On Feb. 26, 2024 City on a Hill Press interviewed the director of the Freedom Theater, Ahmed Tobasi, who lives in the Jenin Camp in Palestine’s West Bank. The Freedom Theater is a community theater and cultural center in the Jenin Camp. On Dec. 13, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raided the Freedom Theater and detained Tobasi along with 100 other Palestinians. Tobasi was released Dec. 14 and continues to run the Freedom Theater’s operations. Tobasi’s colleague and the Freedom Theater Producer Mustafa Sheta is still detained by the IDF. The Israeli military will continue to imprison him for at least 6 months as a precautionary detainee without charge.
Ahmed Tobasi was born and raised in the Jenin Camp during the first and second intifada. At age 17, he was detained for 4 years as a political prisoner. Upon his release, he began his formal acting training with the Freedom Theater. Eventually, he was able to study and work in Norway at the Nordic Black Theater in Oslo. Tobasi returned to the Freedom Theater in 2013, where he became the Artistic Director in 2020. He has also toured his award-winning autobiographical play “And Here I Am” around the globe.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Interviewer: Can you describe the conditions of living in Jenin since your release?
Tobasi: Yeah, it’s insane. It feels like a nightmare. It’s fascinating how after 20 years, it’s still the same way, the same things, the same crazy. The circle starts again and again and again, and nothing’s being changed.
In 2002, the Israeli forces and army destroyed most of the camp. But that was one event. Even after 22 years they come bulldozing the streets, electricity, Internet, water and make the people’s life more difficult. They’re now punishing the West Bank, they’re punishing the Jenin camp. They know the world is busy with Gaza, and they put all their brutal, crazy actions against the people in the West Bank.
The plan has always been there. The plan is to make the Palestinian people leave their country. Make them exiles and empty Palestine of the Indigenous people. People are really tired. Children are scared. In the night, half the people go out of camp because of nightly invasions. Before yesterday, they rocketed a car with two people. They invade in the morning and come with special forces in the night. I stand there and watch and think, what the heck is this? How is this still going on in this way? And the question is, what is after? What is the end of this?
Interviewer: What is the end that you see?
Tobasi: For me, it’s clear — it’s one end for this kind of occupation, regime, or state. The colonization, the occupation, the West mentality, they will not give up. One side will finish the other. The Israelis have made it clear: they want us to leave Palestine. What is going on, in this time, in this world, in Gaza, It’s beyond any description. We made agreements, we made deals with the international community to make sure that these genocides don’t happen again. But today, the genocide is in Gaza. People are watching and the whole world cannot make Israelis stop killing. It’s not about Hamas, it’s not about resistance, it’s about using an event to put your own plans to use.
Most of the politicians, the Americans, and the international community believe a two-state solution is the only way that the Palestinians can live. But the problem is so obvious. The Israeli leaders are saying it loudly, there is no way to give Palestinians a state. If they agree to give us a state, it will be a state without control. A state without any of the structures of a state. They will control the borders, the security; all these things will be with the Israeli government. The only solution is to finish the occupation. Palestine is big enough for everyone. In America there are Palestinians, there are Israelis, there are Muslims, Christians, Afghani, Pakistani, Indians, and Africans. They live there, in one country, in one community. And I believe Palestine is big enough to include everyone. I don’t care really who lives beside me.
We as Palestinians know war. We know occupation and have been living in this situation for 75 years. We Palestinians want life. We’re really not fighting for flags or borders, or in the name of the country. We really want to live. We really want to plan our weekend. We really want to make a family plan. We want to visit other countries. We want to have our own papers that make us normal people who can take vacations. Go to the sea. Go to Haifa, enjoy the weekend with the family. We want safe nights. To sleep without explosions, without invasions. That’s what we want as Palestinians. We’re really not throwing the Israelis in the sea. We’re telling you that we just need dignity. We need equality. Is that too much, in this time of humanity, to ask for equality?
Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about what the Freedom Theater means to the community and especially to kids?
Tobasi: You know, the [Jenin] camp is one kilometer square with 20,000 people living in it. And at least a quarter or a bit more are children. There are no playgrounds, no place made especially for kids. So the only place that we try to make realities different is the Freedom Theater, where we try to provide a safe place for these kids. They come to play, to express themselves and to learn how to tell their stories.
The current reality in the Jenin camp is a very big problem for the kids. When they witness these explosions, these army invasions, the shooting in the night, they don’t sleep. Mentally, they are in a very challenging time.
In this time of invasions and war, we try to color these times, and tell the people that there is a place like a Freedom Theater in this camp, where Palestinians can talk, express, live our reality, imagine, dream, and do theater to deal with this reality through art. At the same time we resist through theater. You can fight through theater.
