Maree Makom

Twice
T., a scrawny man, stooped like a porter, his words
sharp and his story flowing bright in broken,
borrowed, Hebrew, is married to K., whose hair is
young and light, her eyes wrinkled and her quick
smile toothless. The color of the UN Relief Agency’s
donated tent, in which they are sitting, is olive
green like the enemy’s uniform, and around it lie
fallen bricks and lumps of broken cement out of
which coil twisted metal snakes. From a small
porthole cut in the backside of the tent, and from
its front opening, intermittent-kids are peeping.
K.’s hands know them by rote, and they delouse
their hair and wipe their noses on their own accord,
letting her eyes wander through the guests.
But just then the image is replaced, confused. And
here they all are again, sitting in the only cement
structure now left in the bulldozers’ flattened trail,
upon which several months later—or did this
perhaps already take place?—the iron bar will
swing and rip the house’s skin and crush its
foundations. The voices, as before, are alive and
effervescent, including that of T., who has just
returned from jail a few days ago, a bit thinner and
further stooped, his tongue agile and warm still
and bubbling with images, indulging in the texture
of the visiting filmmakers’ language, the language
also of those who uprooted his house.
Video Recording Site
Al-Khalil surroundings. A demolished home of
a Palestinian family
18,000 Palestinian homes have been
destroyed by Israel since 1967. The IDF carries
out three types of house demolitions: ‘Clearing
operations,’ which are intended to meet what
Israel defines as ‘military needs’; Administrative
demolitions of houses built without a permit;
And house demolitions intended to punish the
relatives and neighbors of Palestinians who
carried out or are suspected of involvement in
attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers 1 .
Video Recording Occasion
1998. Production of a video piece by L. and R.
The majority of the scenes are shot in
Deheishe, a refugee camp, and in demolished
homes or homes about to be demolished in
the vicinity of Al-Khalil.
Participants
T. and his wife K. - Residents of a home at the
outskirts of Al-Khalil. T. and K.’s home has
been twice demolished by the Israeli Army
under the pretext of the absence of a permit.
Their land ownership documents date to the
Turkish Occupation period (prior the
constitution of the Israeli state in 1948).
L. - An Israeli videographer residing in Tel Aviv
R. - An Israeli writer living in Jerusalem
1. Through No Fault of Their Own,Nov. 15, 2004, B’Tselem Publications