurion airport, as well as departure, is always a humiliating and traumatic experience. Israeli security considers every Palestinian a security risk. Thus the reception this time as he alighted from the plane was a surprise for Issam. Bands played, and amid balloons and placards hundreds of Israels greeted the arrivals. Embraced, welcomed to a new home in Israel and showered with confetti, he was swept amid the joyous commotion into the airport terminal.

When he asked the officials about reclaiming his luggage, they ushered him on, assuring him that all would be taken care of. Partly mesmerized, as in a dream from which could not awaken, he eventually was swept through the air terminal to the pavement outside, where seven coaches were lined up to take the Russian Jews to their new homes.

Welcome Home Indeed!

Without his luggage, not carrying on identity card like those the Russian Jews were showing to officials as they boarded the buses, eventually he was left behind as the coaches drove off in a flurry of cheers, songs and Israeli music. Alone on the deserted pavement, Issam held his unstamped passport wondering what to do.

Welcome home indeed! Issam faced an enormous problem. Because he had passed through the strictest of airport security systems, he now had to attempt to explain his way back into the building, reclaim his luggage, and regularize his arrival at Ben-Gurion airport. He was especially concerned since he had rented a car from a Palestinian company in East Jerusalem to drive to his sister's house in Bethlehem. He did not want to keep the car rental people waiting, and it already was late.

The return into the airport in search of his luggage was a nightmare involving four hours of interrogation and a body strip search. His clothes and belongings were dumped out of his suitcases on the floor of the interrogation room. Highly respected by his industrial colleagues, prominent in his suburban community in the U.S., here in the land of his birth he was surrounded by hostile faces and the ever-present menace of physical abuse. Born in Bethlehem, not in Moscow, a Palestinian, not a Jew, he was a pariah in his homeland.

Fortunately, after taking a taxi to Jerusalem, he found the car rental staff had waited up late and kept the office open for him. Issam started driving the car toward Bethlehem but, only two miles from his home, he was halted at an Israeli roadblock near Tantur. He protested that he held American citizenship but to no avail. Bethlehem was a closed military area. He was not allowed to continue.

In desperation, he returned at midnight to Jerusalem and found a room in an East Jerusalem hotel. The next day he spent hours in the American Consulate and eventually obtained papers to enable him to enter his home town of Bethlehem.

The following day Israeli soldiers took his papers and allowed him through the road block at Tantur. At last, he thought, but it was not to be. A mile further down the road, by Rachel's Tomb, Israeli soldiers at another roadblock refused him entry into Bethlehem.

Bot giving up, Issam drove round the mountain route into the desert and attempted to enter the village of Beit Sahour. More roadblocks impeded progress. This time a Beit Sahour man, his curiosity aroused by the rental car with Israeli number plates, offered to help when he discovered a fellow Palestinian inside.

During a half-hour drive across fields and along rough tracks, the man from Beit Sahour guided Issam secretly into the back of Bethlehem without attracting the attention of the army patrols. Nearly two days after his arrival at the airport, he had reached his sister's house, the family home where he was born.

There may have been some consolation in knowing that, unlike his 13th century predecessor, he did not have to flee Beit Sahour. At least not right away. He had five days left of the seven days permitted on his visa.

Or he may have thought of his fellow Russian passengers. Were they now arguing with the same unyielding bureaucrats for visas to reach the United States? More than likely many were destined, willingly or unwillingly, to live in the brand new houses in the huge new settlements built on Palestinian land on the West Bank or in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

And what did Issam's sister say to him, as bedraggled, he finally stood on the doorstep of their home? "We are a closed military area," she shrieked in fear and disbelief. "How did you get here?" Ignoring what 25 years of suffocating military occupation does to the mind, Issam, a remarkably patient and persistent man, said only, "Do you really want to know?"

"No," she said, her eyes filling as fear drained away. "Welcome home."

Brother Patrick White teaches at Bethlehem University on the West Bank.