This is the only theater venue north of the West Bank. As the Israeli army and vehicles pass by the Freedom Theater, they get a shock. Like ‘They really have theater? They are really doing theater?’ They don’t believe that people in Jenin are doing theater, or that Palestinians could be artists. For 75 years of the occupation and Israeli propaganda, they worked to dehumanize Palestinians. When you hear Arab, or Muslim, or ISIS, or Palestinians, or fighters, or resistance, you will imagine a terrorist guy with a big beard, a big belly and a big gun. And that’s the way you see Muslims and Arabs. Now, after all this time, Gaza gets to have a say. They want to live as humans. They have the right to live free, to travel, to study. All the West’s lies and double standards became very clear even by the Freedom Theater existing in Jenin camp. For me, it’s a big resistance to have a theater, and continue to, in this kind of place.
Interviewer: Can you explain how the Freedom Theater is able to help those suffering from PTSD?
Tobasi: Freedom Theater is much more than just theater. We do photography, documentary, writing workshops, feminism activism, even mental health work. We always think about how we’re not doing theater just for entertainment. We’re not just a theater who makes shows for people to come see on the weekend. We use theater to fight and resist many different situations inside the community: the Palestinian corruption, the conservatives, everything. One of these projects, for example, is our Mental Health work. We use the drama for kids as a form of therapy, and to help find your own way of psychologically healing somehow.
Interviewer: When and where in your life did you find your passion for theater and the arts?
Tobasi: I made a play about my life called “And Here I am.” It’s not just about me, it’s also about the young people in the camp and the stages they go through. It shows that, actually, the young people in Palestine do not have a choice. In a way, the West, Israel, Americans, they made the path of the young Palestinian. You are a martyr, or handicapped, or a prisoner. There are no other choices in Palestine anymore. It’s not your choice to be alive or not. It’s not your choice to be a fighter or not. It’s not your choice to be in Jenin.
In 2002, I was 17 years old, thinking that I wanted to defend my country. I wanted to stand by my people and defend them from the invasion. I was a very naive young man thinking that we’re going to fight, and we’re going to win, and the army will go back. But then, I lived the invasion, and I saw the Israeli machine: The bulldozers, the tanks, the Apaches; I was like, ‘Fuck, this is the war. I lost all my friends in the invasion.’ After the invasion, I went directly to prison and I was lost. I really didn’t know what to feel. I started to see prisoners get depressed, they were sick. So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m coming from a theater and activities background, what can I do?’ I started to make events inside the prison. You know, make songs, make sketches.
One night, I made a sketch from a TV show of a very famous character. One of the guys in the prison had smuggled a very old small phone and he filmed the sketch. We [tried to smuggle] it to our families in the West Bank, so they could watch what we were doing inside the prison. But the soldiers caught the CD. The warden was in shock. ‘Is this in my own prison?’ It was a big night. The soldiers came. They started to evacuate us from the sections. They started looking for video cameras. ‘Who did this? Who did that?’ Luckily I had some costumes, some Keffiyeh, so they didn’t notice it was my face. I was waiting for the mediator to come, and we didn’t know what was going on. They took us 2,000 prisoners outside.
After all this drama the mediator says ‘they’re looking for the guy who’s doing sketches.’ At first I was scared. If they realized it was me, maybe they would throw me in solitary. But the next moment I was thinking ‘Wow. So all this drama, all this action, is because of the little sketch?’
I remember that I was leaning on the wire mesh remembering my old friends. And I said to myself, ‘Yes. But I think the point is not to die. The point is to stay as long as you can, and do something. You tell the story.’ And then that moment I felt victory. I felt victory and I wanted to feel it again. So I said if I get out of prison, I want to become a professional actor. When I left the prison, the invasions were still happening in the camp. And my friends came to me, but I told them, I want to do theater. Then I studied in Norway, and now I work as the artistic director of the Freedom Theatre.
Interviewer: Living in Jenin, how did you come to be able to study in Norway and what was that experience like?
Tobasi: To be honest, my dream was to travel. My dream was to go around the world and tell people about the diversity of the Palestinian problem, about Palestinian resistance, fight, and struggle. We can’t get visas to travel in Europe or elsewhere — even for some Arab countries. I grew up and I learned that we are not allowed and we are not welcome to travel. Sometimes we are not even allowed to travel between our cities. So my first focus was ‘How can I move?’
It was shocking to see this world and people’s lives, their daily life, and how they plan their time for one, two, or three years in advance. In Palestine, you can’t even plan the next second. Artists in Europe were planning five year projects. They plan their vacations. You sleep without invasion. You sleep without bombing, without army storming.
