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THE WORLD
KABUL, Afghanistan —
Twosuicide bombstargeted
aminibus in west Kabul on
Tuesday, killingat least 30
people and wounding 80,
Afghan officials said.
Asuicide bomber drove
an explosives-packedvehi-
cle towardthe minibus as it
nearedthe Afg han parlia-
ment building and then
detonated the explosives,
said Sediq Sediqqi, a
spokesman for the Interior
Ministry.
Asecondexplosion oc-
curred moments later, after
peoplerushedto help the
victims of thefirst blast,
Sediqqi said.
Wahidullah Majroh, a
spokesman for the Ministry
of Public Health, said many
of the wounded andthe bod-
iesofthedeadhadarrivedat
hospitals, “andwe are work-
ing to identify the victims.”
TheTaliban claimedre-
sponsibility for the attack,
saying ina brief statement
thatthe target was “Afghan
intelligence forces.”
HasibSediqi,spokesman
for the Afghan intelligence
agency, the National Direc-
torate of Security, denied
that the agencywas th e tar-
get. Thecompound near the
blast usedto belongto the
agency but now is a parlia-
ment facility, he said.
Abdul Hakim, who lives
near the bombingsite, said
he saw a scene of chaos.
“I ran outside with my
brotherand saw several ve-
hiclestaki ng the injured,”
said Hakim, 20. “I saw more
than 40 people, including se-
curity forces,were killedand
injure d.”
GhulamFaroq Naziri, a
lawmakerfrom Herat prov-ince inwestern Afghanistan,
said another member of par-
liament from that province,
RahimaJami,waswounded,
the Associated Press re-
ported.
Separately, five people
werekilled and12 injured
when anexplosion struck a
guesthousebelongingto the
governor of the southern
province of Kandahar.
Gov. Humayun Azizi and
the United Arab Emirates’
ambassadorto Kabul,Juma
Kaabi,werewounded in the
blast, said the governor’s
spokesman, Samim Khpal-
wak. The deputy governor,
Abdul Ali Shamsi, was
among those killed, police
said.
No group immediately
claimed responsibility for
thatattack.Faizy is a special
correspondent.Ta liban claims role in Kabul bombing attack; 30 killed
BySultan Faizy
SECURITY PERSONNELstandguard after the bombingattack near the par-
liament in Kabul. In southern Afghanistan, a blast in Kandahar killedfivepeople.WakilKohsarAFP/Getty Ima gesLOD, Israel— Tamer Na-
far fell in love with hip-hop
growing up amid the faded
public housing blocks and
garbage-strewn public
parks of Ramat Eshkol, a
hardscrabble interethnic
neighborhood in the central
Israeli city of Lod where life
was punctuated by daily
spurts ofgunfire.
At a soccer field near the
building where his family
lived, drug dealers would
stash weapons and warn
kidsto stayaway. At school,
his classroom had 45 stu-
dents, noairconditioner,
and a leak y roof. Just a five-
minute walk from his home,
an upstairs neighborwas
shot and killed ina gang hit
that left multiple people in-
jure d. Ittook the police
nearlyan hourto arrive.
“Just a month before, a
Jewish guy was stabbed and
they hada he licopter in the
air within 10 minutes,” he
said. “I fo und myself feeling
[angry] about the police. At
18,myfriendsstarteddying.”
Against this backdrop,
Nafar found solace in the
lyrics of African American
rappers like Public Enemy
and Biggie Smalls, learning
English and absorbing their
socialcommentary as he lis-
tened.
Nafar and his friends
would devour hip-hop vide-
os. Scenes depicting con-
frontations between police
and African American
youths reminded them of
Lod.“They would say, wow,
they are talking about us,”
he said.“That’s exactly what
happenedyesterday.”
The audio samplesin Tu-
pac Shakur’s “White Man’z
World” introducedNafar to
MalcolmX and Spike Lee.
