Suad Amiry, Mother of Strangers: A Novel (New Texts Out Now)

Suad Amiry, Mother of Strangers: A Novel (New Texts Out Now)

Suad Amiry, Mother of Strangers: A Novel (New Texts Out Now)

By : Suad Amiry

Suad Amiry, Mother of Strangers: A Novel (Penguin Random House, 2022).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Suad Amiry (SA): The tears of my father when I was seventeen years old. The tears that ran down his cheeks when he was not permitted to enter his own house in Jaffa by the Israeli woman who occupied it. The shock and sadness stayed with me forever. It took me five decades to finally come around and write a novel about Jaffa.

Though Mother of Strangers is not about my father, but rather a heartbreaking love story about two teenagers, Subhi and Shams, it is still a homage to my father and his city. It is an attempt to reconstruct a lost city, a lost family home, which I have had to imagine from a distance since my family took refuge in Jordan in 1948.

I tried to reconstruct life in the vivacious port city of Jaffa pre-1948: a cosmopolitan, rich city with various ethnic communities.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address? 

SA: The main topic of the novel is the human tragedy of the 1948 Nakba—a tragic event for us Palestinians which the Western world knows very little about. It comes about from the need to tell personal stories rather than collective ones. Through a tender story of love between fifteen-year-old Subhi and thirteen-year-old Shams—who fantasized about having a future together—we learn about the human price we Palestinians had to pay for the creation of Israel.

In the first half of the novel, and through the eyes of young Subhi, I tried to reconstruct life in the vivacious port city of Jaffa pre-1948: a cosmopolitan, rich city with various ethnic communities. We see its numerous cafes and cinemas, its markets, and the lushness of its orange groves—the famous bayarat Yaffa

The second part of the novel deals with the destruction and the ethnic cleansing of Jaffa and its neighboring villages. One of the topics is centered around what happened to the small numbers of Palestinians who remained in Jaffa, three thousand out of the one hundred thousand that lived there before 1948. The novel also talks about the “Arab ghetto” in which those three thousand were forced to live. The ghetto was surrounded and enclosed by barbed wires and guarded gates, and was subject to a 6am to 7pm curfew. Finally, the novel addresses the 1950 Absentee Properties Law; Palestinian refugees left behind a great deal of property, and this Israeli “law” served as the legal basis for transferring such properties to the State of Israel. It deprived all Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora, Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip from reclaiming their properties, even if they were physically present in areas controlled by Israel. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

SA: Mother of Strangers connects to the rest of my work, because all my previous books, except for My Damascus, deal with the loss of different aspects of Palestine or describe people’s lives under occupation. It also connects to them because of my interest in cities. While Golda Slept Here described Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem and My Damascus described Damascus,  the city where I was born, Mother of Strangers is centered around Jaffa, the city where my father was born.

However, it departs from my previous work in the writing style. While all my previous books were based on short stories that were connected by a common theme, this is my first attempt to write a novel. It also differs in that I am not in it as a character myself, unlike in all my other books. And, though humorous at times, Mother of Strangers might be the saddest of all my books.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have? 

SA: Though I often care about, or fear most, my Palestinian readers, I do hope this novel will be widely read by US and other Western readers. I believe the human tragedy of the Palestinian ‘48 Nakba is not known enough in the Western world, hence the sympathy and support for Israel. I always say the key to understanding the Palestinian-Israeli “conflict” is to know what truly happened in 1948. I want the Western world to realize that what happened to us Palestinians as a result of creating Israel in a majority Arab country could only have led to the ongoing tragedy we see today. I hope my novel, Mother of Strangers, succeeds in fostering this understanding.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

SA: I am working on a long-sought dream; with the support of the Aqttan Foundation in Ramallah, I am working with a group of young Palestinians on the art of storytelling. I am also working on a new book, but as often is the case, I do want to give the punch line or let the cat out of the bag just yet.

J: Is this a fictional novel? 

SA: No, not at all!! This novel is based on and inspired by a true story. I met my two protagonists Subhi and Shams in 2018, when she was eighty-four and he was eighty-six. They narrated to me their love story as the tears were running down my cheeks, this time.

