Friendly Fire by Ami Ayalon

Author:Ami Ayalon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS019000, POL059000, BIO026000, POL062000, BIO008000, POL011000, POL012000, SOC049000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2020-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

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Sensors

Jibril wound up locking up more terrorists than we did. Since those days, Jibril and I have remained friends because, you could say, we belong to the same fraternity of fighters. We are also survivors of an era when a solution to our peoples’ conflict seemed within reach.

Just to remind myself that once upon a time there was trust between our two sides, whenever a fresh eruption of violence breaks out, I’ll ring him up or we’ll arrange to meet. I’m never looking for secret intelligence; neither one of us has any to share.

A week after my terrifying talk with Rabbi Shapira, I decided to visit him in his office at the Palestinian Football Association in the West Bank town of Al-Ram, half an hour from Jerusalem and a storied place with roots dating back to the Iron Age. During the Crusades, King Godfrey gave it as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A Palestinian driver took me in a Range Rover through the checkpoint. As we approached Al-Ram, I squinted to make out something activists had painted on the security wall. It was a text by the South African writer and antiapartheid activist Farid Esack: MY DEAR PALESTINIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I HAVE COME TO YOUR LAND AND I HAVE RECOGNIZED SHADES OF MY OWN.

The Palestinian Football Association headquarters looks like a high-end medical complex. In front of the entrance three men were busy washing a black, late-model Mercedes sedan. Jibril’s unarmed bodyguards led me to his office. When I entered, he rose from his desk on the far end of the long room and strode in my direction, arms extended. He wore a suit, and his shoes were as shiny as the Mercedes in the parking lot.

“Ma nishma, Ami?” he asked. His nearly flawless Hebrew reminded me once again of my failure to learn Arabic.

I told him about the book I was writing and asked him about rumors that he was planning a political comeback, possibly positioning himself as the successor to President Abbas. He just winked.

He worked to light a cigarette; his large hands fumbling with the lighter gave the impression of a dockworker or a middleweight boxer, and he looked as combative as a cannonball flying right at you. “What do the doctors say about the smoking?” I nudged.

“I don’t see any doctors in the room, unless you’ve changed professions, Ami.” He took a long drag on the cigarette.

We discussed the unrest on the Temple Mount, as always the place to look for rumblings of the next Armageddon. Jibril, speaking in his low, raspy voice like Brando in The Godfather, remained confident that the situation was under control. The Palestinian government had no interest in a popular uprising against Israel, an uprising that just as easily could turn against them.

A man with tea and cookies appeared and, just like the first time we met, Jibril pointed at the tray and growled, “Take some.” We then bantered about old friends and acquaintances. I

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