JAFFA or YAFA

The Oranges of Yaffa
before any Israelis came

1937

Where did all those oranges come from ?

It was august 1968 and I have just landed in Frankfort
getting ready to enter my studies that would make something
out of a 20 years old Beirutee.

The first time in Europe , the first time in the West
the first out into the first-world.........

My first cultural-choc was that the public-toilet-rooms
in Frankfort have had a slot-machine which opens the doors
only if you would drop a 10 pfennig coin .

And I wondered then , how does a German do it,
if he has no 10 pfennig coin ???

So I learned my first lesson , quickly
and without contesting the German way of life.

I joined the Student's life and started promptly
getting acquainted with the German "grundlischkeit"
and most of all I started using my wrist-watch
more than 10 times per day ........
and not as a jewel anymore.

Of course my next cultural choc came when ,
in the Supermarket I saw that each orange
was stamped my the letters " J A F F A "

I asked my German friends what "JAFFA" is
and they explained that :
"The Israelis have turned the Palestinian-desert into a green-land
and that they were planting Oranges in that same desert"
I asked them : Why call it Jaffa , because Jaffa is " Yaffa"
which is a city in Palestine which has had Oranges even
before Jesus was born...... and not after the coming of
the Israelis !!!

Everybody told me that I were wrong and that those Oranges
come from the desert of Negev and that Jaffa is not Yaffa.
I were to be mistaking and that Israelis did wonders in the desert
and that I am only a jealous Arab....

At the age of 20 , forty years ago
the Yaffa oranges were Palestinian
in my mind and they still are , today .

Israelis never planted any oranges in the desert
and I hope that my German-friend do know it , today.

What the Israelis planted in the desert were 5 prisons
to fill them with Arabs and one Nuclear-Atomic-Factory.

Europe later got filled with Jaffa-oranges , until in the 1970's
Morocco started competing with Israel and Morocco won
completely......but none of my European-friends has told me
that the Moroccan grew their oranges in any desert....
Because only Israelis do miracles
and Moroccan do plantation only !!

40 years later ,
you still have to pay in a German-toilet
and Israel still makes miracles......while Moroccans don't .

Raja