Posted on 07/24/2002 4:01:20 AM PDT by Alouette
Palestinian middle class flees West Bank offensive
Tue Jul 23, 8:44 AM ET
Vivienne Walt USA TODAY
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- As a child decades ago, Mohammad al-Joron had his future sketched out in his mind. He would cultivate his grandfather's olive grove in the village of Aboud, 10 miles from Ramallah, and build a home large enough for his extended family.
In 1995, al-Joron finally began making that dream real. He moved from Amman, Jordan, and began harvesting the family grove, pressing 100 gallons of olive oil a year while running the West Bank branch of a Jordanian bank. He bought a gas station for $60,000 and paid $90,000 for land on which to build his family villa.
But the plot remains empty. Now 48, al-Joron is making new plans. He will move himself, his wife and two children by September to Chicago, where his in-laws live. ''I thought I'd never leave,'' he says. ''Leaving is a tragedy.''
For months, the world has been transfixed by images of suicide bombings and Palestinians hunkered down under Israeli military curfew. Far less visible, but potentially just as drastic, has been the stampede of middle-class Palestinians out of the territories. There are no firm emigration numbers, but many of those leaving are ''the Americans,'' as West Bank residents call the thousands of Palestinians with U.S. citizenship or close relatives in the USA.
Compared with the deaths and injuries caused by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, al-Joron's plan to emigrate to Chicago hardly seems tragic. More than 1,700 Palestinians and nearly 600 Israelis have died in fighting that broke out two summers ago.
But the exodus of professional, monied Palestinians has left cities such as Ramallah deeply dispirited and helped suck dry a once-vibrant economy. Now, some wonder whether the best and brightest are taking with them the energy and talents that will be needed to rebuild this territory once the conflict subsides.
After 1995 peace deal
Until recently, parts of Ramallah, a metropolitan area of 243,000 people and the West Bank's commercial hub, were infused with a distinct American flavor. Many hundreds of Palestinian-American families had left their suburban lives in the USA to return after the 1995 peace accords that set the stage for an independent Palestinian state. They were drawn not just by patriotism; many also calculated they could make money by getting in at the start of a new country -- their own.
''I'd say 90% of the private investment was from the Americans who came back,'' says Hazem Quran, a Palestinian dentist from Memphis who returned to Ramallah in 1995 with his wife and four children.
''The Americans'' built hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, stores and sprawling red-roofed houses on the outskirts of town. The Quaker-run Friends Boys School in Ramallah, with its English-language classes, thrived. Although committed to Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian-Americans kept close ties to their adopted country. They overwhelmingly campaigned and voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, believing he would be tougher on Israel than Al Gore.
That was a ''miscalculation,'' says Quran: Bush has refused to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and has called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ''a man of peace.''
In recent months, some of Ramallah has emptied. Quran is president of the Palestinian-American Society, which represented 1,000 families in the West Bank and Gaza in late 2000. By this month, membership had dwindled to 200 families. ''If the situation is still like this by Christmas, the rest will all be gone,'' he says.
As the school year ended this month, the rush to leave accelerated. ''What really bothers me is that these are competent, energetic, smart kids who are leaving,'' says Tina Rafidi, 30, who teaches English and drama at the Friends School. This summer, 11 of 30 students from one class have said goodbye, maybe permanently. Most were headed for the USA. ''They've always had second passports, and they didn't use them until now,'' Rafidi says. ''But this summer they're leaving, and the atmosphere is utterly depressing.''
Until April, the Quran family held out, figuring the violence would soon subside. But when Israel launched its massive offensive in the West Bank, the family boarded up its Ramallah homes and businesses and flew back to Tennessee. Quran's dental practice, about 80% Palestinian-Americans, had already crumbled. Now, the family has set up a rotation: Quran and each of his four brothers will spend two months in Ramallah to prevent the family's deserted properties from being vandalized.
A quiet summer
The West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, about 12 miles north of Ramallah, used to depend on residents who had emigrated to the USA, mostly to Chicago. Each summer, scores would come back, bringing new computers, clothes, music and badly needed dollars, which paid for the village clinic, a mosque and two schools.
''It was great, they would bring back car stereos, and all summer I would install them in cars here,'' says Omar Mohammad, 30, an auto mechanic in Turmus Ayya. ''The kids would try to imitate their short American hairstyles. They all wanted Levi's jeans.''
Turmus Ayya is morbidly quiet this summer. No one has returned. If they did, they would find the road into the village sealed by concrete blocks placed there by Israeli soldiers.
One of the few people still busy in Turmus Ayya is Mohammad Ghani, 44, who uses his van to run a shuttle service to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. About 35 people left for New York and Chicago during the first week of July, he says, as he hurries to pick up a family leaving the country.
Ghani returned from Chicago with his wife and 12 children a few years ago. He had been determined to send his children to Arabic-speaking schools to prevent them from becoming thoroughly American. Now, he says, the price for that is too high. ''We can't leave our own town these days,'' Ghani says. ''Especially my wife and children, who are American citizens. They have no visas to travel around the West Bank.''
This month, he will send the family back to Chicago, where Ghani still owns a grocery store. He had decided to keep it to hedge his bet there would be an independent Palestinian state.
Al-Joron, the bank manager in Ramallah, says he feels defeated that he's abandoning his lifelong West Bank dream. Seated behind his desk, he explains why the bank has no customers today. It only recently reopened after being hit by an Israeli rocket in May.
''Look,'' al-Joron says, pointing to six bullet holes in the wooden coffee table in his office. ''They came right in here. So that is when I decided to leave.''
So these pallis actually do produce something besides murder and mayhem????
They are the ones who are leaving in droves.
Some of these Arab/Pallie immigrants are Christian and not so bad.
They are the ones who are leaving in droves.
Do not get carried away. Muslims used to be afraid to immigrate here, too unsophisticated, but no longer. The Christian component of Arab immigration shrinks each year. As Muslim Arabs bring family members over here through such bulls**t as family reunification. Matter of fact when Muslim Arab immigration started up say 20 years ago, the places they headed to were where Christian Arabs had made inroads. Such as Detroit and Brooklyn.
They are the ones who have already left or in the process of doing so.
Just what we need - more palestinians in Chicago. They're just going to waltz in and settle down. Then they will join some stupid mosque and start to figure out ways to terrorize our nation. Just wait. In a few years we will have homicide bombers in Union Station, Daley Plaza, Marshall Fields. It's coming. Our country is being ruined! Why can't our government see this and put a stop to it? Did you ever notice that they all want to come HERE to the US instead of England or France?
''It was great, they would bring back car stereos, and all summer I would install them in cars here,'' says Omar Mohammad, 30, an auto mechanic in Turmus Ayya. ''The kids would try to imitate their short American hairstyles. They all wanted Levi's jeans.''
Omar Mohammad (such creative names) left out the part where he says "and I would indoctrinate them in the evils of the great satan, death to America and that the infidels and Jews must be killed. I would show them my homicide belt and take their dollars to my leaders at Hamas..." </sarcasm and disgust>...
Freepers, please excuse my ranting today but I have had just about enough of this BS. Thank you for reading. I now realize that I have to figure out ways to get the message out: We, American Citizens, do not want our country being used as the doormat of the world. It is time to put the GO AWAY mat out!
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