CAIRO: Unless something goes terribly wrong, Hamas will soon form the first Islamic government to ever take office through internationally monitored elections in the Arab world. Louis Fernando, the deputy director of the European Union (EU) Mediterranean Affairs Desk, sounded tense and tired over the phone from Brussels. His boss wanted a status report on Hamas’ politics immediately. And he wanted that report translated into Arabic and Aramaic.
“Aramaic, you said? I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “Yes, I know it’s crazy, he said. “Apparently there is a village, Beit Mashit it’s called, that still speaks Aramaic. It is situated smack on the buffer zone, left or right of the separation wall, I cannot remember. Someone has got it into Mr. Solana’s head that this village holds the key to future peace in the region. I shouldn’t really be telling you this.
Louis isn’t given to slips of the tongue. If he’s mentioned Beit Mashit, it’s because he wanted the word to go around. I wasn’t going to play this game. Also, I disapprove of the way the EU is acting. You cannot encourage a nation to vote and then get all silly about it. It just isn’t fair, but I said nothing.
The next day, I was coming out of a Lebanese restaurant when a big man approached me. “Abu Khaled is in town and wishes to speak to you over coffee, he said. I haven’t seen Abu Khaled since Helsinki, and was never really comfortable around him. He talks too much.
Abu Khaled was a bit greyer in the hair, but otherwise unchanged. For an hour he regaled me with stories about Hamas and Fatah and common acquaintances. When I said I had to go, he suddenly came to the point. Did I know anyone who spoke Aramaic? “Just one, but I think he’s somewhere in Zaire now, teaching medieval history.
He needed to have a document translated in a hurry. It was a document written in, of all places, Beit Mashit. The Palestinian village, he told me, is one of the last strongholds of the Aramaic language in the region, the language Jesus reportedly spoke. The village has an odd reputation. In the entire Palestinian areas, this is the only village that has never showed any interest in politics. Fatah has no supporters there. Hamas has no guns. Not one shot has been fired in anger there since Alexander’s soldiers grabbed a flock of sheep some 23 centuries ago. The village has less than 1,000 inhabitants and its women still make blue-and-red baskets in the same way they made them before the second fall of Jerusalem.
Recently, a strange thing happened. When EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was visiting Ramallah a few months ago, a middle-aged merchant handed him a manuscript in what looked like Hebrew. It turned out it was in Aramaic, and contained a detailed account of every political position Fatah and Hamas had taken over the past few decades. Moreover, it gave specific advice as to what negotiators should do in the event of a Hamas victory. This little-known, seemingly sleepy village was apparently doing its political homework. But the manual was written in an archaic language and proved too hard to translate.
Even by The Da Vinci Code standards, that was too much. “Why would anyone do such a thing? I asked.
“Let’s just say that Beit Mashit is not acting on ulterior motives, Abu Khaled said. “The writers of the manuscript claim to have found an easy way to make everyone happy, from Fatah to the Americans. At the heart of their plan is a scheme to revive the Aramaic language. The Aramaic culture, they claim, is the ultimate bridge among all the religions and cultures of the region.
“We’re all talking roadmaps and money and concessions, and those guys want to take us to pre-Ptolemaic times? Haven’t we listened to enough madmen? Do we really want to go down this road?
“Well, I don’t know, Abu Khaled said. “The EU is definitely fascinated by the idea. And come to think of it, we really are desperate. We’ve tried everything in the book. Guns, flowers, words, arbitration – nothing works. Now Hamas is short of funds to run the government. The revival of an ancient language may just boost tourism and business enough to keep the boat afloat. Israel needs reassurance, and Aramaic has the same alphabet as Hebrew. Not a bad gesture. It costs nothing.
Abu Khaled may have a point. We’ve been trying our hand at the Middle Ages for sometime now. Why not explore Phoenician methods for a change? I am not totally convinced, to be frank. But I gave Abu Khaled the number of the linguist in Zaire.
