As a child a tale was told to me of the Halutzim, the pioneers who came from the diaspora to the land of Israel and cultivated the parched, barren earth into the beginnings of a fruitful nation. I did not doubt this tale, or the image drawn for me of the proud pioneers as they idealistically laid the foundation.
Every map here in Jordan tells a different story. According to this tale, the land to the west is called Palestine, or occasionally the Holy Land. The sovereign right of the nation known to me as Israel is not acknowledged by this alternative designation pervading the country from tourist shops to radio stations. This map too bears no description of the West Bank or Gaza, but only that of a national Palestine.
Yet in truth can it be expected to be any different? In a country whose population is more than fifty percent of Palestinian descent, one does not paint pictures of Jewish pioneers irrigating the arid land. Here, as in other Arab countries, it is a point of pride to speak of Palestine, to call the disputed region by this all encompassing name. The Jordan Times, the country’s daily English newspaper, reports each day from Occupied Jerusalem, while taxi drivers will affably ask you whether you have visited their homeland, Palestine. Where such borders are, though, I cannot ask them. Despite official peace since 1994, sometimes in Jordan it appears that the future of Israel is in a precarious state.
But as I watch the afternoon news in Arabic, Hebrew frequently flashes before the television screen during the numerous news reports on the region. Articles on Israel, Israeli-Palestinian, and Arab-Israeli issues cover at least three-pages every day in the Jordan Times. From the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, it remains clear that another country has been securely settled across the United Nations established border.
When I first arrived in Amman I was completely unnerved by the frequency of the regional phrasing. But only in my discomfort can I recognize the anger of Palestinians when the Israeli government today calls the West Bank region by the area’s Jewish, biblical names of Judea and Samaria. In my Jewish yearning for national recognition, I must acknowledge the Palestinians this same right in a part of this land. It is only to our detriment for both Arabs and Jews to continually refuse the concept that certain changes to their maps and stories are necessary for preservation and to persist with narratives that deter public acceptance. While living in Jordan I have unexpectedly sensed a greater longing for the familiarity of Israel than ever before. Yet as a privileged American Jew, I can only imagine what the Palestinian refugee feels as they too stare across the border.