 

Excerpt from the book (from pp. 3-6)

1. The Best Mechanic in Town

(Jaffa, June 1947) 

It took a few ascending yells—“Subhi! Subhi! Subhi! Goddamn, walak, Subhiii!”—before he showed signs of hearing his name. Half- heartedly, he raised his head and looked in the direction of his boss. At the entrance of the dark garage stood M’allem Mustafa with a new customer who was tall and elegant. It took Subhi a few long minutes before he silenced the deafening noise of the electrical generator he was repairing. From a distance, he lifted his palm as if to say “What?” In return, he received a beckoning hand gesture and a command: “Come here!”

Resenting the interruption, Subhi pointed to the dozens of dismantled engine pieces spread out on the smeared concrete floor under his feet. In line were other machines: water pumps, more electrical generators, and engines, all waiting to be fixed by the clever fifteen- year- old mechanic. Familiar with Subhi’s “not wanting to budge” body language, M’allem Mustafa yelled at him again.

“Subhi! Leave everything. Go wash your hands and face. I want you to accompany Khawaja Michael to his orange grove, his bayyara. There seems to be a problem with the irrigation system or the water pump in the big cistern.”

“Khawaja Michael,” mumbled Subhi to himself as he stared once more in the direction of the new customer, a well- built man dressed in a camel hair suit with a light brown fedora.

Khawaja Michael was standing with the strong midday light behind him, making it difficult for Subhi to see his face. The glare formed a halo around one of the richest men in the port city of Jaffa.

Khawaja Michael, Khawaja Michael . . . Where have I heard that name before? Subhi asked himself as he bent over the stone sink, rubbing the engine grease off his hands. Oh, of course, from my father, he remembered, then said aloud, “Khawaja Michael himself! What an honor.”

All of a sudden, Subhi recalled word for word an argument, more like a fight, he once had with his father in which Khawaja Michael’s name was mentioned.

“I love my job. If need be, I’ll do it for free,” Subhi had said in defense of his choice to leave school and work as a mechanic with M’allem Mustafa, the owner of the garage.

“For free? You son of a bitch. Who do you think you are? The son of Khawaja Michael?”

Subhi also recalled how his father had made fun of him for thinking Khawaja was Mr. Michael’s first name.

La ya ibni, no, my son, Khawaja is not his first name. A Khawaja is a Christian or Jewish gentleman. But of course not all Christians and Jews are khawajat, only the rich among them. Some are as poor as your father, if not poorer.”

Subhi knew the poor among the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims— including his Christian neighbors Abu and Um Yousef and Abu Ya’qoub, the Jewish porter at the Carmel Market— but he certainly didn’t know any of the rich khawajat.

“And what is a rich Muslim called?” Subhi asked his father.

“A rich man, I suppose!” his father responded with a smile.

Though excited to accompany one of the city’s richest merchants, who grew oranges and exported them to the whole world, Subhi was worried: What if I fail to fix the water system in one of the city’s largest and most prestigious bayyarat? What baffled Subhi most as he pulled up his stained baggy trousers and hurriedly walked across the garage in the direction of M’allem Mustafa and Khawaja Michael was why Khawaja himself had come to the Blacksmith Market, the Suq il Haddadeen, one of the poorest and shabbiest parts of town, where the garage was located, and had not sent his driver or one of the numerous men who worked for him instead. Khawaja Michael must have had dozens if not hundreds of men working in his groves, and just as many working in his orange export company. It was at this point that Subhi remembered his father describing Khawaja Michael as an isami, a self- made man. Only then did he understand the modesty of self-made men.

Unlike his older and younger brothers, Jamal and Amir, who worked with their father planting and tending for a number of orange groves to the east and southeast of Jaffa, Subhi had followed his passion— or rather, his obsession. From an early age, he had been dismantling and reassembling everything in sight, whether it was his grandfather’s Zenith radio, his father’s agricultural tools, his brothers’ bicycles, the neighbor children’s tricycle, his uncle’s horse carriage, or his younger siblings’ toys and dolls. He dismembered those toys into heads, arms, hands, legs. While the children cried frantically, older family members burst into laughter as they complimented him on his newly invented creatures, where one doll’s limbs were attached to another doll’s torso or an animal head to a human body or the like. Subhi would always restore the dolls and toys back to their original compositions, and then the screaming and yelling would stop.

Subhi’s father, Ismael— also called Abu Jamal, in reference to his eldest son— often asked him, “Why work for M’allem Mustafa when you could work with your own father?”

“The answer to your question is very simple,” replied Subhi.

“M’allem Mustafa pays me thirty piastres a day, while you pay my brothers nothing.”

 

Excerpted from Mother of Strangers by Suad Amiry. Copyright © 2022 by Suad Amiry. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.