“I found Palestinian he-
roes through African Ameri-
can ones,”Nafar said. The
nationalism of the Black
Panthers, he said, prompted
himto learn about the Pal-
estineLiberation Organiza-
tion; theverse ofMaya An-
gelou led himto Palestinian
national poet Mahmoud
Darwish.“IhadtogoWestso
IcouldfindmyEasterniden-
tity.”
As hegrew older, he said,
sociallyconscious hip-hop
inspiredhimtowriteprovoc-
ative protestrhymes in Ar-
abic with his raptrio , DAM.
When a suicidebombing at a
Tel Aviv club prompted
international outrage over
Palestinianterrorism,Nafar
and DAM threw the accusa-
tion back at Israel with the
lyrics, “Who is theterrori st /
You are a terrorist / You have
takeneverythingI own in
myland.”
Now, Nafar’s youth and
early years asa rapper have
becomethe basis for a semi-
autobiographical movie,
“Junction 48”— and he has
becomea cultural lightning
rod, angering Israel’s right
and left.
Througha coming-of-age
romance between twoyoung
musicians, thefilm depicts
the strugglesof a new gener-
ation of Palestinian Israelis
whofind themselves caught
between twoworlds, citizens
of a country that is incon-
stant existential tension
with its Palestiniancompa-
triots.
The movie, which opens
in theU.S. inMarch, follows
thestoryofKareem,anArab
Israeli withdreams of mak-
ing it big. It shows Kareem
tryingto break into the Tel
Aviv hip-hop scene, be-
friending rappers whose
rhymes glorify the Israeli
armyand per forming in Ar-
abic fora Jewish audience.
Like Nafar, Kareem is
fromLod,abiblical-eratown
about15 milessoutheastof
Tel Aviv that lies a bit closer
to some of the Palestinian
villages in theWest Bank. It
is one of the few mixed cities
inIsrael:Arabsmakeup29%
of the city’s population while
they account for one- fifth of
the national population.
As Kareem navigates the
obstaclesof Israel’s music
scene, there are alsoprob-
lems for him back home. His
friends are involved in drugtrafficking.His girlfriend’s
cousins have forbidden her
to date. After the 1948-era
home ofafriend is destroyed
by a government bulldozer,
Kareemsets upastageamid
the rubble and raps an ode
to “the landof my ances-
tors.”
Each situation posesex-
istentialquestions.“Kareem
is ata junction— across-
roads.‘Do I go with mygirl-
friend [in public], or not?’
AmI Palestinian? Or do I
sing at an Israeli club?”Na-
far said.“This whole junc-
tion andconfusion started
in1948.”
On theeve of Israel’swar
for independence, Lodwas
an Arab village on the rail-
way to Jerusalem. The
British authorities built an
international airport in Lod
that serves the country to-
day.Amid fighting there, the
Israeli army killed hundreds
of Arab civilians in thetown
andexpelledtens of thou-
sands more — part of a
larger traumaof A rab dis-
placement accompanying
Israel’s birth that Palestin-iansrefer to as theNakba, or
disaster.
Kareem’s struggles — to
balanceto his career ambi-
tions in Israel with loyalty to
his Palestinianheritage,and
to reco ncile modernity with
traditionalistcustoms— re-
flect the political andcultur-
al crosscurrents faced bythe
Palestinians whoremained
in Israel after1948.
Nafar’s grandfather, who
leftanArabneighborhoodin
Jaffa after it was destroyed
by Jewish forces, settled in
Lod after the war. His father
bought an apartment in Ra-
mat Eshkol, originally built
for Jewish immigrants who
moved out as the neighbor-
hood gradually fell into dis-
repair and crimerose.
DirectorUdiAloni,57,the
son of a noted left-wing Isra-
eli Jewishleader and a long-
timefrien d of Nafar’s, en-
couraged himto writ e about
Lod. Aloni said thatNafar’s
stor y represents theexperi-
ence of young Arab Israelis
living between worlds. “He
connects methe to the reali-
ty of the third generationofkids from theNakba who
speak Hebrew and Ara bic
perfectly, and move back
and forth easily between the
two.”
