War Torn in Columbus: Palestinian-Americans & Arab-Israelis

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

*****   The Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2002 Sunday, Home Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 09A
LENGTH: 378 words
SERIES: WAR TORN IN COLUMBUS
HEADLINE: PALESTINIAN-AMERICANS | POINT OF NO RETURN;
HOPE OF WEST BANK FUTURE FADES WITH VIOLENCE
BYLINE: Mary Mogan Edwards, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Because Sam and Nadia Rasul look and sound every inch the 
Youngstown-born, PTA-heading, systems-analyzing, minivan-driving 
suburban parents they are, it's telling that the crisis in the Middle 
East is a crisis of sorts for them.

It's not as if the Palestinian-American couple have dodged bullets or 
braved tanks in the West Bank. Their lives are well-rooted in Ohio. 
"Clearly, we're not as affected as people who have just come (to the 
United States)," said Sam, a 37-year-old information-systems analyst 
who lives with Nadia, 34, and their four children in Hilliard.

Still, the violence that has swept the West Bank, including their 
parents' village of El-Bireh, feels to Nadia like the end of 
something she's long cherished: a chance for another way of life. As 
much as it might surprise her Stonehill Street neighbors, Nadia 
dreams of raising her children in Palestine.

It was during a visit two years ago with Sam and their three oldest 
children that the realization hit home.

"I seriously said, 'I want to stay,' " she recalled.

"When I saw the children in the apartment below us -- they were so 
mature. They wanted to go to the mosque so they could pray. They were 
so close to their grandparents."

She also admired the less-pampered lifestyle. "Children are more 
independent. They're not driven everywhere."

Emulating those values is tough in the United States, even as they 
send their children to an Islamic school and try to stay close to 
their siblings and parents, Sam said. "No matter how you try to 
re-create that here, without the surrounding culture it's not the 
same."

As it happened, the current intifada broke out days after their 
return to the United States, and the Rasuls haven't been back to the 
Middle East. It's getting harder to imagine a time when they could 
safely live in the apartment the extended family has set aside for 
them in El-Bireh. "Every day, I feel it slipping away," Nadia said.

Meanwhile, a West Bank aunt's children, who always seemed more mature 
to Nadia than her own, are even more worldly-wise now.

"Her 8-year-old boy knows all the different types of bullets, from 
finding them around inside the house," she said. "He knows the ones 
that come from the tanks and the ones that come from the guns."

GRAPHIC: Photo, TOM DODGE DISPATCH,, Sam and Nadia Rasul wonder if 
their children -- from left, Amir, 6; Tariq, 1;, Medina, 10; and 
Kareem, 8 -- will ever have the chance to know their, grandparents' 
Palestinian homeland.   *****

*****   The Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2002 Sunday, Home Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 08A
LENGTH: 463 words
SERIES: WAR TORN IN COLUMBUS
HEADLINE: ARAB ISRAELIS | CONFLICTING FEELINGS;
TORN BETWEEN THEIR HOME AND THEIR PEOPLE
BYLINE: Mary Mogan Edwards, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A half-century of violence in the Middle East has woven a rich 
tapestry of grief. The pain of Jews, Arabs and those who care about 
them is entwined in endless variations.

A tiny bit of that complexity emerges when you talk to Suhail Zidan 
and his wife, Samia, about the intifada that has rocked Israel and 
its occupied territories for the last two years. The Northwest Side 
couple are Palestinian Arabs who were born and reared in Israel -- 
Samia, 38, in the Mediterranean port city of Haifa and Suhail, 44, in 
the nearby town of Acre. That means they enjoy privileges denied to 
Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: As Israeli citizens, 
they can vote, carry passports and travel in and out of Israel.

As far as Suhail is concerned, that's as far as his Israeli identity goes.

"I'm an Israeli, but that's just a document," he said. "I feel a 
sense of belonging there because of my history and my family's land. 
Do I belong to a Zionist, Jewish state? As long as Israel keeps 
saying that's what it is, they are saying I don't belong."

A web of restrictions, some subtle and some overt, prevents most Arab 
citizens from choosing where they live or go to school, he said.

To him, the current violence is "just another phase of Palestinians 
trying to reclaim their lives from oppression."

Samia, though, feels an internal conflict as an Arab Israeli citizen.

Palestinians in the occupied territories "always say we are 
schizophrenic," she said. "We have to identify with both cultures. We 
have to be part of Israeli society."

And when the killing happens, she grieves for both sides.

She shares Palestinians' horror at the deaths of innocents in the 
West Bank and Gaza, but a Palestinian-delivered bomb in Haifa strikes 
equal fear.

"I have Jewish friends, and I have family," she said. "It could be my 
family on that bus. What happens (in Israel) affects us."

The violence affects the future, too. Suhail is determined that their 
sons -- Nader, 3, and Samer, 11 months -- will be educated in Israel 
so they can know more of their own culture and the world.

"If you live overseas, you'll know the U.S.," he said. "If you live 
only in the U.S., you'll hardly know anything else."

In Israel, his children would have access to a large family and "a 
completely different social fabric of languages, sights, sounds -- 
even the smells as you go into the street," he said.

"They're Americans, but they're also Israeli citizens. They're not 
going to go home strangers."

Samia isn't so sure the boys have a future in Haifa.

She's heard of polls suggesting that 40 percent of Jewish Israelis 
now favor expelling Arabs.

"If you had asked this question two years ago . . . ," she said.

"I don't know what's going to happen to the Muslim community in Israel."

GRAPHIC: Photo, JAMES D. DECAMP DISPATCH,, Suhail Zidan, right, his 
wife, Samia, and their sons Nader, 3, and Samer, 11, months, play at 
home in northwest Columbus. As Arabs born into Israeli, citizenship, 
the Zidans have an especially complex view of the conflict.   *****
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>