When I got back to Jenin I said ‘Okay, how can I go back now?’ From Jenin, I can’t travel. I cannot do anything. I can’t study. So how can I go back? Then I decided to go to Norway. But you know, I’m a Palestinian, I cannot get a Visa to study in Norway too easily. The best solution was to ask for asylum in Oslo as a political prisoner. I applied for asylum and at the same time I auditioned and entered the Norwegian Theatre School, The Nordic Black Theatre, in Oslo. After three years, I got political asylum and a Norwegian passport. That was the beginning and now I can travel, I can be an actor, I can perform my plays and take them around the world.
But I’m not yet allowed to enter America. I’m still a terrorist to them.
Interviewer: What has been the reaction in these other countries to the Palestinian stories that you’re telling?
Tobasi: Now it’s like the trend is Palestine now. After the seventh of October, I was in France on a tour and it’s crazy how this play [“And Here I Am”] and this situation match. The audience was so emotional. People are crying in the middle of the play, they’re laughing in the middle of the play, thinking ‘How do young people have this kind of life?’ And you know, for me, it’s my own story, but when the press wrote it, and I stopped to read about it, I was surprised like ‘Really, is this my story?’ And still, compared to other people in Jenin camp in Palestine, it’s nothing compared to other stories. It’s insane to realize how you live, it’s insane to see all the things you go through. The press was very positive, the audience was very, very positive. We’re still getting more invitations for the play, and that’s good to make people understand the situation, not by convincing them. I’m telling you my own story, my personal story. You like it? You don’t? It’s not a big problem, but I’m telling you what happened to me. So there’s no opposition or political opinion about it. This is what happened to me. And if you were in my shoes, what could you do better, or what could you do differently? In a way, we were lucky to present Palestine in this way.
Interviewer: What does it mean when you say the third intifada will be a cultural and artistic one, and what might that look like?
Tobasi: You know, this is not my saying, this is the Freedom Theatre’s in a way. This is Juliano’s legacy. We tried to keep the legacy. We believe that the third intifada will be a cultural, artistic intifada. We want to fight, through theater, through art, through music, through dance and through poetry. We believe that Israeli occupation uses every way possible to occupy us. To fight us. To kill us. It’s my right as a Palestinian to fight in any way I can or I feel. We should not make the resistance through one way, or tool. I believe we should create a culture of resistance.
If you are a mum in your house, or a teacher, you can resist by the way you think. The Freedom Theater, we’re saying the stage is our AK-47. For me, I do not believe in killing, I don’t believe in killing people to make a difference or change. Because when you kill people, you kill them, you finish them, you’re not making any differences. For me, I believe in changing people’s minds and thoughts. For me, the victory is if we can make the Israeli people change, and stand up against the occupation for us and them. I believe that if we win, we should make the Israelis arrive at the point to give up their occupation, and fight against the occupation, and live as free as any other countries. So for us, we believe that through theater and art, we meet the world. We meet people, we take the stories of Palestine out, we make people see the real Palestinians. During the 75 years of the occupation, the propaganda was dehumanizing Palestinians. Not seeing the Palestinian as a human being, seeing us as an animal. With theater we succeed in taking examples of young Palestinians or artists of Palestine outside and making people meet them, see them. And for me, that’s a big resistance. When people in the international community get to see what is a Palestinian exactly, and how they think, what they believe, what they do, how they work, and how they exist in their own country.
Interviewer: Is there anything we have not talked about that you feel is important to include in this conversation?
Tobasi: We Palestinians are not looking forward to just being independent and throwing people in the sea. We just want to be equal. We want to live life. We love life. We Palestinians lived our generation in occupation and war for 75 years. I don’t want to see war anymore. I want my future children, my children in the camp, in Palestine, to grow up normally. I believe each deserves to grow up normally in peace and be a child.
We want people to fight not only for Palestine and Palestinians, we want you to fight for this planet. Fight for humanity. We want to create this planet where everyone is free, equal, and has the same chance. Most importantly to create a big movement where we can fight for each other as artists, as humans and fight the politicians, the corruption, the economy, the business people. We’re against nationalism. We want people to travel and meet each other without looking for colors, or passports, or visas. So fight for a future, fight for a generation that can live in peace.
I lived my life as a refugee in war and I wish for no other human beings to live in the same situation I live. I’m happy believing in what I’m doing and I’m fighting for others. My life is not for me. My life is for other people, for a generation to come and the children of the camp.
We’re asking people to not look for nationality, or colors. Look for people, be happy, safe, live in peace and grow normally. We can work out how to take down the gun factories, how we can work out to destroy all these military machines in this world. We can fight through theater. You can hate me with poetry. You can talk against me through theater, through a movie, and I will make a movie against you. That’s the way for me. Even if we’re going to have a fight, but not killing, not killing and taking people’s lives. So yes, let’s fight for the future.
