Ariel is so beautiful. They finally decided to move us to Massiyahu prison in Ramla. Abu Mohammed heard the guards deliver the news. After 4 months and 25 days, he is still in jail. He congratulated us on the news, then sat at the door of his cell, something I have never seen him or any other prisoner do.
"You'll like it there", he started. His words were to me, but his eyes were in deep examination of one of the tiles on the floor. "It's nice. They let you see the sun." He wasn't talking to me anymore. Just letting words fall out. At that moment, I was convinced that the sun was theirs to give or take away. I forgot that there could be another reality.
The goodbyes were bittersweet. Each of the prisoners with whom I had spent the past two weeks stuck his index finger through the grating of the cell door and shook goodbye. Nasser. Jamal. Abu Mohammed. Abu Riyadh. Mohammad. Mohammed. Abu Tariq. Badawi. And those are the ones I knew best. I was leaving them in an ugly place to an ugly system. Like so many other times in my life, I was surviving those around me.
Ariel is so beautiful. As they drove us away, I got lost in its beauty. The olive trees told a thousand stories, as did the rolling hills in the distance. The land lived both its rustic beauty of the desert and the imposed Americana beauty of lush greenery according to Ben Gurion's dream of making the desert come alive. Both were equally breath-taking and inspired awe. For a moment, it seemed all of the spilled blood made sense - Aaaah! This is what they're fighting for!
Abu Mohammed was right. Massiyahu is like heaven. Sitting here, writing this, I can see the sun. We're allowed out of our cells twice a day, into a court yard where we can get an even better look at the sun. Heaven, but with guns and guards and barbed wire.
tarek