A
Moment of Silence
Martin Brian & O’Keeffe, 1979
May 1968:
The blue Wyllis station wagon rattled on down the road to Nablus, Farid
Sylwan, at the wheel, flashing his gold tooth in all directions as
the cacophonous tunes of the enemy's music halls wafted from the
car radio. Just the two of us now. Joe, having had his fill of army
life, would soon leave the unit and the country for quieter pastures
abroad. The hills zoomed past, images of beauty before Hilton and
Sheraton and the miracle Potash factories, visage of the land before
the Jewish State conferred the blessing of Progress.
Nablus (Sh'chem) is a town built on two hills, stone Arab houses blending
into the landscape. Down in the center lies the suk, the local market
area. As we drove towards it at seven o'clock in the morning the streets
were deserted, the shops closed-walls of corrugated iron. The troops
were everywhere, strung out along the narrow pavements. At the four
corners of the suk stood the armoured cars of the army and the border
police, grinning soldiers perched upon waiting machine guns.
It was `clean up' day. The suk, so we were told, had always been the
untamed sewer of Nablus. The Turks, the British, the Jordanian Arab
Legion had feared to tread there. The winding arched alleyways with
their markets and stalls had been the kingdom of the bandits, the queers,
the cut-throats and the Fatah. There were rumours of vast underground
caverns and drains, nooks and niches and a million hiding places for
the underworld, precisely how many and where no one knew.
We, the Israel Defence Forces, were to make history and do the town
a service by cleaning out this den of thieves.
At this time of day the mystery was hollow, the stalls empty, windows
barred. But as the Wyllis clattered its way towards the center of the
maze we began to hear a low murmur of many voices. We stopped and proceeded
on foot around the winding corners, to the market place square.
Though the Operation had only just begun there was already a crowd
in the square, some hundred and fifty people, men and boys, aged 15
to 65. They were sitting in the center of the square, hunched up, gazing
at their knees. Few looked up. The soldiers stood round, wary. Everyone
was waiting.
Our liaison man strode up. A lieutenant of the border police, full
of pep and go, he had a chart in his hand, a map of the city. `You
arrived just in time,' he said, `we're going up for another swoop,
taking this area here,' he jabbed a finger at the map.
I took hold of the camera, Farid took the little black bag of accessories
and the sun-gun and we set off up the road, the Lieutenant, us two
and six soldiers. Three of the soldiers carried what appeared to be
large roadworkers' sledgehammers.
The street was narrow and winding, all windows barred as if the inhabitants
had all emigrated to Australia. We stepped through a gloomy courtyard,
forward through a puddle of piss to a dilapidated iron door like that
of an abandoned tomb.
The Lieutenant knocked on the door with the butt of his gun, not especially
savagely, enough to be heard. He called out something in Arabic.
No answer.
I held the camera, motioned Farid to be ready with the sun gun.
The Lieutenant called out again.
There was a scurrying sound from within, but no answer. The Lieutenant
gestured to the three soldiers with the hammers, they stepped forward
and began battering the door. I nodded to Farid and began to roll.
He switched on the light, stood behind me,
The door was old, the hinges gave quickly. It was pushed open and the
other three soldiers rushed inside. A very small room, very full. Big
bed, bedclothes, clothes hanging up, framed pictures on the walls,
an old cupboard with more clothes, a wooden table and chairs. Floor
of solid stone, bare white stone ceiling. A woman and two children
sitting on the bed. Afraid. Silent. The Lieutenant stepped up, asked
a question. The woman shook her head. The camera whirred. The woman
blinked in the light of the sun-gun. The Lieutenant checked his papers,
mentioned a name. Question. The woman shook her head. The Lieutenant
nodded to the soldiers, who went out. There were stairs at the side
of the door, leading to upper floors. Their boots clattered up the
stone steps. There was no need to search the room itself. It was so
tiny you could see all its contents at a glance.
We left the room. Shouts from the Lieutenant to the soldiers. Answering
shouts from the soldiers-no sign of anyone. `We'll move on,' the Lieutenant
said. The exchange had been cool and technical. It had seemed like
checking a dog license.
The patrol moved from house to house, to check those who, according
to the lists, should have been at the market square but were not there.
Some might have fled. Others might long ago have moved to another town,
or died. The lists were not perfect.