Thoughtold through a
Palestinian lens,“Junction
48” did not stir much contro-
versyafteritpremieredinIs-
rael. Ticket sales in thetens
of thousands weremodest,
and it didn’tdraw muchof a
Jewish audience.
In August, however, Na-
far attracted controversy
when he accused the Israeli
Academy of Film and Video
judges ofpassingover “Junc-
tion 48” for its top movie
awardsbecausethefilm pre-
sented a distinctly Palestin-
ian narrative. He criticized
the academy for having no
Arabs among the nearly
1,000 voters. The academy
chairman at the time denied
the charges of discrimi-
nation in selecting its
judges.
The rapper said that
while Israel’spredominantly
left-wing cultural eliteswant
to be politically correct by
embracing Arab citizens,they still can’tcome to grips
witha Palestinian rendering
of theirconflict.
“Anything that hadto do
with the story itse lf, they
iced me,” he said.“That’s
how the Israeli left wing
rolls:‘Welikeyourtalent,but
keep your Palestinian narra-
tive outside.’ ”
Then, atthe film awards
ceremony, Miri Regev, Isra-
el’s right-wingcultur e min-
ister , left the auditorium in
protestduringa perform-
ance byNafar because itfea-
turedarecitationof pas-
sages penned by Darwish.
Regev later unsuccessfully
tried to have Nafar’s concert
at a festival canceled,alleg-
ing ina letter that “Nafar
elects atevery opportunity
and onevery stage to come
out against the idea of the
state of Israel and itsexist-
ence as the state of theJew-
ish people.”
Nafar says the attacks by
Regev reflect an effort by Is-
rael’s governmentto censor
art.
“I was educated in an Ar-
ab Israeli school.I was de-
niedMahmoud Darwish be-
fore I was 20,” he said.“All
theytold us is that they
saved the country. Nobody
told us that they kicked out
my grandfather. This whole
piece is missing.”
“Junction 48” alsotakes a
swipe at traditionalism,
showingKareem’s girlfriend
under pressure from male
relatives not to be seen with
hi m in public or performto-
gether.
“There is verystrong self-
criticism,” he said. “The
good guy in our movie is Pal-
estinian and the badguy in
our movie isa Palestinian.”
Nafar has come out
agai nst honor killings in
Lod,andheoncewasthreat-
ened bylocal hard-liners for
performing witha woman.
Despite Nafar’s pointed
criticism of the Israeli ma-
jority, his status asa rapper
limits his popularity among
Arabs in Israel, said one
journalist.
“Culturalfig ures are im-
portant, butthey don’t sway
the masses,” said Jackie
Khoury, the news director of
the Arabic radio station A
Shams. “Ifyou walk on the
streets ofNazareth and talk
to people, [anyone] over 40
wouldn’treco gnize him.”
Nafar said Palestinian
audiencesof the film in the
WestBankwere surprisedat
its portrayal of mundane,
normalized interactionbe-
tween Jews and Arabs. And
for allNafar’s biting criti-
cism of the Israeli establish-
ment and his bleak outlook
on Israeli-Arab relations, he
still sees potential for some-
thing better. Lod, despite
the poverty, crimeand na-
tionalisttension,could be a
cosmopolitan placeif rela-
tions between its ethnic
groups improved, he said.
The collaboration in
“Junction 48,” hesaid,could
be a vehicle forrec oncilia-
tion. “Our movie isa solu-
tion,” he said.“The solution
is when the strong side,the
privilegedside,willbepartof
the story-telling of the op-
pressed side....When Jews
and Pal estinians workto-
getherto te ll the story of the
oppressed, that’s where
hopecomes.”Mitnick isa special
correspondent.A Palestinian lightning rod
Hip-hop artistwho
foundsolace in
Americanrap angers
Israel’s right andleft
with his movie.
ByJoshua Mitnick
TAMERNAFARsays Israel’s left-wing cultural elitescan’t accept aPalestinian rendering of their conflict.
“That’s how the Israeli left wing rolls: ‘We likeyour talent, butkeepyourPalestinian narrativeoutside.’ ”Joshua MitnickForThe Times