If there was one thing Egyptian journalist Amal Sorour was adamant about, it was that her baby son Islam, born to a Palestinian father, would be a legal member of the territory. She just never imagined how sensitive the topic would be when she began her fight for his Palestinian citizenship, leading her to Israel and creating a minor furor among her peers.

A journalist for the state-run daily Al-Ahram newspaper and wife to Palestinian Maged Mahmoud Selim, when Sorour gave birth to her son Islam a year and a half ago, she says it was important to her that her Palestinian-Egyptian son would have legal proof of his ties to Palestine.

“It’s his land, where his father came from,” says Sorour. She believes that since Palestine is the land of her child’s ancestors, he should be recognized as a part of it and have access to his country, “or else he will be considered a refugee [there].”

While Palestine is not recognized as a state, a birth certificate or koshan can be acquired from the Palestinian Authority’s Interior Ministry to prove Palestinian heritage, which passes from father to son.

The journey towards getting Islam’s koshan turned into a much bigger challenge than Sorour had imagined. She freelanced a series of articles, titled “Moshahadat A’eda Min Al-Watan Al-Gareeh” (Scenes from the Wounded Country), about the physical and administrative experience of life in the territories, for the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

That sparked a war of words from readers and her fellow journalists: Despite the fact that Sorour’s articles were entirely pro-Palestinian, she came under intense criticism for making the journey to Israel and the West Bank in the first place. Some journalists were angry that she had visited the Israeli embassy, cooperated with ‘the enemy’ to get an Israeli visa and then written about it. Scathing editorials called for her to be ousted from the Press Syndicate for being publicly “unfaithful” to Arabs; some went so far as to say that she was seeking to be naturalized as an Israeli.

Mohamed Allouba Sorour’s souvenirs and pictures from Palestine are proudly displayed in her home.

Sorour vehemently denies the accusations, pointing out that the trip was about her son’s right to be officially recognized as a Palestinian. Despite the difficulties, she says, the journey was worth every step.

The first hurdle was going to the Israeli Embassy to get visas for herself and her son. “Going to this embassy — Rabena ma yektebha ala hadd [I pray that nobody has to do that].” Sorour says that she felt terrible going to “an enemy” like Israel to obtain the visa to visit the West Bank.

Sorour claims that in the embassy she was treated roughly, with multiple searches of herself and her bags, and the Egyptian workers questioned her over and over about the purpose of her visit. Fearing she would be denied a visa if she mentioned her wish to establish Islam’s Palestinian nationality, she told the embassy she was taking her son to visit relatives. Since Sorour was planning to write articles on the trip, she gave that as her main reason for traveling.

The journalist says that her announcement that she would be reporting on her trip to the West Bank was well received by the embassy. Though she was freelancing the stories and not funded by Al-Ahram, the official told Sorour that it was “no problem who you are working for, what matters is that it is Egyptian journalism.”

When she received her visa more than two weeks later, Sorour was dismayed to find it allowed her to visit only Israel, not the Occupied Territories as she had hoped.

“I was extremely angry. It was very unfair for me as a journalist to [be allowed to see] the Israeli side but not the Palestinian,” she explains. “Moreover, I would not be able to go and get the koshan for my son, which was basically my main purpose behind this trip. But my husband told me not to worry at all, that we would enter Palestine.”

Even though she had the restricted visa, Sorour was able to play upon her journalist’s credentials to enter the West Bank with her husband and son. They first made it to Areeha (also known as Jericho), where Sorour recalls, “I was heartbroken and hurt to see our Palestine in Israeli hands, seeing an Israeli flag on each tree and them building there, as if they are insistent on proving to themselves and to the world that these are Israeli trees and buildings.”

Moving south to the town of Al-Thahereya, near Hebron, Sorour says she was treated like a VIP by the Israeli soldiers. Her husband and son, being Palestinian, had to stand for hours in the sun to have Selim’s identity papers checked. The family experienced other hassles caused by Selim’s status as a Palestinian: Sorour says it took about five hours for them to get from Areeha to Al-Thahereya and then to the nearby village of Al-Khalil, where her husband’s family lives. They could have taken a direct route that takes only two hours, but Israeli soldiers wouldn’t permit it.

“We reached Al-Thahereya and my in-laws house, and the first couple of days they were celebrating our arrival with grandchild number 51.” Sorour says. “Don’t be surprised at that number. The Palestinians believe in continuously giving birth in order not to become extinct, because they are always getting killed.”

Life in her husband’s homeland was significantly different to how Sorour had imagined it. Having followed Palestinian news in the media, she had envisioned a people living amid endless gunfire, miserable living conditions and women constantly wailing for their dead children. She had become convinced that life in the Occupied Territories was all war, and living there would be a sort of suicide.

Instead, she found a vibrant culture and active society. “There is another face to Palestine. They are living their lives,” Sorour says. “They are living in beautiful houses, with beautiful Palestinian decorations. They usually prepare mansef [an expensive meal of rice and sheep served at parties], and invite hundreds of people to come, eat and chat. It is a life and they insist on living it.”

The journalist was struck by the differences between her husband’s homeland and her own. “Kids here in Egypt, for example, when playing, they say to each other: ‘Are you Ahlawy or Zamalkawy [fans of the football teams Al-Ahly or Zamalek]?’ But the kids there play it differently, they say: ‘Are you Fathawy or Hamasawy [a supporter of Fatah or Hamas, the two main political organizations in Palestine]?’”

Sorour expected to see more violence between the factions. Instead, she says, “the first real war scene I saw was when my mother-in-law called me one night to go up to the roof, where I could see the Israeli soldiers fighting the children throwing stones.

On their second day in the West Bank, the family headed to the Palestinian Interior Ministry’s office in Al-Dura to apply for Islam’s certificate of identity. “We should have taken the koshan in 15 days, but it was delayed and we received it in 21 days. But it was a huge victory.”

Maged’s family held massive celebrations for Islam’s koshan. They were especially proud of Sorour, the Egyptian mother who had such patriotism for her husband’s homeland that she traveled all that way to ensure her son would be officially Palestinian, like his cousins.

Drawing on her copious notes recording every detail she witnessed on her journey, Sorour’s series in Al-Masry Al-Youm described life in the West Bank and shared her views of the situation in the Occupied Territories. Readers’ reactions were mixed: Some thanked her for her work but others accused her of being unfaithful to Arabs because she dealt with the Israeli Embassy and took an Israeli visa for her trip.

“There were rumors that journalist Gamal Abdel Rehim [a member of the Press Syndicate’s Council and writer for Al-Gomhuria] wanted to expel me from the Press Syndicate, but he called me and told me that this never happened,” Sorour explains. “Others wanted to expel [Syndicate chief] Makram Mohammad Ahmed from the syndicate because he did not punish me. [] But I believe that I was not mistaken, and I have done a very good job by providing my son with the Palestinian nationality of his father.”

Beyond the issues of her son’s nationality, Sorour says that her trip opened her eyes to the lives of Palestinians, and she is planning to write a book about her journey to raise awareness. Her opinion is that the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank is definitely deteriorating, and the Israeli occupation is becoming harsher. Nevertheless, she believes that a Palestinian state will emerge, though it will take time and hard work.

“We will not witness this victory, [but] maybe our grandchildren will. The Palestinians now fight for the upcoming generations,” she says. “I love the proverb that my husband Maged tells me: ‘Zarao fa akalna, wa nazraa fa yakolo [they planted so we ate, and we plant so you will eat].’” et