House to house, the Arriflex whirring, the sun-gun blazing into people's
eyes. The houses were mostly similarly builtan iron or wooden door,
sometimes rotting, stone rooms, used and ragged clothes. Some, the
more affluent, would have a carpet on the floor. One house had in one
room five children under twelve, a woman and an ageing mother; in the
courtyard a very old grandfather in a faded robe on a creaking bed,
torn mattress, broken springs, an old testament figure fallen on hard
times and arthritis. But he was grinning, calling for coffee, musingly
recalling to the Lieutenant the number of children he had brought into
the world. (Why did he smile? Perhaps it was because he'd seen it all
and outlived many. The smell of poverty, looking back, was a smell
of dust and the taste of maddeningly sweet coffee, brought in tiny
cups on a brass tray, sipped by sweating soldiers holding in their
free hand large roadworkers' hammers.)
When we returned to the market square it was mid-morning, the Operation
was in full swing. It was rumoured that one-eyed Mussa D (thus nicknamed
by the press) was hovering over the scene in a helicopter and was about
to grace us with his presence.
The market square was now crowded. There must have been four or five
hundred people bunched up there. The subdued murmur was like the buzzing
of a beehive. I scouted about for good angles for this strange scene,
and came across a wooden frame over a stall. A sort of noose hung from
it, and through this frame the crowd in the background seemed in the
shadow of the hangman's rope. `Very good.' I muttered to myself.
The pace of the Operation was growing. Soldiers led a column of men
into the square from the belly of the suk. They came cluttering up
the stairs, stumbling. Taking my eye from the viewfinder I found they
were trembling. Many were sweating. Knees were knocking. One old man
had wet his baggy trousers. The border police soldier who led this
ragged column walked up to the Lieutenant-Where shall I put this shit?'
he called.
The Lieutenant pointed towards the back of the bunched crowd. The soldier
yelled at his column, motioned with his gun; they sat down silent,
looking at their knees.
At the front of the crowd was a table, at which three officers sat
before a pile of papers and lists, like customs officials at a border
crossing. A man called out names. People in the crowd came forward
one by one, identity papers, often faded to pulp, clutched in their
hands. The officers checked out the lists. One by one the Arabs were
led off, beyond the crowd, into a smaller clearing. The scene there
was bizarre: Four army and police jeeps stood in a row at the edge
of the clearing, a small rise in the ground flanked by a high stone
wall at its end.
In each jeep sat an officer, police or army, with another list or pad.
Beside him in each jeep sat a man in nondescript civilian clothes,
a large hood over his head, with two holes for the eyes.
As each Arab was brought up, he was paraded in front of the jeeps.
He was led up to the bonnet of the jeep, turned full face to confront
the man in the hood. The man in the hood would either nod or shake
his head. The Arab would then be led gently by the arm to the next
jeep, where again the hooded man inside would either nod or shake his
head. And then to the third jeep, and the fourth.
If all four hooded men shook their heads the man was led back to the
market square and took his place back in the mass, safe until the next
Operation. On the small rise in the ground beyond the jeeps sat twelve
to fifteen gaunt men, guarded by four soldiers. They were those at
whom one or more of the hooded men had nodded. If all the hooded men
had nodded the man was practically lost-he had been positively identified.
If only one or two of the hooded men nodded, there had to be a further
investigation. One guessed that an identification by a single man,
a single informer, might mean a personal grudge rather than a genuine
sale. The four men in the four jeeps were therefore an insurance policy
for `justice'.
Now the great man padded up softly from behind-baggy khaki pants and
shirt, faded battledress, the eye patch taut, the all-seeing remaining
eye bulging out as usual. The Operation was not, it seemed, all that
successful. The catch was unimpressive. Word had filtered through in
advance by modern flying carpet and bush telegraph. The sought after
birds had mostly flown. Still, valuable experience had been gained:
the technical aspects of the round-up had been very smoothviolence
`minimal', the inhabitants taught firmly who is boss. The one-eyed
man was not too displeased.
As the scanty catch of fifteen suspected Fatah men was led off, a hooded
man removed his mask as the policeman with him offered him a cigarette.
The hooded man was not an Arab. His hair was curly, blonde, he chatted
with the policeman in Sabra Hebrew. Things are not always what they
seem. The tree of deception had borne meagre fruit, and the men with
the hammers would certainly be calling again…
 |
| |
|
|
|
