25. Akko, Israel… Amazing Serendipity. 1/12/23

Today we strolled the little alleyways and streets of Akko’s old city, walking through market streets and more market streets.. Oh, we also walked through the underground tunnel (The Templar Tunnel) which was built by monks called “solitary soldiers.” They were the ones who took care of the temple (hence the name ‘templar’). They also protected the Christians who came to the holy land. The templars dug the secret tunnel right under the houses above; the tunnel connected to the Citadel and to the port. It was discovered only in 1994! Water still flows through the tunnel.

As we strolled, the skies kept getting darker and it began to rain. At first it was fine, because we were covered by whatever covering was in the markets—plastic, roofing, etc. But then it started to rain much harder and we were getting soaked, so we looked for a place to get shelter and maybe some mint tea. There are tons of tiny restaurants, but we really weren’t hungry and didn’t want to take up table space. Finally, we saw a tiny “café” which served coffee (which we don’t drink) but we thought we’d go inside and maybe they could make us tea. It was all men in the little shop, which was very dimly lit, and once inside we realized that most of the men were smoking shisha in hookahs. But we asked the guy who was making some kind of food if we could have tea and so we were fine…sitting in big comfortable couches having our tea and staying dry. 

While we waited for the rain to stop (each of us playing Spelling Bee on our phones), a 60-ish year-old man came over and asked where we were from, speaking fairly good English. Turns out he lived in San Jose for about 28 years; he’s an Israeli Arab, born in Akko. His mother was Jewish and his father Muslim, but he was raised Muslim. As we chatted, we found out more and more about him. He has three grown children (none of whom have ever been to Israel—which is disappointing to him—two boys (30 and 33) and one daughter (28); they all live in San Jose (and perhaps the wife as well; he didn’t say). He clearly knew the guys in this café well.

As we talked, he explained that he had built a construction business in San Jose, and he also started a very successful (high volume) pizza place there as well. Then he told us that when he was starting the construction business, he went door to door in many Bay Area cities looking for work and that he met a political woman whose name he said was “D’Angela (??)” He said she hired him to do work and then recommended him to her friends and he did a lot of construction and renovation work for this “D’Angela” and others, when the firm was really small. He said when he met this woman, he didn’t know who she was, but when he told others they explained she was very famous. After a few minutes we realized, he was referring to Angela Davis!!! His firm grew and took on much bigger projects, but he said he owed a lot to her. We also chatted a bit about ages; he guessed that Mike was 62 years old… so Mike was obviously in seventh heaven.

He asked us how we were liking Israel and where we have been. I told him where we’ve gone and about our time in the West Bank. He asked what we thought, and I was very honest with him. He nodded saying it was a terrible situation and he was glad he came from Akko because Akko was a “mixed city.”

I began to be more curious about this guy, Ibraham Baballah. He said to look him up on the Internet when we got home, but I started to google him right then and there. And as I did that, he said “You’ll find that I sued John Ashcroft (Attorney General in the Bush administration) and I won!!” 

So, here’s the story (and frankly I remember reading it in the newspapers in 2003: Ibraham (our new best friend), sued the US government and was granted asylum and eventually American citizenship based on the suffering he endured as an Israeli Arab through persecution by the Israeli government and military. He didn’t go into detail, but it included not being able to find work in his field (accounting) and as a fisherman being attacked by the Israeli military on the sea. As a result of the judgement in his favor, he, his wife, and his oldest son who was born in Israel couldn’t be deported from the US.

Ashcroft had the discretion to deny the asylum if the family had a criminal record or posed danger to the US. But his record was clean. The judge determined that Baballah established that he had indeed suffered persecution based on his ethnicity and religion and that he had a genuine fear of future persecution if he returned to Israel. He testified that as the child of a mixed marriage he faced discrimination his whole life. He wound up a fisherman because of this discrimination and that banks in Israel would not hire him. The story is pretty complicated, and it was the fact that he had numerous, very specific incidents to point to that indicated and proved how he was discriminated and how he was treated in Israel, especially by the military. That convinced the judges in the 9^th Circuit to grant his asylum request. His attorney was quoted as saying that the implications of this case show that “it doesn’t matter where people come from, that we as a nation are interested in applying our immigration law. Of course Israel is an ally, but if someone suffers persecution, we’re going to apply our laws regardless of where they’re coming from.”

And the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said “It’s important that a court has recognized that the Israeli state can be very abusive to non-Jewish citizens, especially Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

What serendipity! We go into some tiny shisha place with all men—just to get out of the rain—and we meet this guy whose story is so fascinating. After learning the story, we talked a bit more and were more open about our politics and his plight. He did not return to Israel until just a few years ago to visit and was a little nervous about what would happen at the border, He carries both an Israeli and a US passport. But all went well, and he has returned again.

From there we continued to try to stay dry, and walked the market–dashing in and out of little shops and jumping from awning to awning—but to no avail. Anyway, despite the rain, we went back to Uri Buri because I decided I wanted to buy the cookbook (which has been published in many languages). Last night, I almost bought it but then realized it would be heavy to take back. While at our room, I checked online to see if I could get the book… but it’s out of print and the only copies available were about $250, because I supposed it’s rare? So today we went back and bought the book. For about $25. and there was Uri at a table—very willing to autograph it—thus the photo above of me, Mike, and Uri.

Tonight, we decided—our last real dinner in Israel (except for what we will eat at the airport tomorrow) we will eat again at Uri Buri… More on that tomorrow as I’m going to send this out before dinner.

Best –

Fern