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Terrorism and the Birthing Body in Jerusalem

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian

The past three days were the worst days of my life... having the baby under such

stress, needing to catch a bus while experiencing the pain of severe contractions,

knowing that I might have the baby on the bus.... I had contractions, bad ones; I

was dying from fear, pain, ruo’b [terror]... real terror... holding on to my bag... as

if the bag can carry the pain, crying my body in silence, wanting to go back to my

house.... to have the baby there... but then, the baby would end up without an ID,

undocumented, unsecured, displaced... mhahshata [displaced] all her life.... I

really had the worst days of my life.... I was giving birth, but living death at the

same time... and I stopped myself from giving birth.... hanging onto my bag,

squeezing it, promising my unborn to reach the hospital, and have her in

Jerusalem, bil Quds ya habibti bil Quds [in Jerusalem my love, in Jerusalem].

I made it. I wanted to have Eiman [her baby] in Jerusalem. I promised

myself I would never deny my children this privilege. Not having them in

Jerusalem—not because of the medical insurance Jerusalemite ID holders have,

and not because of the blue ID, but because I can’t see my kids suffer. I told

myself that I could not let them inherit suffering... although we Palestinians have

already inherited suffering... I can’t see my kids suffer more from being alone,

away from their cousins, family, grandparents, land, home and schools.

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I took the bus, alone, because my husband was stopped on our way to the

bus... the Israeli soldiers were checking the area, and he was stopped and delayed

for five hours... so, I went on, I was in pain, took the bus, and came to the hospital

alone... I did not think, just took the bus, passed the checkpoint... showed them

my ID, waited in pain until they allowed the bus to go through, took a taxi to the

hospital, and I had her.... thank God she was healthy... but, I am tired, still

anxious, upset and agitated. You asked me how I feel? I will ask you... do you

know anyone in the world, anyone that suffered like us Palestinians? Do you

know any pregnant woman that needs to cross checkpoints, ride a bus, leave her

kids alone under the mercy of them throwing tear gas bombs, under their majassat

el muraqabeh [surveillance devices] that are surrounding our area... to make sure

the new baby is born in Jerusalem... for only if she is born here can she survive

their terror, otherwise, she will be dead... yes, dead... like all those who are unable

to reach their homes... like all those who are deprived of even seeing their beloved

ones, just like when you are physically dead.... My sister can’t come to

Jerusalem... my sister can’t come visit my sick father in her own house.... I will

never do this to my own children... You might think I am crazy... but, it is better

to take the bus, wait at the checkpoints, be humiliated on the way, be threatened

by their rifles, be worried and scared... it is better to go through all this, than

ending up having a child that is undocumented, unrecognized and most of all

deprived of his family, his support, his eizwi [extended community’s support]....

What do I feel? I feel tired, happy, sad, terrorized by their policies and threats...

but I also feel like I did it. (Aida, 29 years old)

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Aida’s words portray the reality of the inheritance of suffering among Palestinians. They

exemplify her feelings of living in fear and terror. Aida’s fears and anxieties—both as a woman

on the verge of giving birth and also after giving birth—is a physical and psychological

manifestation of the treatment of Palestinian women bound by the politics, geopolitics,

biopolitics, and sociocide of military occupation. The invasion of the occupied body

that has inherited suffering due to historical injustice in an occupied time and space, in a state of

mundane terror, in which hegemonic knowledge production has situated Aida and her newborn

in a geography of fear and within an archeology of constant uncertainty, is the overarching

concern of my argument. Aida’s words do not solely reflect her own intimate and individual

fears and worries (feeling terrorized at a critical moment in her life, as she is about to bring

another life into her world); her testimonial addresses larger issues that surround the inscription

of power onto the Palestinian woman’s birthing body, during contractions and in moments of

birth in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).

Birth in Jerusalem, the military occupation’s insolence, insolence with which a dominant

Israeli narrative about Palestinian “terrorism” is crafted, insolence towards Palestinians’

everydayness, in its minute details, finds itself carved on women’s pregnant bodies. Discussing

Israeli domination over Palestinian women’s pregnant bodies is a way of raising and addressing

how one can narrate what is unspeakable and unacknowledged, and how such unspeakability and

acknowledgment shapes the categories of exclusion and inclusion in which colonial racism is

embedded.

What I want to claim is that production of knowledge involving the narration of

Palestinian’s Otherness as terrorists (as inscribed on women’s pregnant bodies and psyches and

the way such inscription is circulated across borders) is embedded in a global politics of denial,