A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy

“There was hardly anything left to buy in Anata, where the Salamas lived. It had once been one of the most expansive towns in the West Bank, a long strip spreading eastward from the tree-lined mountains of Jerusalem down to the pale-yellow hills and desert wadis on the outskirts of Jericho. But Israel had confiscated almost all of the land in the area and made it inaccessible to Abed and Hilmi and the people of Anata. A town of twelve square miles was now confined to less than a one-square-mile rump.”

A major theme of the book will be the breakdown of traditional Palestinian life, based on tribal connections and traditional family life, under the increasingly heavy Weight of Israeli Occupation. Small villages composed of a handful of families are gradually broken up and rearranged into a system of controlled checkpoints and restrictions that make any kind of independent civic life all but impossible.

“Palestinians from Anata found themselves absorbed into the urban fabric of an expanding Jerusalem. […] [T]hey drove cars on Israel’s multilane highways, bought food at its supermarket chains, and used Hebrew at its office towers, malls, and cinemas. But Anata’s social mores remained unchanged. Prenuptial relations were forbidden, marriages were frequently arranged, and cousins coupled in order to retain wealth and land within the family. Enemies put on a show of great politeness toward one another, life outcomes were powerfully shaped by household reputation—a wayward daughter could ruin the marriage prospects of all her sisters—and the entire drama was shrouded in ritual and courteous speech.”

Between the 1967 conquest of the occupied territories and the 1987 First Intifada, relations between Palestinians and Israelis within those communities were more amenable to cooperation and even collaboration, as Palestinians found economic livelihoods in Israel and Israel sought little other than non-confrontation among the Palestinians. While those years were far from ideal for any involved, it was at least possible for Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories to live a kind of double life, subjects of Israeli law, while still carrying on the traditions of their ancestors.

“Infighting among Palestinians was one of the harshest aspects of the intifada, and it was more widespread than anyone cared to admit. Hundreds were killed and countless others were injured [in disputes among rival factions].”

The Intifada was supposed to represent a moment when Palestinians, in Palestine, for the first time, mounted mass resistance to the Israeli occupiers. This, of course, did happen in many crucial respects, as Palestinians arguably formed a true sense of collective self-consciousness for the first time under occupation, but in doing so, they inflamed many of the divisions that had been brewing for decades.